Thursday, 12 July 2012

Name that chord (on the guitar)

short answer - it's a voicing

these notes E G B D are in E minor 7, G maj6, B11, Cmaj9 (without the root), and so on. A pattern on the fretboard can be many things and the best you can hope for, when asking what chord it is, is one person's guess - more often you'll get several people's guesses or on a forum one person's guess supported by other people who like the first person.

So what's a voicing?

It's a sound, perhaps not even unique on the fretboard - it might exist in a slightly different shape 12 frets down and one string lower. But that voicing as described in notation is unique.

Why do I need to differentiate a voicing from a chord?

I think it was Ted Greene (author of the fearfully awesome Chord Chemistry book complete with picture of Ted during his Teen-wolf era on the front) who said "Wes [Montgomery] only knew about 80 chords, but he knew every way of using them." that means the chord would take on different names when played over different bass notes or with other instruments or as substitutions in progressions (which Ted is a master of)

So that Hendrix Chord (X7678X).. it can be lots of other things too, try it resolving to (575755) or (XX5785) it can be an innocuous passing chord sometimes.

The value of calling them voicings is that then it's like a word and words get used in all sorts of places where they sound right, rather than if they're meant to be used with the subject matter, our mouths run away with us and sometimes invent the meaning of our statements if we're not paying close attention - and in music that's okay.

The Samurai used to say "from each lesson learn a thousand things", so from each chord learn it's uses, enjoy experimenting with several voicings that go together well - if you like chords, check out Ted Greens Modern Chord Progressions, practice them enough and you'll find your fingers sneaking them in places you'd never have expected it to make sense - because your ears are talking to your fingers and cutting out the middle-man, with good reason!

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