A minor (Am) on CBG

I may be out of luck here. I am accompanying my sister with a bottleneck slide on my CGB tuned to GDG on Johnny Cash's song I Hung My Head. Is there any way I can play an A minor or am I stuck with playing the A only? Oh and my action is set to high for me to fret the strings. Thanks!!! ara

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  • sorry if it all seems a bit confusing for you, but ask your sister to help you with the tuning for starters....

    Diydc said:
    You can catch the right CFC tuning by placing a capo at the 5th fret in the Tuning you suggested in the OP...

    Diydc said:
    Am I correct in assuming you are playing the song in the key of C, with the chord progression of C, F, a, F, C, F, a, F, d, G, C, F, a, C, F linking between verses with C.....?
    if so , this should not be too difficult with a tuning in C. (CFC). The a is reached by playing 3 frets behind the octave C, but only playing the outside notes, which makes good for a link down to the 5th fret for the F each time.
    Fiddle around with the open C tuning for long enough and you are sure to find it...
  • You can catch the right CFC tuning by placing a capo at the 5th fret in the Tuning you suggested in the OP...

    Diydc said:
    Am I correct in assuming you are playing the song in the key of C, with the chord progression of C, F, a, F, C, F, a, F, d, G, C, F, a, C, F linking between verses with C.....?
    if so , this should not be too difficult with a tuning in C. (CFC). The a is reached by playing 3 frets behind the octave C, but only playing the outside notes, which makes good for a link down to the 5th fret for the F each time.
    Fiddle around with the open C tuning for long enough and you are sure to find it...
  • Am I correct in assuming you are playing the song in the key of C, with the chord progression of C, F, a, F, C, F, a, F, d, G, C, F, a, C, F linking between verses with C.....?
    if so , this should not be too difficult with a tuning in C. (CFC). The a is reached by playing 3 frets behind the octave C, but only playing the outside notes, which makes good for a link down to the 5th fret for the F each time.
    Fiddle around with the open C tuning for long enough and you are sure to find it...
  • Thank you. That will do me.
    Winnie the Po, a bear with little brain. :)

    Ben said:
    Brian to go from you DAd tuning to a GDg tuning just move the chord shape up 5 frets (not counting the one you start on) OR down 7 frets (not counting the one you start on). This wouldn't be my method of doing it because some chord changes might just not be practical but its the answer to your question.

    Brian Lemin said:
    Duh.... (No reflection on you i can assure you... It is all about me) I can t read note of music without being given 5 minutes to run through f-a-c-e and the other one about good boy! But if something says "A min" for a normal guitar chord, i know the shape and can place it in the correct fret. (Possibly in three inversions too)

    I (we) have this huge Dad chord chart, that has about all the chords and more than i will ever want. If i decide to change my tuning(Dad) to your Gdg how can I easily look at that chart and say "all i need to do is move a shape up a "few frets" or down a "few Frets" and and the Dad shape/chord will now be correct for the Gdg tuning."

    Just say: Brian, move the shape "Up/Down" "x" number of frets That i will understand! :)

    I told you i was dumb! This proves it.
  • A bit off topic but.....

    here is a great source for free computer based "chord" programmes.
    http://wareseeker.com/free-chord-sequence/
    I have not tried any of them.

    If you are interested in Dixie/trad jazz then this is the free chord book for you. Some 400 chord sequences for tunes to download (Word).
    http://www.jazzpilgrims.co.uk/Jazz%20Pilgrims%20page%20twelve.htm
    Yep, I have them on my computer and thinking of a way to print them into a book. I am sure Word has this facility, somehwere
  • Brian to go from you DAd tuning to a GDg tuning just move the chord shape up 5 frets (not counting the one you start on) OR down 7 frets (not counting the one you start on). This wouldn't be my method of doing it because some chord changes might just not be practical but its the answer to your question.

