The third chord: D. Three grips, ten songs

Two grips carry more songs than it sounds like, but sooner or later you hit a wall. The song leaves home for the second chord, comes back, and then halfway through the verse it turns off somewhere else. That third stop is usually D.

With it the first set is complete. Three open grips, no barre anywhere, and in come the carols, the campfire songs and half a shelf of children's tunes that on two chords simply have nowhere to go.

The D grip is a triangle on the three thin strings

The index (1) goes on the third string, second fret. The middle (2) on the first string, also the second fret. The ring finger (3) reaches furthest: the second string, third fret. The fourth string rings open, and the sixth and fifth are not played at all.

The triangle is a hint for the hand, because the fingers do not sit in a row: two are lower and one is pushed forward. In practice that means one thing. The palm has to turn slightly so the ring finger can reach, and that turn is the whole novelty of this grip.

The crosses matter more than usual here. In D the bass has to be on the fourth string, so the strum starts there and not on the thickest one. Playing all six strings on a D is, in Laughton's words, an absolute no, and it is the only place in these lessons where a book raises its voice.

The test is the same as always: play the four sounding strings one at a time, from the fourth downwards. The commonest mistake in this grip is one and it catches everybody. The ring finger goes flat and dampens the first string underneath it. The symptom is a chord that sounds dull and thin at the same time. The fix: stand higher on the fingertip instead of pressing harder.

The C to D change likes to fall apart

The exercise in the app puts it plainly: “Shape and bass string change at the same time, which is why this one likes to fall apart”. That is not an overstatement. In C the lowest string played is the fifth, in D the fourth, and not a single finger stays where it was.

With nothing to hold on to, you are left with the rule from lesson two: the bass finger first. In D the index lands first, on the third string, because it is the one nearest the bass, and the rest of the triangle arrives on the way. Hand close to the strings, one movement up and down, not three.

The G to D change has one handhold

what	C	G	D
lowest string played	fifth	sixth	fourth
index (1)	2nd string, 1st fret	5th string, 2nd fret	3rd string, 2nd fret
middle (2)	4th string, 2nd fret	6th string, 3rd fret	1st string, 2nd fret
ring (3)	5th string, 3rd fret	1st string, 3rd fret	2nd string, 3rd fret

The last row of the table is more interesting than all the rest. In all three grips the ring finger stands on the third fret and only changes string: fifth in C, first in G, second in D. That is not a common finger in the textbook sense, because the finger does lift, but it gives the hand a landmark it can find its way back to.

To be straight about it: Chord Changes has no G and D pair yet, so today you practise C and D, and G joins in inside the song. That is a gap in the tool, not a teaching decision.

Home, tension, return

G, C and D did not land in one lesson by accident. In a song played in G one of them is home and the other two pull back towards it with different strength. G is home: it starts there and it ends there. C moves away calmly. D pulls hardest, and you can hear that it has to come back.

None of that needs a single name. Play G four times, then D four times, and stop on the D. Something inside will ask for the G. That something is the only reason three chords are enough for so many songs: most folk, country and blues stands on exactly this trio.

The names of those three roles, and the reason these particular chords hold together, have a text of their own: The key: what “the song is in G” actually means. Playing does not need it.

What the third grip opens

The carols show it best. I Saw Three Ships stands on two chords, Tryumfy Króla Niebieskiego already on three, and the whole difficulty step between them sits in that one chord. The same goes for campfire and children's songs: the second and fourth lines of the verse finally get somewhere to go.

There is also a saving that is not obvious yet. The same three shapes, moved up by a capo, play songs from completely different keys. That is the subject of the next lesson, the one about the F chord, and the shortest way around the only grip in this course that genuinely hurts.

What confused me

For a week I played D too low. I strummed from the sixth string, out of habit after C and G, and wondered why the chord sounded muddy and would not agree with the melody. It had nothing to do with the fretting hand or the cleanliness of the grip. I was simply playing two strings that are not in that chord.

The second one: I assumed that after two good changes between C and G the third would arrive by itself. It did not. Every pair of grips is a separate exercise, because the hand learns the route, not the shapes. I counted C and D from zero and that was faster than pretending I already knew it.