Cm - Open Position and Movable Forms

Movable Chord Forms

Movable chord forms are chords containing no open strings. These chords can be transposed to different keys by moving each note of the chord the same number of frets up and down the neck.

Movable form chords allow you to play in any key and transpose chords, progressions, and songs to any key. From basic movable form chords, more advanced chords can be created.

The functional range of a movable chord depends on the ukulele's size (soprano, concert, or tenor), the number of frets to the body (10, 12, 14, etc.) and whether you have a cut-away for access to higher frets. Not all chords can be transposed a complete octave (12 frets).

Movable form chords can be used along with open-position chords. As you learn more movable form chords, you'll have a variety of alternate voicings for any given chord.

Movable form chords can be transposed up and down the fingerboard using the root of the chord and a transposition chart, or through knowledge of the names of the notes on the fingerboard.

Chord Fingering

Chord fingering is dependent on several factors. The chord you're currently on, the previous chord, the next chord, your hand, and fingers. All chord fingerings shown are recommended fingerings and not mandatory. Most chords have alternate fingerings dependent on the context. The same chord might even be fingered one way in one part of a song or progression and an alternate fingering in another part.

Remembering Chords Relative to Known Chords

A chord can be remembered or memorized relative to chords that you might already know.

Using the numeric chord formula for a major chord (1 3 5) and the formula for a minor chord (1 b3 5) you notice that only the third is different. For A major it is a C# for the third and for Am it is a C natural.

Open Position Chord

Movable Form Chord

Open Position Chord

Movable Form Chord

Derived Chords

sus or suspended Chords

A sus chord implies the suspension of the third of a major, minor or seventh chord. The most common, historical, and traditional use of this suspension involves raising the third of a major or seventh chord to the fourth for a sus4, or 7sus4. In some contemporary music, the suspension can also be accomplished by lowering the third of a major or minor chord to a second for a sus2 chord.

A sus or suspension displaces the third of a chord. An Am sus4 or Am sus2 would be the same as the sus4 and sus2 chords in lesson one's A major chord.

Because a suspended chord lacks a third, these chords feel unresolved and often “resolve” back to a standard major or minor chord.

The term is borrowed from the contrapuntal technique of suspension, where a note from a previous chord is carried over to the next chord—suspended into the next harmony, and then resolved down to the third or tonic, suspending a note from the previous chord. However, in modern usage, the term concerns only the notes played at a given time; in a suspended chord, the added tone does not necessarily resolve and is not necessarily prepared (i.e., held over) from the prior chord. A common suspension is a fourth above the root resolving to the third of the chord. Sevenths, ninths, and seconds are also common suspensions.

Technically a sus2 is not really a chord as in traditional harmony a sus or suspension only referred to the third of the chords. So, really a sus2 is most likely a power 5 without a third and with an added 2. And, another chord that, at its foundation is not a chord but a DYAD.

As tonality expanded, classical composers began embracing less functional harmony structured in fourths and fifths. In popular music, it also became commonplace to leave suspensions in place without resolving them.

In Jazz

A common suspended chord in jazz combines the supertonic and dominant chords into one sonority: V9sus4 . Basically the II V of a II V I is combined. An example in C: the Dm7 G7 is combined as Dm7/G .

add2/add9 Chords

Technically the add 2 and add 9 are different chords.

Both the 2 and the 9 are the same letters but in different octaves of the scale. On ukulele, for all practical purposes, you can treat both the add2 and add9 chords as the same. Depending on whether you are using a low “G” or high “G”, C tuning the added ninth might be a second. Whether you call it an add9 or add2 depends on whether the added note is in the same octave as the root of the chord.

Related to a C Major Scale a D is both a 2nd and a 9th (shown to the right). All depends on where the root is.