Frank Gambale Magic Chords 3

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day continues our series looking at Frank Gambale's Magic Chords. This example is another chord inversion constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C. As these advanced guitar chords aren't constructed in the usual way of stacking 3rd intervals from a scale they are  ambiguous and can be used in lots of different contexts.

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

As with yesterday's inversion, today's Chord of the Day can be considered in many different ways.

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position. The chord can function as:

C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords

Yesterday's Frank Gambale Magic Chord post looked at using this chord a major7, today we'll give more examples of using this chord as a minor7th chord. We can play this chord in several different positions and still have it function in the same way. For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it would work as a Cminor7:

3rd position Cm11 (G, C, F, G)
5th position Cm69 (A, D, G, A)
8th position Cm11 (C, Bb, F, C)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)
13th position Cm11 (F, Bb, Eb, F)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)

Try playing through some songs you know and dropping in other Frank Gambale Magic Chords in place of major and minor inversions you might use and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.

Frank Gambale Magic Chords 2

Continuing our look at Frank Gambale's "Magic Chords", today introduces another inversion of the Magic Chord constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C.

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

As with yesterday's inversion, today's Chord of the Day can be considered in many different ways.

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position.

The chord can function as:
C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords
chords

Alternatively we could play this chord in several different positions and still have it function in the same way. For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it would work as a Cmajor7:
2nd position (B, E, A, E, A) - C major 13
5th position (D, G, C, G, C) - C add9
7th position (E, A, D, A, D) -C69
9th position (F#, B, D, B, E) - Cmajor7#11
10th position (G, C, F, C, F) - Csus4
12th position (A, D, G, D, G) - C69

Try playing through some songs you know and dropping in today's Frank Gambale Magic Chord and yesterday's Magic Chord in place of some other inversions you might use and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.
 

Frank Gambale 'Magic Chords' 1

Some years ago, guitarist Frank Gambale had a regular monthly column in Guitar Player magazine. Some of his monthly columns looked at what he described as Magic Chords. These are advanced guitar chords that are constructed differently to regular triads and are therefore a little ambiguous. The good thing about this is that we can use this chords in several different contexts.

The first Magic Chord is constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C. We might think of this as being a Csus2 chord:  

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

It's not necessary or sometimes even possible to play all of the notes in a chord, so we can also think of this same chord in the same position in several different ways. Here are some examples of how we could use this same chord - the intervals we're using from the chord are after the chord symbol:

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position.

The chord can function as:
C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords

That's a lot of possible uses for one chord. Try using this magic chord in some of the songs you usually play and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.   

Blues Guitar Chords: Chord Scale

Today's guitar chord of the day post takes a different turn and includes eight guitar chords! We've looked at some of these chord inversions but this post puts them in a new context.

All of the chords presented are inversions or extensions of C7, so can be played in place of C7 in a blues progression. The interesting thing about this progression is that the top note of the series of chords plays through a C Mixolydian Scale.

The first is a C7 chord with a C root note on top

The second chord is a C9 chord with the 9th, D on top.

The third chord is a C7 chord with the 3rd, E on top.

The fourth chord is a C11 chord with the 11th, F on top.

The fifth chord is a C9 chord with the 5th, G on top.

The sixth chord is a C13 chord with the 13th, A on top.

The seventh chord is a C7 chord with the 7th, Bb on top.

The final chord is a C7 chord with the root note, C on top.

As we can play any one of these chords in place of a regular C7 we can play melodies with our rhythm parts - this sounds much more interesting than playing just one inversion for an extended period of time. Try linking these together and making up your own combinations of these chords and tune in tomorrow for another guitar chord of the day.

Blues Guitar Chords: E9

Today's guitar chord of the day, continues our series of Blues Guitar Chords: E9.
This chord is moveable and has its root note on the E string (indicated by the black box in the chord diagram). Here's the fingering for this guitar chord shape:

Blues typically follows a 12 bar pattern based around Dominant 7th Chords:

||: E7  |  A7  |  E7  |  E7  |  A7  |  A7  |  E7  |  E7  |  B7  |  A7  |  E7  |  B7  :||

9th Chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, 3, 5, b7
E9 uses these notes: E, G#, B, D 
Mix up today's chord of the day with previous Blues guitar chords when you play through the 12 bar progression and tune in tomorrow for another guitar chord of the day.

Blues Guitar Chords: D13

Today's guitar chord of the day, continues our series of Blues Guitar Chords: D13.

13th chords and it can be played in place of most 7th chords (also known as dominant chords, or dominant 7th chords).
This chord is moveable and has its root note on the B string (indicated by the black box in the chord diagram). This chord is fingered by playing the root note on the B string with your middle finger, your first finger on the A string, your 3rd finger on the D string and little finger on the G string.

Blues typically follows a 12 bar pattern based around Dominant 7th Chords:

||: A7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  D7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  E7  |  D7  |  A7  |  E7  :||

Mix up today's chord of the day with previous Blues guitar chords when you play through the 12 bar progression and tune in tomorrow for another guitar chord of the day.

Blues Guitar Chords: D9

Today's D9 guitar chord of the day is another inversion of a 9th chord and continues our series of blues guitar chords.

The root note is on the A string, it's easy to slip this up two frets to play an E9 chord. Use this with yesterday's A9 Guitar Chord and play through the entire blues chord progression.

D9 uses these notes: D F# A C

Tune in tomorrow for another guitar chord of the day.

Blues Guitar Chords: A9

Following on with our series of Blues Guitar Chords, today's Guitar Chord of the Day is A9.

Blues typically follows a 12 bar pattern based around Dominant 7th Chords:

||: A7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  D7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  E7  |  D7  |  A7  |  E7  :||

We've look at many different ways of playing dominant 7th chords on the guitar before, but we can make the blues progressions more interesting to play and listen to by using extended chords.

9th chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, 3, 5, b7, 9
A9 uses the notes: A, C#, E, G, B
The root note of the chord isn't played in this inversion, but we can imagine a root note on the E string to help us locate where to play the chord.

Try playing through the above blues chord progression with 9th chords and tune in tomorrow for another guitar chord of the day.

Blues Guitar Chords.. the easy way!

Today kicks off a new series of Blues Guitar Chords.


Blues progressions typically follows a 12 bar pattern based around three Dominant 7th Chords:


||: A7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  D7  |  D7  |  A7  |  A7  |  E7  |  D7  |  A7  |  E7  :||


There are lots of variations of this basic progression, but they all tend to be elaborations of the basic 3 chord 12 bar above.


We've look at many different ways of playing dominant 7th chords on the guitar before, but today we'll look at playing through a blues progression with the least possible effort

7th chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, 3, 5, b7
A7 uses the notes: A, C#, E, G

If you're playing with a band you can be sure that the bass player will be playing the root note. The most important notes of the chord are the 3rd and 7th, in A that's C# and G. So today's guitar chord will just play these two essential notes of the chord:
As you can see, this is the easiest way to play through a blues chord progression, only two fingers needed!

The great thing about this is when you play through the blue chord progression, you don't have to jump up to the 10th fret to play your D7 chord, keep the fingering exactly the same and move down one fret:

D7: D, F#, A, C

To play the E7 chord, keep the fingering exactly the same and move up one fret:

 E7: E, G#, B, D
We can now play through the whole 12 bar blues progression with one shape and moving only one fret in either direction.As well as being easy to play this demonstrate an important idea when linking chords together: voice leading, that is making sure that chords flow by having each note move a small distance to the next.

We'll be building up from our basic Blues Guitar Chord progression day by day, so tune up and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord Of The Day