Please help me wth cittern chords!

[Fliss]

Please help me try and work out some cittern chords!

I'm trying to learn a song on my long-scale 5-course cittern/bouzouki, and I'm having a mental block trying to transpose it into somethign I can sing along with.

The song is in the key of C, and my cittern is tuned CGCGC. Simple! The chords are C, F, G, Am and Dm - I've worked that out and the instrument souns fabulous playing those chord progressions. Unfortunately, I can't comfortably sing it in that key. So I have to transpose it.

I can sing it if I play it on capo 9 - but playing it with the capo there loses the beautiful rdeep inging tone of this instrument.

So I need to transpose it into the key of A. Unfortunately, that won't work brilliantly in C tuning, so I think if I play it with the chords in the key of G on capo 2, that should work, right?

My chords are therefore: G, C, D, Am and Em. G, C and Am are okay, but I'm struggling with the D and the Em. I'm trying to work out what fingerings / shapes will work and I've reached a bit of a mental block.

Please can anyone suggest some fingerings I can use for this? Please bear in mind I have small hands and this is a long scale instrument, so anything that requires a big stretch is not going to be accessible for me.

Fliss

[Coffeecup]

With no knowledge of the cittern or that tuning, I get these suggestions from the ChordWizard Gold tool. Not that you really need a tool if you know what notes are in a given chord. With the capo you've now raised the strings to DADAD right? You can play the required F# on any of the D strings by fretting 4 above the capo.

(capo is 0)
00004 DADAF#
00400 DAF#AD
40000 F#ADAD
and if you wish, raise one of the As to D on the 5th fret
45400 F#DF#AD for example

For the Em minor you're looking for notes E G and B. 5th fret on a D string will give you the G.
2nd fret on the D and A will give you E and B respectively. So you get options such as

22225 EBEBG
22522 EBGBE
22525 EBGBG etc.

[Fliss]

Many thanks for the suggestions. Coffeecup. I'm not sure I explained myself well enough, though, as what I mean is D and Em relative to the CGCGC tuning, to give me E and F#m in real terms (i.e. with the capo in place) because the real key I need to play it in is A - this is what I'm struggling to get my head round!

Fliss

[Coffeecup]

Sorry Fliss, your explanation was OK, my thinking wasn't straight enough. Ignoring the capo, CGCGC tuning:

D chord - 67679 or permutations of that

Em chord - 40444, 44447, 44744

Thinking about this after my first post I realised that with the capo on you are close to the DADGAD tuning sometimes used for guitar, particularly for Irish traditional music. If you were to drop one of your capoed As to capoed G you would have the notes covered if not the same voicing. Exploring some of the guitar websites for that might give you some ideas. Whether or not they are transferrable to cittern I couldn't say.

[Coffeecup]

For the first time I just had a look in the CBOM forum and noticed this thread:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53127

I think I've been had. I bet you're a demon in the trout streams! :))

[Fliss]

For the first time I just had a look in the CBOM forum and noticed this thread:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53127

I think I've been had. I bet you're a demon in the trout streams! :))

:))

Not at all, honestly! I'm very new to cittern and trying to learn it with the help of a bouzouki book amongst other things, but trying to work out these chords is doing my head in! I can't find what I'm looking for in the book.

Fliss

[Coffeecup]

I can relate to that! What I'm only just starting to do, and should have done years ago, is considering what notes a particular chord consists of. It does make them easier to find and work out your own shapes.

[Fliss]

Cheers CC! Yes, I know what you mean about chord theory, it's one of those things I'm starting to learn but I'm very much a plodder. There are some shapes I've learned that sound good on the cittern where I have no idea what chord they are!

After all that, I've found that the chord progressions don't work as well with these shapes as with the original shapes anyway, so it looks as though I'm stuck with stretching my voice to reach the high notes, or playing it on around capo 8 and just accepting that I'll lose those lovely bell-like tones.

It's all part of the learning curve :mandosmiley:

Fliss

[Fretbear]

One thing I did when looking for different tones and keys on my bouzouki was to lower the entire tuning first one whole-step and then back up one half-step below pitch. I now would never tune it up to pitch as it sounds so much better tuned lower, and gives me more to work with in the lower keys.

[EdSherry]

If you want to play in A, you could consider retuning your cittern to DGDGD and capoing on the second fret.

Your chords (C, F, G, Am, Dm) are the I, IV, V, VIm and IIm of the key you're playing in.

In a DGDGD tuning, the open tuning is the I chord (actually, a I power chord, as it leaves out the third), you can get a IV chord either by barring the fifth fret or playing 20202 (which leaves out the root of the chord), and you can get a V chord either by barring the seventh fret or playing 02020. One simple VIm chord is 20202 (which is actually a VI power chord, as it doesn't include the third), and a simple IIm chord is found by barring the second fret (again, a II power chord).

Alternatively, if you want to play in your CGCGC tuning but capoing on the second fret, your I chord in the key of A (given the capo) is 20202 [relative to the capo] (again, a power chord), your IV chord is open (ditto), your V chord is the barred second fret above the capo (ditto). A simple VIm chord is 02020 (which leaves out the fifth of the chord, but has the root and the minor third, which establishes the tonality), and a simple IIm chord is the barred second fret above the capo (again, a II power chord).

[Fliss]

Thanks guys, that's helpful. Ed, your fingerings are confirming what I'm currently using for the equivalents of those chords, which is a useful check for me! The barred IIm is what I'd thought, but it sounds too close to the VI so I wasn't confident that it was right :confused:

It's funny, but I know that a basic element of chord theory is to think of the chords in terms of I, II, III etc, yet somehow it's still not something I intuitively think to do. I need to get that embedded in my way of thinking.

Fliss