Hello!
This is another one of those lessons, like the “Land of A7/D7” (February 8th), which can be applied to both guitar and ukulele. The video link (and hence suggestion for this piece) was sent in by Mr. ‘Disco Stable’ himself, Tony K, in response to that blog. This idea is perhaps a little more specific than the “Land of A7/D7” but no less interesting, and it’s dead easy to play.
So today I’m going to try and explain the concept, and share the video with you. The video is guitar based, but ukulele players, don’t worry! At the end I’m going to explain how the theory works for ukes, and I’m actually going to give you a few new voicings for some familiar chords that occurred to me as I was putting all this together for you. Bonus!
This concept I’d say is more for players who are either looking to put their first toes in the water for soloing, or who are playing in a band situation, and want to play something complimentary to everybody else. These aren’t 'traditional' chords, you can’t really strum them, but you can play them by finger picking, or as ‘double stops’ (kind of like two note chords). Consider this the basis for a basic solo or accompaniment that uses specific notes from the chord that you’re playing. The video is a pretty good explanation of all of this, but this is a blog, so I’m going to try and break it down a bit for you first.
Science Bit
We’re going to be talking about seventh chords here. Seventh chords have a kind of soulful spice that makes them sound just a bit more special, and ideal for blues or soul tracks, although you can use them in virtually any genre. Ordinary major chords have three notes, the I, III and V, but a seventh chord has four - so what's that all about then?
Well if we take the chord of ‘G’ we would call the note of ‘G’ the root note, or the ‘I’, the first note in the scale, (we’re talking Roman numerals here, eg. I=1, II=2 etc.) So if we examine the notes in the G major scale they are G A B C D E F# G. G=1, B=3, D=5. So if you play a ‘G’ major chord on a guitar or ukulele, the notes are always a mixture of G, B and D, the I, III and V.
A seventh chord has four notes, I, III, V and a flat 7 (b7). The seventh note of the scale is F#, but it’s flattened, or tuned down by one semitone (or fret) to ‘F’. So the notes in a G7 chord are G, B, D and F.
For the uninitiated in the world of music theory, some of this might seem gibberish. Don’t worry, if you want to try and understand it, great, but I get that you might just want to know how to use it. Basically, this hack takes advantage of some barred and less commonly used chord shapes, and concentrates on just two notes, the third and the flat 7. Used In a straight forward twelve bar blues, those notes are really close together, and use the same finger pattern on the fretboard.
I think maybe now, take some time out to watch the video, hopefully you’ll get a sense of where this is going…
So here’s our twelve bar blues progression...
G7 / C7 / G7 / G7
C7 / C7 / G7 / G7
D7 / C7 / G7 / D7
And here’s a diagram of the two note shapes he plays for each. He then resets the pattern six frets higher up, where the note that was the b7 becomes the third, and vice versa. Pretty cool! As long as you’ve got access to enough frets you can apply the same theory for other keys too. On a guitar you could go a whole tone lower and start in ‘F’ or go a whole tone higher to play in the key of ‘A’.
I suppose if the two patterns are six frets apart, the two positions for 'G' would also be two acceptable positions for 'C#', as effectively the two positions are equal and opposite? Does that make sense? That might be worthy of some experimentation and a consult with Tony, because if that is the case, that'd be the way to unlock the technique for other useful keys too, like 'C'.....I'll keep you posted on that one, but if that makes sense to you too then let me know!
Anyway, guitarists, see how you go with that!
Ukulele Time
Ukulele players, your time has come! You are no doubt aware of how the fretboard of the ukulele relates to the fretboard of the guitar, because you read my blog about it at the beginning of January….(ahem). Your key for this little exercise would be C. So if you refer to the diagram, you’re using two notes from ‘C7’ (in black) that you don’t usually fret for a standard ‘C7’ chord, sliding that shape down one, to use two notes from ‘F7’ and then up two to use two notes from ‘G7’, again in a position you might not usually use.
The fact that on the ukulele, the notes the trick uses for the ‘F7’ portion are basically nicked straight from a standard ‘F7’ chord made me think. Maybe there might be a way of using this two note hack as an inspiration towards some chord voicings for that you might not typically choose? This trick is great, and it’s musically and mathematically interesting, but the sound is pretty thin, especially for a ukulele. It often feels with the ukulele like there’s precious little scope to play things in a different way on an instrument so small. For most ukulele players, chords seem to rule the roost.
So, we’ve got to turn these two note shapes into full, strummable chords…..how’s that going to work? Well… ‘C7’ on a ukulele is pretty much only surpassed by ‘C6’ as the easiest chord to play in the universe, so bolting these new notes to my existing ‘C7’ chord might work. The notes we generate are Bb, E, E, and another Bb. No actual root note there, but it’s interesting and you can strum it. I suppose you could omit fretting the first ‘D’ in favour of an open ‘C’ string which would pull it back to more familiar territory. I appreciate that even with the inclusion of the open ‘C’ this chord doesn’t strictly conform to our original definition of a seventh chord, i.e. containing four notes, but it has a compatible sound.
For the ‘F7’ I’m just going to play my standard form, no worries. Again though, this 'standard form' (bottom left) doesn't actually bear up under scrutiny, because again I haven't actually got all four notes, with both the top and bottom strings sounding as 'A'. I never realised!
Hmmpph! I’m going to take every note in that ‘F7’ and move it up two frets to achieve a new voicing (kinda) for ‘G7’ ! I’m not going to lie to you, it’s trickier than what you might be used to, but it is probably completely different to what everybody else in the group is going to be playing. It's also a cheat AGAIN in that it doesn't again conform with the four note rule!
Here’s your chord sequence...
C7 / F7 / C7 / C7
F7 / F7 / C7 / C7
G7 / F7 / C7 / G7
Conclusions
This little idea, (or hack) that Tony's unearthed is pretty interesting. The fact that compatible pairs of notes for different chords could sit side by side, using just one shape on the same strings is flippin' ingenious.
What I've also discovered in the course of trying to write it up to go on the blog, is that quite a few of the ukulele chords I thought I knew, are actually hacks themselves. Some of the seventh shapes I regularly use are not strictly sevenths at all, because they don't have the right spread of notes. I guess it does go to show how easy it is to just accept certain little cheats in music because they're easy and they sound good. This does kind of make me wonder what else I'm missing out on though!
Cheers!
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In case you might find them useful, I've included a few photographs here at the end of some of those tougher ukulele chords. I know that sometimes people find chord diagrams hard to visualise.
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