Old dog new chords

[Whalebot]

Here's the problem. I'm stuck in my ways. I've been playing three chords and a capo (old folkie saying) for about 15 years now. Not too shabby, I can pull of some pretty slick stuff just picking around in the Cash register, but I'm having a bitch of a time getting my head and hands around some new progressions and timing/stumming patterns. (Don't get me started about scales, I only know one halfway through.) Christmas always gets me because I really want to play some music for the holidays but it just comes off sounding crappy. Y'know that slide at the beginning of 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"? I'd be happy if I could pick that up and maybe a little Rudolph. Whalebot....out!

[babablowfish]

A chord variation that works in a lot of songs and really sounds nice is to play an open G chord with your pinky on the G on the high E string and add your ring finger on the D on the B string. Then while leaving the pinky and ring finger where they are, move the first finger and middle finger to the next string each - the first finger (pointer) is now on the D string and the niddle finger is now on the A string for a modified C chord. This combo is used in a whole slew of songs including Catch the Wind, Tiny Dancer, Levon, Darlin Be Home Soon, Ring of Fire, etc. etc.

 

Of course, if this is too basic then sorry for wasting your time.

[Whalebot]

 

A chord variation that works in a lot of songs and really sounds nice is to play an open G chord with your pinky on the G on the high E string and add your ring finger on the D on the B string. Then while leaving the pinky and ring finger where they are, move the first finger and middle finger to the next string each - the first finger (pointer) is now on the D string and the niddle finger is now on the A string for a modified C chord. This combo is used in a whole slew of songs including Catch the Wind, Tiny Dancer, Levon, Darlin Be Home Soon, Ring of Fire, etc. etc. Of course, if this is too basic then sorry for wasting your time.

 

 

Not a waste at all Baba, I love that little 'walk' through the chords in the open position, those were some of my first ones and they are tried and true.Yep, done. I'm a pro with the cash register, it's anything beyond say the fifth fret that requires scale work, etc. And power chords, Barres are just fine, I'm cool with those. Must just be the winter blues...hey! Maybe I'll just play some Christmas blues songs!

[Samilyn]

Definitely not a waste, BBBF. I'm pretty stale (lazy?) in my own playing and often need to be reminded of these nice variations.

 

I'm also a firm believer in the KISS rule: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

 

So, Thanks!

[garthman]

Baba, that chord of yours is Em7+5 (can also be played with the 1st string open 032030) and if you lift your little finger off the B string (so you are playing 032003) it becomes Cmaj7. Very useful combinations for passing chords / notes.

 

Whalebot, another good trick is to use 6ths, 7ths, sus2, sus4 versions of the three chords you are playing - it can be very effective. For example, the progression G (32003), G6 (322003), G7 (323003) sounds great, as does D (x00323), Dsus2 (x00320), Dsus4 (x00324) or A (x002220), Asus2 (x002200), Asus4 (x00223).

 

Very simple technique but really adds to a three chord song.

[totamus]

I stayed behind the 5th fret (in fact mostly the third fret) for years. But I thought my playing was "stale" and wanted more interest. The things you learned in the "cash register" are your starting point. Take the time to figure out how to do the same things up the neck. This takes a little mental work, because you lose all of the nice "open" strings that you rely on in "cash register".

 

For example, if you use the famous "G run", it is easy to do the same run in C, but not as easy in other positions. Take the time to slowly go through your cash register repertoire in various keys. You will start finding that your basic chord positions (E, D, A, C) all have a movable formation that can be played anywhere on the neck. You will also find that you are better at some positions than others. Once you start this journey, you open up a whole new level of playing guitar. Learning the movable positions is a fun discovery of the fretboard.

 

Once you get accustomed to playing with your new skills you can decide on the fly if you want to play E in your normal position, or as a d chord at the 4th fret, or a c chord at the 5th fret, or an a chord at the 7th fret. These "inversions" allow you to add more color to your musical palette.

 

Amaze your friends, impress your family, play up the neck!

 

Practice, practice, practice

[Queequeg]

that's good, Whale. Sounds like you are ready for some musical growth.

How about getting a DVD from Homespun as a holiday gift to yourself?

[Samilyn]

I'm glad you started this thread, Whale. It's the nudge I've been needing to start growing again.

[Stackabones]

... and if you lift your little finger off the B string (so you are playing 032003) it becomes Cmaj7.

 

aka Cmaj7/E

 

*

 

I l:love:ve chord synonyms. My fav is the x2323x which could be G9 (no root), Bm7b5 (root on fifth string), or Dm6 (root on second string).

 

And if you transfer it to xx2323 you get C7b9 (no root), Edim7--and, of course, with dim7 chords you get four-chords-in-one: so Edim7, Gdim7, Bbdim7, Dbdim7.

 

All that and you don't have to go past the third fret!

