Learning to name the tones of any chord is a valuable and very useful skill. And although some shortcuts exist it is still a time consuming process. For our uses we will opt for an easier way. First make a G chord and then simply name the tones. They will be G - B - D.

Next, find all of the G's, B's and D's on each of the strings (They are not shown past fret 12 since it repeats the 1st half of the fretboard). Here they are color coded. The G notes are red, the B notes are blue and the D notes are green. To configure a G chord, assemble at least one of each tone into a chord shape.

Our objective with this lesson is to use these ideas over a simple chord progression containing the Tonic, sub-dominant and dominant chords. So we repeat the process for the C and D chords, again they are color-coded. Our melodic pattern will utilize the chord shapes descending in order from the G chord at frets 10 and 12. It will be one measure each of the chords G - C - G - D. To make it a little more jazzy, dominant chords are used for the G and D chords in the rhythm.

The rhythm part of this example draws from the same pool of information, except the emphasis is on the bass strings and the melody is on the treble strings. As your work out both parts of the tabbed example below try to see the above shapes as they are employed through the melody line. To hear this example click here.