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About Max Music
The Guitar Study Newsletter for 4/24/2002
By Darrin Koltow
Hello again! This is Darrin Koltow, webmaster from MaximumMusician.com, bringing you more music making, guitar playing tips. But first, I want to thank you again for signing up for the Guitar Study newsletter at www.MaximumMusician.com. You can unsubscribe at any time using instructions at the end of this email.
And quit keeping all this great info for yourself! Share it with a buddy. Tell him, her or it to sign up for the Guitar Study newsletter at www.MaximumMusician.com
In this issue:
== Barre Chords ==
== Other movable shapes ==
== Online ear trainer ==
== Fun with chord substitutions ==
== The SHAPE ==
+++++++++++++++++++
What is a barre chord? It's a type of movable chord that involves excruciating pain and instant tendonitis when you first try one. No, that's an exaggeration, but it has a glimmer of truth, so be careful.
A barre chord is a type of chord whose pattern stays the same no matter where you play it on the fretboard. These chord shapes are said to be "movable." The opposite of a movable chord shape is an open position chord, where you play one or more strings without any of your fingers on them. Before I dig myself further into this crummy, inadequate explanation of what a wonderful thing a barre chord is, here is an example of one. Remember to set your email reader to 10pt Courier New to see this correctly:
3 ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | 2 | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 4 | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- G major -----------------
That 3 on top is the fret number, and the numbers in the grid are your fingers: 4 is pinky, 3 is ring finger, and so on. Because this is a barre chord, you don't *have* to play it at the 3rd fret -- unless you want to play a G major. You can play it at the 5th fret, which would make this an A major chord. If you put your first finger barre on the 7th fret, you have a B major.
Let's give the other important barre chords that have their roots on the sixth string. (The root is the most stable-sounding note in a chord. It gives the chord its name.)
3 ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 4 | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- G minor ----------------- 3 ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | 2 | | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- G7 -----------------
Here are the main barre chords whose root is on the fifth string:
3 ----------------- |(1)| | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | x | | | | ----------------- C major -----------------
Do you see the (1) here? That's there because that note is optional. If you can get the note to sound, so much the better. If you can't, that's okay, too.
3 ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | 2 | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | x | | | | ----------------- C minor ----------------- 3 ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | 1 | | 3 | | ----------------- | 1 | | | | ----------------- | x | | | | ----------------- C7 -----------------
There are other variations on these basic shapes. But these forms will give you a foundation for other barres you'll learn later in other, less interesting places than MaximumMusician.com.
You might have trouble getting the sounds out of these shapes in the beginning. And your fingers might get sore and tired fast. That's okay. The important things to do are these: stay at it, don't strain yourself, either emotionally or physically, and most important, make it fun. How do you do this?
I'll tell you how *not* to practice the foregoing forms: do not spend loads and loads of time simply playing a G major chord, for instance. That's not music. You know it, your brain knows it, and you're going to bore yourself to death.
Instead, get some sheet music for your favorite tune. Pick any one chord on that sheet music, especially a chord that's in your favorite part of the tune. Play that song as you normally would, with the open position chords you're currently using. But when you get to that one favorite spot, replace the chord you normally play with a barre chord. It could be a major, minor or dominant 7 chord. It doesn't matter.
Learning how to play barres this way is incredibly more effective than practicing the barre in isolation. This is true with *any* musical exercise. All good teachers will tell you to make music when you practice. This generally means playing stuff in the context of a song.
If you have questions about how to make this or other exercises more fun or musical, or if you have questions about barre chords, give me a holler.
== Other movable shapes ==
We looked at barre chords, which are one kind of movable chord. Let's look at other movable chords, and *this* time, let's present them in the right way: as *music* darn it, and not as a bunch of isolated notes you get bored with practicing after a half hour.
Let's introduce a more economical chord notation system that's hopefully easier for you to read, and sure as heck is easier to write. Here's the first chord, in the new notation:
X-5-5-5-7-8
Here's how to interpret this:
X: play nothing on string 1
5: play fret 5 on str. 2
5: play fret 5 on str. 3
5: play fret 5 on str. 4
7: play fret 7 on str. 5
8: play fret 8 on str. 6
Notice what you don't see here: which fingers to use for which notes. I'm confident that even though I don't tell you which fingers to use, a bit of experimentation will provide this info. If this doesn't happen, email me and I'll give you some pointers.
The above chord is a C maj chord. There are two other chords that will sound good with that C major chord. When you assemble the whole progression, what you're going to have is this: C-Dmin-G7-C. A natural way to strum this is with two strums per chord, at least when you first learn these forms.
