On the Subject of Broken Guitar Chords
You hum it, I’ll play it. On a guitar with a broken string!
| C | C, E, G |
|---|---|
| Cm | C, E♭, G |
| C6 | C, E, G, A |
| C7 | C, E, G, B♭ |
| C9 | C, D, E, B♭ |
| Cadd9 | C, D, E, G |
| Cm6 | C, E♭, G, A |
| Cm7 | C, E♭, G, B♭ |
| Cmaj7 | C, E, G, B |
| Cdim | C, E♭, G♭ |
| Cdim7 | C, E♭, G♭, A |
| C+ | C, E, G♯ |
| Csus | C, F, G |
- The module consists of a guitar fretboard, a display and a Play button.
- Press a fret to select it. Press it again to deselect it. Press a button just above the fretboard to mute or unmute a string. Press the Play button to submit the chord.
- To defuse the module, enter any finger positions that result in the chord shown in the display.
- All notes belonging to the chord must be played on at least one string, regardless of octave.
- No notes that are not part of the chord may be played on any string.
- No string can have more than one fret selected.
- A muted string can’t have any frets selected.
- One of the guitar strings is broken and cannot be used.
- The semitones in an octave are: C, C♯/D♭, D, D♯/E♭, E, F, F♯/G♭, G, G♯/A♭, A, A♯/B♭, B. After B, the list wraps around back to C. “Transposing up” a number of semitones means moving forward in this list that many steps.
- A chord consists of a root note from the above list and a chord quality from the table on the right. The table shows the chords with C as their root note. Transpose the chords by a consistent number of semitones to obtain the chord demanded by the module.
- The strings are, from left to right: E, A, D, G, B, E. Selecting a fret on a string transposes that string’s note up the relevant number of semitones.