Question:

In Mel Bays Chord encyclopedia he shows that instead of 5 major chords their are 6 the sixth one being F. xx3211. am i just not looking right cause mel bay and this site have total differences of opinion.

Also some of his minor chords are different like on the site cm is written x3101x and mel bay has it written xx5543. Gm is written xx5333 in mel bays book

They also have fm as one of the basic minor chords written xx3111 and this site does not list an Fm at all.

What am i missing?

Answer:

Ok, let’s see if we can shed some light on this.

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In Mel Bays Chord encyclopedia he shows that instead of 5 major chords their are 6 the sixth one being F. xx3211.

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This is what he is saying is the 6th major chord:

This is in fact an F chord, but it is clearly not a basic major chord pattern. It is simply a fragment of the E style barre chord:

Take off the bottom two notes and you end up with what the Mey Bay book suggested was the F major chord pattern. Not it’s own pattern.

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also some of his minor chords are different like on the site cm is written x3101x and mel bay has it written xx5543.

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Same thing as above except he’s showing part of an A minor style barre chord. Play these patterns starting on the 3rd fret and what do you get:

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gm is written xx5333 in mel bays book. they also have fm as one of the basic minor chords written xx3111 and this site does not list an fm at all.

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Both from the E minor style barre chord. I won’t bother with pictures at this point, because I think the point has already been made.

There are only 5 basic major and 5 basic minor chord patterns. All other major and minor chord voicings can be derived from those basic patterns. End of story.