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Permalink Reply by Jim Morris on April 24, 2017 at 4:10am

It would be a fun challenge for all of us responding to this to go ahead and do a short video showing how they would play these chords! I agree on a 4 string it would be easier to obtain all the notes in these chords whereas on 3 string you often "hint" at what the chord is. The reason for this is in, let's say, the E7 chord you need 4 notes to play the full chord. On 3 string you might leave out a note and simply play 1,5,flat7 which would be E,B,and D notes. If you're not used to thinking of notes as numbers this can get confusing very quickly.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Morris on April 24, 2017 at 5:37am

I will add to this that many very good 3 string players, like none other than Justin Johnson, often suggest leaving out any chord extensions and simply barring across all three strings on whatever fret puts the root of the chord on the third string. This works pretty well if you're singing the song or playing along with another instrument that's playing the melody. I personally prefer hearing some of those extensions like the minor 3rd or the dom. 7th. In case this is making your eyes roll back in your head I'll put a video on Here it is

here.https://youtu.be/I7YuyeFKU5A

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on April 26, 2017 at 1:19am

on the E7 swap the top and bottom C string fingering. it might be easier. same chord just a different voicing.

i left the vcomment on the video as well... might be worth a try.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Morris on April 26, 2017 at 1:54am

Yup, I just answered you on utube. You're right it's much easier to play it that way. After I posted the vid I realized I was doing it the hard way but didn't have time to re do the video. Thanks!

I'll also add that I think some of the discussion about these chords comes from the fact that there's no absolute correct way to label chords. From years of reading big band and jazz chord charts I've found at least 3 different ways to label many chords. CM7, Cmaj7 , and C with a triangle symbol which I can't do on my keyboard all stand for the same chord - C,E,G,B natural which is one inversion of C major 7.  There are many instances where confusion can pop up due to no hard and fast rules. Often these chords are hand lettered over the melody line and CM7 can look like Cm7 and that just mucks it all up. It even gets more so when you have to read the Nashville System which uses roman numerals in place of chord names. So if a song is in the key of C the chart will read Imaj7 for Cmaj7. Whew, that's why I love being able to simplify stuff with 3 string gits!

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Permalink Reply by Dustin Aurand on April 24, 2017 at 6:18am

Here's the song. https://youtu.be/EbEQ2x9X9OY

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Permalink Reply by Jim Morris on April 24, 2017 at 6:31am

Thanks for posting that. What a great song. I would have tried playing the chords more like the song if I'd seen it first but hopefully my little vid helps some. I noticed he had a capo on the 2nd fret so all the chords might actually be 1 step higher. That means the first chord would actually be B mInor rather than A minor.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on April 26, 2017 at 1:23am

the capo looks like its on the 3rd fret. so Cm ???

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 26, 2017 at 5:01am

Yep, rewatched vid, capoed at the 3rd fret, so Cm. Relatively easy to do on a 4-string git capped the same way and tuned EADG (you get the walking bass and alternate thumb bass notes and the basic chord shapes, but lose some of the fingerpicked high notes on the B and E) or ADGB (you get the basic chord shapes, and lose much of the walking bass, plus some of the high notes on the E), or DGBE (you lose the walking bass, the alternate thumb bass, half of the Em chord, but get the high B and E).

Will have to sit down and figure out all the chords from the vid on my 6-string, then translate that to a GDG 3-string, and a GDGB 4-string I have here.

Will get back to y'all in a coupla days with it.

As far as asking Shane Adkins if I can do his song in my own set, yes, I probably should ask, but then again, in the last 35 years I've never asked Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Gary P. Nunn, Jerry Jeff Walker, Shake Russell, Bob Dylan, or numerous other singer-songwriters and bands if I could do their material. I've been in lots of cover bands, too, and that seems to be OK, too. I just always made sure that I let the audience know precisely who wrote the original song, usually with an encouragement to seek out the original so they or their estate gets paid a royalty. Got to give credit where it's due. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Jim Morris on April 27, 2017 at 2:24am

Yup, capo is on the 3rd fret which puts it in Cm. Right again Timothy (and Ron)

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Permalink Reply by Lane Martin on April 25, 2017 at 6:48am

Here's a page with chord charts for a three stringer tuned GDG. Almost every chord for that song is listed (E7 would just be two frets up from D7.) I think an Esus4 could be played 4-2-2.

link

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on April 25, 2017 at 6:54am

Neat song.  Another alternative for you would be to use DGB tuning on a 3 string.  Chord shapes are the same as on a 6 string guitar, just using the 2nd 3rd and 4th strings.  I like it a lot for folk/strumming tunes like this one.

As far as that E7 chord goes, in the context of this song it is a dominant 7th chord I'm pretty sure. Comes up a lot in these kinds of "western" sounding folk/country minor key tunes and I'm very fond of that sound.  I think it would be considered a "borrowed" chord where you substitute a major chord when the actual key would call for a minor chord. It not only adds the tension you normally get with the V chord, but to my ear gives an additional feeling of uncertainty and dread that's perfect for songs like this.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 25, 2017 at 8:11am

Yep, that's gotta go in the new set list!

Thanks for posting the vid, Dustin

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