Chords on the Guitalele / Requinto

Guitalele and Requinto are tuned identically, and the tuning is equivalent to a guitar with a capo on the 5th fret.

Both instruments are mostly used for playing melody lines, but chords are equally possible.

To produce a chord, you have to press the right strings on the right frets, in such a way that only notes from the chord produce a sound.

Say for example, that you want to make a Dm6 chord. This chord has the notes: D F A B, so you would proceed as follows:

• 1st string is A, but when pressed on the 2nd fret, it produces a B, so we place a finger there;
• 2nd string is E, but when pressed on the 1st fret, it produces an F, so we place a finger there;
• 3rd string is C, but when pressed on the 2nd fret, it produces a D, so we place a finger there;
• 4th string is G, but when pressed on the 2nd fret, it produces an A, so we place a finger there;
• 5th string is D, so we leave it open to produce the main bass;
• 6th string is A, we can omit this string, or use it as an alternative bass.

The following image shows this chord:

Following this logic, you can construct all chords, once you understand the theory behind intervals, and chord formulas.

This is fine when you have plenty of time in your hands, but when you just want to play a song with some friends, grab a copy of the DG Guitalele and Requinto Chords application for Android, which will show you how to make chords quickly, including alternative positions.

We recommend you learn by memory the basic major, minor, and seventh chords. The rest comes with practice as you need them.

After you learn some chords, learn to follow along some basic rhythms such as the waltz, and rock. The requinto is very popular and ideal to play Latin bolero rhythms.

Also learn some basic chord progressions.