The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #82280   Message #1506693
Posted By: Nick
22-Jun-05 - 05:30 AM
Thread Name: Help with fingerpicking melodies
Subject: RE: Help with fingerpicking melodies
If you capo at 5 and play A family chords or D family chords it would give a bit of variety - a D chord played as X00235 or an A chord played 002225 it would span right up to the D you sing. Should be able to sing a lot of stuff there. I also have C# or D as the highest practical note I go to and find I sing a lot in the keys of Bb through to D which with the aid of a capo is easily dealt with by playing either in G, A, C or D. A bit of fiddling with the capo and working out how the melody falls should allow you to pick out the tune with the chords you are comfortable with (can even play in G and capo at 7 ish - you just lose a lot of the bass on the guitar)

You can avoid most of the barres by playing variations of Bm and F#m as partial barres or without (eg Bm as X2043X or F#m as 2xx222 using your thumb for the bass string and whatever combination of fingers for the top three strings).