This C-Dmin-G7-C is a I-ii-V7-I progression in C major. It's so common and natural that you'll find it in just about any kind of music. Let's show the shapes for you to make this I-ii-V7-I happen on your guitar:
X-5-5-5-7-8: Cmaj
X-6-5-7-5-X: dmin7
X-6-7-5-X-7: G7
X-5-5-5-7-8: Cmaj
Notice that I relisted the C major at the end. That's because I want you to play this. It's a phrase of music, or 4 bars. Strum each chord twice, in the order I wrote it above.
I hope you can hear that you're making music with these movable shapes. If you don't hear this yet, don't worry. You will. Keep practicing it.
== Online ear trainer ==
Maybe it is true that the best things in life are free. The trick is finding these things. I did find one the other day, and it's a doozy. It's a comprehensive ear trainer. The URL is http://www.good-ear.com. As far as I could tell, there were no products being sold at this site. All that's there is the ear trainer, whose page has a banner ad at the top, and a links page.
This ear trainer is for beginning to advanced musicians. You choose the level to train at. Pick easy stuff and learn a little, or get your butt kicked and learn a lot. Here are some of the exercise and exercise groups you can train in:
Exercise groups:
Beginner
Intervals
Chords
Scales
Cadences
Jazz Chords
Note Location
Perfect Pitch
The beginner level has these exercises: simple intervals, major/minor and "more intervals." The app keeps track of how many you guessed correctly for each session, so it plays like a kind of quiz. If you guessed incorrectly, you can replay the sound as many times as you'd like.
One really cool feature for super eager ear students is the Cadences exercise. In this exercise, a cadence is played, and you have to guess it. The available cadences are I IV I, I V I, I IV V I, I ii V I, I vi IV V, and I vi ii V. This is truly training in music, because now you're dealing with progressions, and not isolated chords. I only wish that the author of the web site and this fantastic program, Martin Schoeberl, would include more cadence types and progressions, like I II7 V7 I, I vi ii bVII I and other goodies. He's got way too many other great sounds in this app to train your ear with, to *not* make more cadence types.
One other great set of exercises is the Jazz Chords group. There are many sub groups in this, the last being called "all." All has 23 chords it blasts you with, and I have to tell you I got my butt bruised several times on this, but loved every second of it.
I'm going to shut up for now, and encourage you to see and hear for yourself what a great resource this is for all musicians. Have fun.
== Fun with chord substitutions ==
Check out this fragment from a letter I got recently. A reader was asking me about chord substitutions. He was reading a chord progression that went like this:
|C | Amin| Dmin| G7|
A variation was given on that progression. Here's the variation:
|C E7 | Amin| Dmin| G7|
The idea is this: The next time you see a C to Amin, instead of playing C for the whole bar, play half the bar with C, and the remainder of the bar with E7, before going into Amin in the next bar. The fella who read this concept asked, "Why would you play |C E7| instead of just | C |?" Here was my reply:
"The purpose of playing the |C E7| Amin| instead of |C | Amin| is to have different ways of making a single song sound good. From a performer's point of view, strumming the same chords in the same way each time you play a song is boring. The guidelines of Western harmony and music give us many different ways of changing that boredom into interest and excitement by offering many possible chords to fit onto a melody. In other words, for a given melody, many chords to play that melody with are possible, to make music that sounds good. We want to have many ways for making music sound good, because playing something the same way every time might be fun when you first learn a song, but becomes boring the 5th or 20th or 40th time you play the song."
*That's* why chord substitution is important: it's a boredom beater and Fun Fabricator. Let's fabricate some more fun with chord substitutions. I want to introduce some subtle but powerful substitutions for the cadence G7 to C. You can transpose this to other keys as you need to. Let's spell out the fingerings for a typical G7 to C cadence, and then we'll make a one-note change to G7. Here's one way of playing a typical G7 to C:
1-0-0 (G7)
0-1-0 (C)
Look back in this same issue to learn how to read this notation. Notice we're only using the top three strings here. Now, here's the one-note twist we're going to add, to put some zest into this common cadence:
1-0-1 (G7b9)
0-1-0 (C)
Did you hear *that?* Did it curl your nose hairs? Did the clocks start moving backward? G7b9 to C isn't appropriate for every cadence, but it sure can add zest to your tired old G7 to C cadence in many, many instances. Think about this: The b9, or Ab, in the G7b9 is not in the key of C major. It's like an uninvited guest who ends up being the life of the party. The b9 is just one of the many ways you can spice up a G7 that precedes a C.
Here's another G7b9 to C I'd like you to play. Check this out:
x-5-4-3-4 (13b9)
x-1-0-2-3 (C)
Did the postman ring twice on that? Did the dog meow? At least, did you see the new life you breathed into an old progression?
