Which complimentary chords do you play?

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 12:58 PM

Here's a link to a nice instructional website, teaching the use of the DADGAD-tuned guitar in Irish traditional music. Very near the top of the first page are guidelines on sets of chords that "go together" in various major, minor, and modal songs. The information is just as useful when playing in standard or any other tuning as it is for DADAGAD:

http://members.cox.net/eskin/DADGAD.html

Here's the recently-reopned Mudcat thread where I found this info:

Guitar in Irish Trad Music

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 12:38 PM

What a difference a vowel makes.

Rather like the old joke of the man trying to buy some envelope in a shop. "Do you keep stationery, miss?" "Well, sometimes I wriggle a bit..."

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: breezy
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 11:34 AM

the 'nice' chord

the'you plyed well tonight' chord

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Peter T.
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 09:47 AM

complementary. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: muppitz
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 06:53 AM

I posted a similar thread to this a couple of weeks ago, since then I have been experimenting with open tunings, namely DADF#AD, and I've found the sort of thing McGrath of Harlow is proposing to be quite effective, don't concentrate on chordings, more what actually sounds right, just experiment with the placement of one or two fingers.
That probably sounds like a load of tosh but if I was sat next to you, I could probably make sense of it!
However, this still elludes me in standard tuning!

Muppitz x

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:19 PM

The kind of thing I mean is, for example, if the boukouki is tuned ADAD, you just leave the A strings open, and fret the other two in unison moving up and down the fretboard to where it sounds right, strumming the whole set of strings all the time.

Or just play fretting one of the D strings it somewhere high up on the neck, and start picking out bits of the tune on various strings, so that at all time two or three strings are being played open.

Everything you do could be given a name as a chord by someone who was into that, but you really aren't thinking in terms of chord sequences as such.

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: treewind
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:15 PM

Alternative approaches:

- think of a bass line (melodic) rather than a sequence of chords
- What McGrath of H said - a good trick is to follow the tune mostly a third above or below, combined with a drone on the keynote or the fifth. Harmonically rich, "folky" and not particularly about chords (you could name chords for each note but that's meaningless)

Anahata

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:10 PM

Experiment (lots) with where you put your fingers. If it sounds good, play it.

It's as simple as that. No theory needed

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Nick
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:41 PM

Had the joy of watching Chris Newman last night playing in a little village hall in North Yorkshire (playing again at another tonight for £5 again and I couldn't get in). I play guitar a little and perhaps recognised half a dozen chords all night as he backed jigs and reels and played jazz and bluegrass an everything else that flowed from his pick (and most of the time playing off a standard tuning or perhaps a drop d).

He has that wonderful ability though for the chords to move effortlessly through the tune. Sometimes changing bass notes but often just running down through chords - like what I do badly when I experiment with dadgad or open tunings. When he plays he plays all over the neck with such fluidity that I just loved watch him accompany Maire ni C as much as I loved him play his lead work. And what is more frustrating is he makes it look so so so easy.

Watching him and a few other people it has often struck me how close jazz players and really good traditional players are in the way that they approach accompaniment and chording behind tunes. Most of the time I'm sure that what he was playing has names but it was more a case of a hell of a lot of practice and linking chords in lots and lots of different ways.

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Stu
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:47 PM

Relative minor keys? What's them then?

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:33 PM

You know about relative minor keys? Am for C, Em for G, etc.?

You can use the same chords for both keys.

eg. for Cmajor/Aminor: C,Dm,Em,F,G,Am (and maybe Bdim or throw in Bb if the tune goes Myxolydian on ya)

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Stu
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:56 PM

er, can you give an example?

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:55 PM

One way to go is to stop thinking in chords as such, and play changing notes against a constant drone of a couple of strings.   I suppose you could give the results chord names, but that's not really the point.

Subject: RE: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:54 PM

One way to go is to stop thinking in chords, and play changing notes against a constant drone of a couple of strings as such.   I suppose you could give the results chord names, but that's not really the point.

Subject: Which complimentary chords do you play?
From: Stu
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:43 PM

I have been playing me old zouk for a few years now, and am always intrigued about the chords players accompany tunes to. I play mostly Irish, so this is where I will start.

I love Em tunes, and play Em, D, G, C and Bm - what else goes well.

On Am tunes I strum: Am, G, F and occasionaly a C as a passing chord - there must be more for this key.

D and G majors - apart from C's, Ams etc, what else?

Let's hear them chord suggestions!