Memorizing Guitar Chords

When ever I play guitar at my church, I often have to sight read music. The great thing is I know most chords that are out there. The other guitars are always shocked when I know how to play a C7b9 right off the top of my head. There are something’s that I find work really well at helping you remember chords or how to make people thing you know chords:

1. Play Jazz. This will help you a lot with those obscure chords like a C7b9 or an Eb7#13. Because chords like these are used so much in this type of music you get use to the obscurities which lead me to my next point…
2. Be able to shift positions. I guess most of you realize that an F Chord is the same as an E Chord just a fret up. The thing that many guitarists do not realize is that this works for all chords. If you know how to play a C7b9, you can also play a C#7b9 by moving it up a half step or a B7b9 by moving down a half step. By doing this you only need to learn a two or three chord shapes to play all of the 7b9 chords.
3. Challenge yourself. If all you ever play is G, A and E chords then all you ever are going to be able to do is play those three chords. Now, instead of playing a G chord, play a Gadd9 or even a G6/9 just to color up your patterns. Soon, you will naturally want to play harder chords.

I hope I can help guitar player young and old. If you have any questions, just post them. I am happy to give my advice.

very good superman-guitarrists,jazz player, i think everybody knows that huh?

Thanks for the advice there .. I will try to learn the harder chord positions and look more into jazz guitaring ;)..afterall jazz is one of the hardest form of music to master :P..hehe thanks again..