Creating chords

All chords in music are derived from formulas which use specific notes from a scale, regardless of the instrument, genre of music or tuning you play, and if you are serious about playing your instrument it shouldn't take you too long to learn these. It's all about patterns.

Lets look at an example.

We want to work out how to play the chord of Dmajor in DADGAD. We need a starting point - Scale of D major!!

How do we create a major chord?
All major chords use the formula 1st, 3rd, 5th notes of the scale.
So, using the scale of D major above we can see that the 1st = D, 3rd = F#, 5th = A
If we play only these notes, whether fretted or open, we have a chord of D major.

Where are these notes on the fretboard?

The first step is to cover the 3rd open string (G) as this note is not in the chord. All other open strings have the potential to be played. The first available note on the 3rd string is 'A' which is on the 2nd fret, so we'll place our first finger there. If you notice we now have all D's and A's and we now need to find an F#. We have 3 to choose from and they are all on the 4th fret, so in effect we have 3 potential chords of D major. Use your 3rd finger to play any of these notes.

Take me to D chords which show all related formula.