Learning to play all different styles of guitar requires that the player know all different types of chords. Often times in rock and blues guitar, the terms add2, add4, add9 and add11 are used to describe extended chords. These are confusing to beginning guitarists, but are actually simple concepts to master. To understand the add2,4,9 and 11 chords, all you need to know is how to play the major or minor chord you're altering and a bit of basic music theory.
To start, I'll give you a quick primer in music and chord theory, so that you understand what we're talking about. If you don't already know, there's a musical alphabet, A B C D E F G, accidentals (sharps and flats), keys or the particular set of notes used to create the major and minor scales at different roots and chords, a particular combination of notes played in unison.
The alphabet is easy, there are seven letters, that correspond to the seven different pitches that you can play on any instrument. In addition, there are accidentals. These come in the form of sharps and flats, and are a little more complex. Each of the seven letters of the alphabet contain a whole step between them. The exceptions are the notes B & C and E & F, which contain only a half step. Accidentals, then, are movements in half steps. We express these as sharps and flats and they are written alphabetically as such: A# B# C#, etc. We're going to use these sharps and flats to create keys.
Before I can get to keys, let me explain the major scale in relation to sharps and flats. The major scale is a progression of whole and half steps, starting on any note in the musical alphabet. Each scale is played using the exact same series of half and whole steps in the same order. Here's the order of steps in the major scale: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. This moves us from note 1 to note 8. The C major scale is the easiest to understand, so I'll note it here: C D E F G A B C. Remember that we had a natural half step between E & F and B & C, which fits in with our major scale pattern.
Now you're ready for keys. Because we have these set patterns for scales, and because of the existence of these two natural half steps in the musical alphabet, we have to use accidentals to compensate when we want to change the root of our scale, or the note that we'll start on. Knowing where the natural half steps are will determine what sharps and flats need to be used to make the key. Let's take A for example. Here's the A major scale A B C# D E F# G# A. We used the C# instead of C because we needed to create a whole step between B and C, where there is naturally a half. We returned to D natural because C# to D natural is a half step, and was needed for the scale to be correct. We see the same thing happening again between E and F#. This is the other location of the natural half step, but we needed a whole step. We played F# for the scale to be correct, but in this case continued using the accidental sharp on G# because we required a whole step. From F# to G# is a whole step. We returned to A natural because at the end of the major scale sequence, there is a half step, which we accomplish by playing A natural, a half step away from G#.
That may sound complicated, but once you understand what's going on, the patter is really plug and play. You can see that in the key of A major, we always play the notes C F and G sharp. You can take the major scale pattern and use it to figure out the sharps for any key by figuring out the scale starting on the note in which key you intend to play.
You also need to know that each note in the resulting scale is assigned a numerical value. Starting from 1 and going through 8, each note is numbered. This will lead us to chords. Each chord is played using the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the scale. Knowing this, you can begin to see what the add2, add4, add9 and add11 mean. When playing any of these chords, you'll play the 2nd, 4th, 9th, and 11th notes of the scale in addition to the 1st, 3rd and 5th. If you're wondering where the 9th and 11th come from, as I said the scale only contains 8 notes, let me explain.
The 8th note of the scale is called an octave. Remember that there are only 7 notes in the musical alphabet A B C D E F and G. When you play the eighth note of a scale, you're playing the same note as the first, but at a higher pitch. If you were to write the scale out over two octaves, you would have 15 notes. So the 9th and the 11th are actually the same notes as the 2nd and 4th. The reason we notate them as 9th and 11th is because of the unique layout of the guitar, it's very common to play a chord that spans two octaves. To simplify the process of explaining what notes to play in the chord, we've used the notation of the 9th and 11th to represent notes added to a chord that are more than one octave from the root, or 1st note, fretted in the chord.
While there are a lot of things to understand in order to play extended chords, they are not that complex. Taking the time to understand each of the preceding concepts before moving to the next, you'll find that it's easily broken down & you can easily figure what notes to add to your add2, add4, add9 or add11 chords. Good luck & happy playing!
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