Sam Fender’s chord progressions are a great example of how simple guitar chords can sound rich, emotional and musical without being technically complicated. He is a master at making his guitar chords sound better through stylistic choices.
What’s interesting is that most of the time he’s not using completely different chords from everyone else. He’s simply taking ordinary chords and finding ways to make them more interesting and inventive.
In this lesson, we’ll look at a five simple ideas you can start using in your own playing.
1. Creative Voicings With Open Strings
The first thing Sam does brilliantly is use alternative chord voicings. A chord isn’t just a shape, it’s a collection of notes.
Once you understand which notes belong to any particular chord, you can start rearranging them, moving them to different strings, doubling certain notes, or leaving open strings ringing against them.
And that’s exactly what Sam does in songs like 17 Going Under.
Instead of reaching for a standard Em chord, he uses voicings that keep open strings ringing. The same thing happens with several of the other chords in the progression like the D, G6 and Cadd9 chords.
The result is that the chords sound thicker, more colourful and far more distinctive than the basic open versions most players would choose.
2. Picking Notes Inside Chords
Another important technique you’ll hear in most of Sam Fender’s playing is that he rarely just strums a chord and leaves it alone.
Instead, he’ll pick individual notes from inside the chord shape. Sometimes it’s a bass note., sometimes it’s a melody note on a higher string. And sometimes it’s several notes picked one after another.
You can hear this clearly in Spit of You, and you’ll notice those open string voicings we just talked about showing up here as well.
This technique creates movement without changing chords. The harmony stays the same, but the listener’s ear is constantly being pulled towards different notes inside that harmony.
That’s a huge reason his rhythm guitar parts feel musical rather than static.
3. Added Notes
Added notes are another huge part of Sam’s sound.. These are notes that don’t normally appear in a standard open chord shape.
A good example would be a the add9 chord. If we’re in C major, the ninth is simply the note D: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Adding that note doesn’t completely change the chord, but it changes the colour of the chord. It creates a more open, emotional and modern sound.
You’ll hear this throughout songs like Arm’s length which features two add9 chords in the chorus. These extra notes that make the chords feel much bigger than they really are.
4. Suspended Chords
Sam also makes heavy use of suspended chords.
A suspended chord replaces the third of the chord with either the second or the fourth degree of the scale.
So instead of C E G for a C Major chord, the third E, is replaced with either a D, for a Csus2 chord, or an F, for a Csus4 chord.
That might sound like a small change, but it has a huge effect. The third is the note that tells us whether a chord is major or minor. Remove it, and suddenly the chord feels unresolved.
That’s why suspended chords create so much tension. They feel like they’re waiting to go somewhere.
You’ll hear Sam use them constantly to create movement and anticipation inside a progression without needing to add extra chords.
Check out Crumbling Empire for a superb example of this.
5. 6th and 7th Chords
The final technique we’ll discuss here is the use of 6th and 7th chords. These are only one note different from the chords most players already know, just a standard triad with the 6th or 7th degree of the scale added.
But that one note can completely change the character of the sound. A standard G chord sounds familiar. A G6 immediately sounds more colourful.
An Em chord sounds strong and stable. An Em7 sounds softer and more reflective. You’ll hear both of these chords in Sam’s song ‘Chin Up’.
These are small adjustments, but they’re incredibly effective.
Putting It All Together
Sam Fender isn’t making his chords sound beautiful by using lots of complicated theory.
He’s taking simple chords and making better musical choices with them. Changing the voicings, picking notes from inside the chords, using suspended chords for tension and using 6th and 7th chords to create more interesting harmonic colours.
You don’t need to learn dozens of new chords to make your playing sound better.
Most guitarists spend years looking for new chord shapes when the real answer is learning how to get more out of the chords they already know. And that’s exactly what Sam Fender does so well.
Want to watch this article as a video with examples for all of the songs? Check out my video here, https://youtu.be/smXbXAGzU34
Struggling with knowing which chords actually go together? Check out this article, https://progressiveguitar.co.uk/how-do-you-know-which-chords-are-in-a-key/
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