Drop 2 Chords on Guitar
What are Drop2 chords?
In a Drop2 chord, we take the second highest note (from the top) and ‘drop’ it to the bottom.For example, a CMaj7 chord (C, E, G, B) becomes G, C, E, B. Drop2 chords are important for guitarists as they are relatively easy to play.
Drop 2 Intervals and Notes (C Maj7 Chord)
How do I use Drop2 chords?
Here, we’re talking about what feels like a million chords. But always remember; they’re not always new chords. For example, Major7 and Dominant7 chords are very similar. This means if you know all 4 Maj7 chords by heart, you just need to find the seventh and move it down by a semitone. And there you have a Dominant7 chord. And you can do that with all Drop2 chords.
You can also use this ‘variation’ of tones in, for example, barre chords. However, it’s much harder to get a decent chord because sometimes you have to move 3 notes in barre chords, as you double and triple notes.
In Drop2 voicings, each note only appears once and is therefore much easier to adapt to other chords.
I always suggest taking any standard from a Real Book and playing the Drop2 chords instead of the common chords.
Simple songs would be, for example:
And so on
It’s important that you don’t just learn these songs on one string set (e.g., AEDG strings) but that you can play the Drop2 on all possible strings.