    Brian Lemin said:
    Duh.... (No reflection on you i can assure you... It is all about me) I can t read note of music without being given 5 minutes to run through f-a-c-e and the other one about good boy! But if something says "A min" for a normal guitar chord, i know the shape and can place it in the correct fret. (Possibly in three inversions too)

    I (we) have this huge Dad chord chart, that has about all the chords and more than i will ever want. If i decide to change my tuning(Dad) to your Gdg how can I easily look at that chart and say "all i need to do is move a shape up a "few frets" or down a "few Frets" and and the Dad shape/chord will now be correct for the Gdg tuning."

    Just say: Brian, move the shape "Up/Down" "x" number of frets That i will understand! :)

    I told you i was dumb! This proves it.
  • Duh.... (No reflection on you i can assure you... It is all about me) I can t read note of music without being given 5 minutes to run through f-a-c-e and the other one about good boy! But if something says "A min" for a normal guitar chord, i know the shape and can place it in the correct fret. (Possibly in three inversions too)

    I (we) have this huge Dad chord chart, that has about all the chords and more than i will ever want. If i decide to change my tuning(Dad) to your Gdg how can I easily look at that chart and say "all i need to do is move a shape up a "few frets" or down a "few Frets" and and the Dad shape/chord will now be correct for the Gdg tuning."

    Just say: Brian, move the shape "Up/Down" "x" number of frets That i will understand! :)

    I told you i was dumb! This proves it.
  • Sorry if that was too thick, Brian. First, I confess I've never played in this particular tuning, but the theory is the same in any tuning.

    An Am chord has the notes A-C-E (which, incidentally, are intervals 1-b3-5, but put that aside for now). If you play the 2nd fret, you get two As and an E, and that'll sound fine for an Am, because those are notes in an Am chord. The sort of sad or spooky sound of an Am chord (the minor-ness) comes from the C, which is missing in this case. BUT, the context of the song - the chords before and after the Am, and the melody being sung - will fill in the missing minor-ness for the listener, so that second fret chord will work just fine and sound good.

    [It gets thick again after this point, so proceed at your own risk.]

    If you want to throw in the C, try this: If there are, say, 4 beats of Am, play the full chord at the 2nd fret for 2 beats, then slide up to play just a single note at the the 5th fret, either the low or high string, for the other 2 beats. (That should be a C, in GDG tuning.) It'll sound like part of the same chord, and it might be a slick transition to whatever chord follows the Am.

    An A-Major chord would have the notes A-C#-E, so the same thing applies for that 2nd fret chord - there's no C#, so it's not actually a full major chord. In that tuning, chords everywhere on the neck have only the 1st and 5th interval, but not the 3rd. You get fat bluesy power chords that can work for either major or minor chords, but if you want to specify a major or minor, you have to toss in a third somewhere.

    Now that I think about it, a third can be found several places in relation to whatever chord you're playing. The minor third is always three frets higher than the chord fret, on the two outside strings, OR, four frets lower on the middle string. The major third is always four frets higher on the outside strings, or three frets lower on the middle string. The exact same pattern would exist in DAD tuning also. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.)

    Sorry for the novel. I hope it helps. Frank Zappa said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
  • Please keep it simple for bird brains like me.
    So what would i have do to make a shape for A Minor in Dad an A minor in GDg? Like how many frets up or down would i have to move the shape? I presume the shift in the number of frets would be the same to transpose all the Dad to GDg chords.
    The chart in the link give no clue if we should dampen a string or not when playing a chord.

    I notice it talks about "no 3rd" etc I presume it means that the 3rd interval is missing from this chord? That would mean a less "full chord" but in three strings that must be taken for granted that it will happen often.
  • The third determines the major or minor quality of the chord. In an A-major chord, the third is a C#; in A-minor, it's C. There's no third in your tuning, so you could just play the 2nd fret. It'll be A, but not major or minor. If the third (C) is being sung in the melody, that's where the minor-ness will come from.
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