Let's do another cool change. This one will get grandma to wag her finger at you, or at least make you say, "Oh, that's cool," if you haven't already played it. Now play this:
x-4-4-3-(5)-3 (G7+5)
x-5-5-5-3-x (C)
You know, that sounded so cool to me, even though I've played it a thousand times, that I have to add one more chord to it:
x-3-2-3-x-4 (Dmin7b5)
x-4-4-3-x-3 (G7+5)
x-5-5-5-3-x (C)
Compared to how this progression sounds, describing it with words and explaining it are comparatively dull. Yet, it *can* be instructive, and help you in your musical investigations. The Dmin7b5 is from the F melodic minor scale (and it's also part of the Eb major scale). The G7+5 is part of the Ab melodic minor scale. I'm not going to go into the melodic minor scale here. I just want to introduce it to you, to plant a tiny seed of "Aha! More musical toys to play with" in your mind.
There are *so* many ways of making old chord movements new. Add notes, delete notes. Read a bit of music or jazz theory. Learn about the melodic minor and diminished scales. Or, instead of hurting yourself by trying to do all these things at once, take the simple alterations just illustrated here, and work them into every song you play. You'll discover where the 7b9 sounds good and where it doesn't.
I call this next section and chord The SHAPE, because that's just the kind of pretentiousness and respect it deserves. I don't want to talk about it too much before you hear it, and hear the possibilities it offers your playing, and the spice it can add to your playing. Here we go:
Cadence 1
x-5-3-5-4 (Eb7b9)
x-6-5-5-x-4 (Abmaj6)
Cadence 2
x-5-3-5-4 (C7b9)
x-6-5-3-x-5 (F)
or
x-5-3-5-4 (C7b9)
1-1-2-3 (F)
Cadence 3
x-5-3-5-4 (A7b9)
x-3-4-4-5 (D6)
Cadence 4
x-5-3-5-4 (F#7b9)
x-4-4-4-2 (B)
Extra Credit Cadence!
x-4-6-4-6 (Ebm7)
x-4-6-4-x-5 (Ebm7b5)
x-5-5-4-6-4 (Ab7+5)
x-5-3-5-4 (Db full dim)
x-6-6-6-4 (Dbmajor)
I threw in that last cadence out of a rare fit of generosity. Or maybe I just couldn't stop myself because I'm having way too much fun writing this. Either way, forget about little old me for a second and pay attention to the first four cadences. They all have the same first chord. And they have four different names, which I *WANT YOU TO BE AWARE OF.* Why? Because how we name stuff deeply affects how we understand and *misunderstand* stuff. Not just with music, but with anything.
For example, you might see the same exact chords in Cadence 4 on some sheet music, but the chords might have these names: Db diminished, B major. You might play this cadence and think, "Man, that's a mighty strong sounding cadence. It sounds like a V-I. Hmm, can't be: that would be F#7 going to B, and the notation here reads, 'Db diminished to B.' Oh well, I guess I'm just hearing things wrong. I guess I'll never have big ears."
Now, if this despairing soul were to read this newsletter, or another good and gentle theory book, he'd see that his ears were correct. He *was* hearing an F#7 -- with a b9, and without the root.
The point of the Shape, that x-5-3-5-4 chord, is that it can be four different dom7 chords...kinda. If you look at the last, extra credit cadence, you'll see it can appear in *more* than 4 different kinds of cadences. It's like Superchord.
Here's another aspect of the Shape's superpowers. Make the Shape chord on your guitar. Spell out the notes. For x-5-3-5-4, you get E-G-Bb-Db. Now, slide the Shape up three frets, so your middle finger is on the E. Again, spell out the notes under your fingers: E-G-Bb-Db. Well, surprise, surprise. *The notes are the same.* This chord "repeats" itself every three frets. Not only is it a movable shape, where you can move the pattern, but it's almost like you can move the frets and notes themselves, along with the pattern. This is the power of the Shape.
Okay, readers. Thank you for tuning in this week to the Guitar Study newsletter. There's no way you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I want you to take a couple more micro-lessons with you on your travels until we meet again. First, may the Shape be with you. Go in peace and make someone smile with your playing.
If you like learning about chords, and you consider yourself a beginning guitarist, there's a wonderful, helpful document at www.MaximumMusician.com/chordbook.htm that you might like to read. You can read a *big* chunk of it for free.
Remember what I said about being an "info-hog." The Guitar Study newsletter is too cool to keep a secret, and way too much quality info for you to keep all to yourself. Tell a buddy to sign up at http://www.MaximumMusician.com .
I'll see you next week.
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