Chord Req: chords used by Peerie Willie Johnson?

Subject: Chord Req: chords used by Peerie Willie Johnson?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 08:56 AM

What chords does this Shetland guitar player use to play swing jazz music adapted to Scottish music?

Subject: RE: Chord Req: chords used by Peerie Willie Johns
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 09:34 AM

Same chords as anyone else, basically, D, G, A etc, but in different positions.. The different sound he used(compared to the majoirty of other guitarists backing folk tunes) was that he played up the neck mostly, without open strings. This enables you to damp the off beats by very briefly relaxing the pressure on the left hand fingers, and that gives you those chunky emphasised chords, sharply cut off with no ringing open strings. If you dont know these shapes, any guitar book should have them.
The style was developed in the swing era jazz bands bands, where that percussive hit, even from an unamplified acoustic guitar, could be heard(or felt) by all the other musicians. You can damp all four beats in the bar(like Freddie Green in th Count Bsie band), or do an um-chip-um-chip kind of rhythm(as Willie Johnson did mostly) where the 1 and 3 beats are bass notes allowed to ring, and 2 and 4 are damped chords giving the percussive off beat.
    Good luck...this is a great way to play the guitar!