[drnihili]

I'm at a similar spot, but about 14 years earlier. I find myself just playing the same stuff over and over and not really getting anywhere.

 

I've resolved to finish working my way through the book I'm currently on. I've been passing over songs that were unfamiliar or picking patterns that I understood conceptually but hadn't bothered practicing sufficiently. Needless to say, I'm stuck only a little ways in.

 

In your shoes, I'd recommend picking a specific tune and committing to working on it. Most of my breakthroughs have come when I was trying to get a specific piece to come out right and worked on it long enough to do so. I find I have little patience for practicing mere technique.

[DeepEnd]

That's one of the things I love about playing in the "praise band" at church. We play from sheet music and I occasionally have to figure out how to play an unfamiliar chord like a Gadd9 (what they referred to as a G2):

 

3x0201

 

or, more recently, an Am11:

 

555555 (don't laugh, it sounds better than I expected and it was the simplest way to play it)

 

A few years ago, I finally found a comfortable way to play a Gmaj7:

 

3x0002

 

For years, I'd been contorting my wrist thinking you had to play it like this:

 

320002

 

Sure, there's stuff that just comes naturally when you're playing in C, for example (which is why my latest song, "Freckles," is played in C with the capo at the 2nd fret) but we all need to get out of our various ruts from time to time. Good luck.

[guitarist21]

Theory Cop is here!!

 

A few years ago, I finally found a comfortable way to play a Gmaj7: 3x0002 For years, I'd been contorting my wrist thinking you had to play it like this: 320002

 

Theory cop thinks that sometimes doubling the third (in this case the B natural) can weaken a voicing. Bet the Gmaj7 which omits the lowest B sounds better and is easier to play!

 

Ellen

[garthman]

Theory Cop is here!! Theory cop thinks that Stack is right, especially for the context Garth is talking about. For clarification, you rarely see a minor chord with an augmented fifth, because an augmented fifth is the enharmonic equivalent of a minor sixth. Which would NOT be written as "min+5", because then it isn't a chord tone.

 

Garth disagrees with Theory Cop on this occasion. Augmented 5th chords are used prolifically, especially in jazz music, and are generally written as Em7+5.

 

C(add9)/E is, of course, synonimous as Stack says - it could also be called D7sus2sus4/E, D9sus4/E, etc, etc.

[Greymuzzle]

Hurrah! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

[garthman]

Hurrah! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

 

Oh dear me, no! I never fight with with gentlewomen, especially one as nice and gentle as Ellen.

[Greymuzzle]

Ummmmm, dunno 'bout that Garthman, if you start to argue Jazz convention as Music Theory with the MT Police I reckon you could wind up with a fight whether you want one or not!

 

Yay! Git him Ellen!

 

FIGHT!FIGHT!FIGHT!

[Terry Allan Hall]

Theory Cop is here!! Theory cop thinks that Stack is right, especially for the context Garth is talking about. For clarification, you rarely see a minor chord with an augmented fifth, because an augmented fifth is the enharmonic equivalent of a minor sixth. Which would NOT be written as "min+5", because then it isn't a chord tone. G2 = non existant. Way too much church music has "x2" chords in it. Theory Cop is thinking of touring churches around the country with a red pen and crossing out all the "x2" chords. Theory cop thinks that sometimes doubling the third (in this case the B natural) can weaken a voicing. Bet the Gmaj7 which omits the lowest B sounds better and is easier to play! Ellen

 

Curses, Theory Cop...they'd've gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those darned kids and that dog!...

 

[Whalebot]

Too-many-chord-names!!!! I'm getting a headache, it looks like my Freshman college calculus final!

[kwakatak]

I know how you feel about using the same old chords, but I've been trying to adopt a different approach by focusing on melodies. The chords seem to fall in place if I focus on a low melody by building on the bass notes. OTOH sometimes I can find a chord (or a -sus or -add variant) off the high melody. The resulting chords are sometimes simplistic but their role is really to back up the melody.

 

I know that's a pretty crappy explanation, but to get an idea of what I'm talking about listen for the melody over these songs:

 

"Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles:

It's basically a harmony superimposed over a 1st-position D chord. In this case I think of it as a "middle melody" because its notes occur on the middle strings.

 

"Here Comes The Sun", also by the Beatles

Again, a D chord but at capo VII with a "high melody" - upper strings, in effect changing the D chord to Dsus2 and Dsus4 in parts.

 

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" from Led Zeppelin I

The whole song is basically a descending melody based on chords that start from Am down to E (or E7). The only real changes to the song (beside a couple of transitional chord progressions) are variations of the high melody and a general building of dynamics (the song gets louder as you go.)

 

"Stairway to Heaven" from Led Zeppelin IV

The opening riff is basically just a descending melody on the 4th string and the chords are built upon that. The later verses are also kind of like that too, but on the lower strings.

