Combining Chord Shapes

Almost-Seasons Greetings to you! It’s been a busy month in the Holy City and the holidays are just getting started. This past Saturday I had the privilege to play at the Annual Cold Heart Revival, a festival concert at the Pour House featuring several regional and local bands that fall somewhere in the alt-country vein. In addition to local favorites Lindsay Holler's Western Polaroids, there were great sets from Joel Hamilton & Owen Beverly (The In-laws), Sadler Vaden, and Bill Carson. This concert also always seems to fall on the weekend of the USC-Florida game, which usually ends up more lopsided than it did this year…



Our latest video lesson should start to tie together some of the ideas we’ve previously been working on. By applying the chord fragments we learned in the first lessons, we can start to get a feel for rhythmic comping. We will later learn the major scale in each chord position, and that will open up our lead playing tremendously.

The first real song part in this lesson is from Betty Wright’s “Clean Up Woman.” This a quintessential R & B number when it comes to layered rhythmic guitar parts. In the video we learn the basic rhythm part in the key of G (for continuity from the previous lessons) even though the original song was in the key of F. This is okay because you should learn how to use these chords in all keys anyway! An easy was to start navigating the chord shapes to is remember the “D shape” is always 4 frets (a major 3rd) higher up the neck than the “F shape.” In our example the “F shape” G major chord is on the 3rd fret and the “D shape” G major chord is on the 7th fret.

I hope you enjoy the lesson, next time I will teach you all the parts to ‘Clean Up Woman.” There is another great video lesson on this topic in Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s (of Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers fame) video series called “American Guitar.” This is a great, yet humorously dated ("We are in the 90's Ladies and Gentleman!") video series in which Baxter teaches whatever the “American guitar style” encompasses to an apparent Japanese audience. Be sure to check it out, and that’s all until next time. Peace!



Download the Guitar Pro .gp5 or the tab of this lesson here.