if you know the basic notes in a given chord, you have some idea of scales. Look at a chord as a group of notes that work well together, whether played separatly or as a group. So, yeah, I guess they are important in that sense. Look more into scales though. Chords are made up of a group of notes in a scale. If you know your scales, you'll knkow what notes will fit together as a chord rather than a trainwreck. By delays, I'm assuming that you're recording one track while listening to another? Yes, there is a way to get rid of that delay. Its called latency. Get a sound card that is intended for recording. Also, you want it to support ASIO (audio streaming in/out) Lots of good ones out there.