Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TN Twang on April 4, 2014 at 3:03am

Easiest answer: Use your slide or strongest finger to barre across at the 7th fret position to get "Dad"--which is not the complete D7 chord but will serve as the "power chord" equivalent. If you don't have fret positions marked on your fretless instrument, it should be more or less 1/3 of the way up the neck between the nut and the bridge.

Hardest answer: If your fingerboard/fretboard is marked with fret positions and individual strings can be fingered against the fingerboard, put your first (pointer) finger on the bass string at fret #2 and your fourth (pinkie) finger on the highest string at fret #5. Arch your hand so that the middle string still vibrates open.

This gives you "ADc," which is only three of the four notes in a D7 chord (DF#AC), but , hey, that's all you can play on a 3-string instrument. Incomplete, "implied" harmonies were good enough for J.S. Bach. They should work for CBGs.

Sensible answer: There are a couple of fingering charts around this website somewhere that ought to answer a lot of your questions. Sorry I don't have location, but look at some of the tab-oriented groups.

TN

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Permalink Reply by Brian Croson on April 4, 2014 at 4:47am

Thanks, have been all over the net and couldn't get an answer. Am 79 and built this cbg and have no instrument pre knowledge.Am having a ball learning. Have been using Pat Curleys lessons and they help.

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on April 4, 2014 at 2:03pm

Hi Brian

I'll be updating the course soon to deal with fretted instruments and will cover all of this stuff in some detail. Still a few weeks off yet though. For now probably best ignoring my rants and playing the chords as others are suggesting.

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Permalink Reply by Brendan deVallance on April 4, 2014 at 4:29am

  Try this:

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 4, 2014 at 6:58am

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4872928/THE-OLD-GREEK-BOUZOUKI-CHORD-CH...

DAD tuning. Then use this to convert to GDG:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/playing/forum/topics/chord-char...

Or this:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/playing/forum/topics/3-string-t...

Finally, you could also explore A-D-F# tuning! the tuning Keni Lee Burgess favors for using movable chords. You can get closer to a 7th, but not with slide. You gotta have frets. Try flat bobby pins superglued on.

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Permalink Reply by TN Twang on April 4, 2014 at 9:19am

Brian, ignore this. This is only to provoke Mr. Sprague.

If you tune F#-A-D or G#-B-E (top half of Vestapol tuning), you can angle your slide across the strings so it covers two adjacent fret positions and get a diminished triad. A diminished triad is the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of a dominant 7th chord and makes a possible substitution that does include the tritone interval. Also, if you're finger picking, you can angle the slide and only play the outside strings and get the bottom 2/3 of a minor triad.

I got this from a lap steel guy who claimed he did it all the time. (??!) Of course, who knows if you can trust lap steel players.

I'm still trying to figure out what Dobro players are doing--since they tune GBDgbd or some such.

Just being difficult,

TN

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 4, 2014 at 1:22pm

Just to be anti-provocative, then...TN is actually right. You can angle the slide and get the relevant notes of a tritone to imply a 7th chord (see Patrick Curley's response, too). I can't do it well, because I'm not a good slide player, because I don't practice at it enough. And he's also right, that accomplished lap steel ( and Dobro) players do this all the time. You can also watch Derek Trucks and Duane Allman do it on YouTube. It exists. The Loch Ness monster lives in Area 51,

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on April 4, 2014 at 1:39pm

It's a Hawaiian guitar staple, and the technique is usually called 'slants'...

However it should be pointed out that if it were easy the pedal steel guitar and bender pedals, mechanisms etc would never have been invented. ie they're bloody tricky. They usually need to resolve to a sweeter-intonating chord (ie with the bar not slanted) to be effective, that is to say it's not a chord shape you can afford to comp on for a couple bars, it's generally used as a passing tone because it's not entirely in tune

Steel players generally don't comp on chords the way guitar players do

There's good wisdom in Patrick and Twangs suggestions of 'chords hidden inside bigger chords' see my recent blog there, we're just about to really tap into that :)
For now I'd just say this

2
0
5

:)

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on April 4, 2014 at 9:45am

I've made this argument before and got into trouble, no sense in stopping now.

A D7 chord needs as an absolute minimum a C and an F#. It's called the tritone and it is what makes a 7th chord function. If you don't have the tritone then forget it. Then you need to get the tonic D note from somewhere. If anything I guess the A is dispensible.

Implied harmonies work when the notes around it also suggest the chord. The tritone might work over a short distance if you're moving to a G. If you've already played the F# somewhere close by it may work, you may have it somewhere in the vocal melody but to simply leave out the major third and say that you're making the chord by invoking the 'implied harmony' rule is a bit of a stretch. Baroque harmony was a completely different beast and doesn't serve as any sort of comparison, they didn't use chords the same way we do. 

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on April 4, 2014 at 11:29am

2

0

5

i like this one..

you can just move your first finger to the next string for a iv (c) chord like this..

0

2

5

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on April 4, 2014 at 11:25pm

I use the 0 2 5 iv cord a lot. Hadn't noticed the 2 0 5 pattern right there. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on April 5, 2014 at 2:26am

I saw him last week at the liquor store.   He was pretty lit up and buying cheap beer and  Ten High bourbon.  

Pretty good answers here.    On a 3 string we often settle for a 'sounds like' rather than the exact chord.   Works fine, too.

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