 

I know, it's not really an epiphany or anything, but that's what I focus on when I noodle around with different chord progressions. Sometimes I can build melodies on top of those chord progressions. Other times I start with the melody and work backwards, but more rarely since I'm also stuck on chords as the basic building blocks of song.

[bgator]

You might try something like this.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Master-Choose-Guitar-Chords/dp/0879307668/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196786083&sr=1-20

 

I like this book, because it is not just a dense catalog of chords. I personally don't find a book that's 100 pages of chords very useful. Where do you start, and how do you use them all?

 

Anyway, this book starts basic, but don't worry, it gets advanced. It goes through a bunch of interesting voicing of open position chords, which sounds like what you're looking for. In addition to lots of new chords, it also has a bunch of different chord progressions so that you can see how to use the chords that you've just learned. There's also a backing CD.

 

Of course, there are also lost of movable chords to help you move farther up the neck without a capo.

[guitarist21]

Garth disagrees with Theory Cop on this occasion. Augmented 5th chords are used prolifically, especially in jazz music, and are generally written as Em7+5.

 

Theory cop doesn't plan on doing any of this "Hurrah! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT" stuff Greymuzzle seems to endorse. However, Theory Cop does wish to clarify what she means.

 

Augmented chords are very common in jazz, you are correct. However, you can't really have an "augmented 5th" on a minor chord because the distance between the 5th scale tone and the 6th scale tone in a natural minor scale is a half step. So augmenting the 5th of a minor scale turns the fifth into the sixth.

 

Basically, it is similar to the music joke "I tune my guitar in augmented 3rds." The idea behind it is that when you raise the 3rd of a major scale (which it is assumed to be unless otherwise noted) one half step, it becomes the 4th. (ex. in the key of D, you augment the F#, and it becomes G, enharmonically)

 

Regardless, Theory Cop should point out that there is no real standard for notating chords (as is noted by the fact that the same song's chords from two different sources can be written quite differently), but rather just certain musical rules that carry over in to most schools of thought.

 

Ellen

[babablowfish]

Theory cop doesn't plan on doing any of this "Hurrah! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT" stuff Greymuzzle seems to endorse. However, Theory Cop does wish to clarify what she means. Augmented chords are very common in jazz, you are correct. However, you can't really have an "augmented 5th" on a minor chord because the distance between the 5th scale tone and the 6th scale tone in a natural minor scale is a half step. So augmenting the 5th of a minor scale turns the fifth into the sixth. Basically, it is similar to the music joke "I tune my guitar in augmented 3rds." The idea behind it is that when you raise the 3rd of a major scale (which it is assumed to be unless otherwise noted) one half step, it becomes the 4th. (ex. in the key of D, you augment the F#, and it becomes G, enharmonically) Regardless, Theory Cop should point out that there is no real standard for notating chords (as is noted by the fact that the same song's chords from two different sources can be written quite differently), but rather just certain musical rules that carry over in to most schools of thought. Ellen

 

I'll take your word for it.

[streetknight]

 

I stayed behind the 5th fret (in fact mostly the third fret) for years. But I thought my playing was "stale" and wanted more interest. The things you learned in the "cash register" are your starting point. Take the time to figure out how to do the same things up the neck. This takes a little mental work, because you lose all of the nice "open" strings that you rely on in "cash register". For example, if you use the famous "G run", it is easy to do the same run in C, but not as easy in other positions. Take the time to slowly go through your cash register repertoire in various keys. You will start finding that your basic chord positions (E, D, A, C) all have a movable formation that can be played anywhere on the neck. You will also find that you are better at some positions than others. Once you start this journey, you open up a whole new level of playing guitar. Learning the movable positions is a fun discovery of the fretboard. Once you get accustomed to playing with your new skills you can decide on the fly if you want to play E in your normal position, or as a d chord at the 4th fret, or a c chord at the 5th fret, or an a chord at the 7th fret. These "inversions" allow you to add more color to your musical palette. Amaze your friends, impress your family, play up the neck! Practice, practice, practice

 

 

Thanks a lot for that. Do you know of a resource where I can find these "inversions"? I have a ? also for you.

 

I find myself when I'm warming up if I play a standard C major chord I slide the shape up a whole step and I love that chord. I don't know what it is though. This is what I need to figure out with the "inversions"

 

Thanks again.

[Davepch]

 

or, more recently, an Am11: 555555 (don't laugh, it sounds better than I expected and it was the simplest way to play it) .

 

 

my favourite Am11 shape is 5x5530, beautiful chord:thu:

[JasmineTea]

I find myself when I'm warming up if I play a standard C major chord I slide the shape up a whole step and I love that chord. I don't know what it is though. This is what I need to figure out with the "inversions"

That's not what is meant by "inversion". I don't know the name of the chord, probly D+2+4.