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Thread: Chords... How do you know which ones to use?

  1. #1
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    I have been teaching myself to play mando for about a year now.( I really should find a proper instructor, but there is not a dearth of mando interest in this town.) Anyway, there must be a system for chords and their related keys. There is a chart of keys and pertaining chords at the back of my Bruce Dix instruction book, but no instructions on where to use the A7, E7, etc. chords. Does one just guess? I have been stumbling through songs at jams, and it is getting frustating when I'm not sure what chords to use no matter what key we are in.
    You are only young once, but you can be immature forever.

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    Registered User adgefan's Avatar
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    Do you understand the concept of I, IV and V chords?

    If not, read up about it as this will open up a whole load of songs at jams to you. I cannot play fast enough to take breaks in a proper jam, but simply by knowing and being able to hear the I,IV,V chord changes I can always chop along in the background. The seventh chords are used to link these other chords together. Anything more complex than that is still beyond me but here's a page that might help :

    http://www.balladtree.com/folk101/g_001a_chords.htm

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    The 7th chord in a major key is built on the fifth tone in the scale of the key you are playing in. For example, in the key of D the three basic chords are D, G, (built on scale tone 4), and A7, (built on scale tone 5). This is true in any major key; you can drop the 7th and just play an A and be fine, but you can't add a 7th to another chord and still be in D. For example, if you played a G and added a 7th to become G7, you would no longer be playing in the key of D. In a minor key, the chord built on scale tone 5 is often altered to become a 7th chord, (D minor, G minor, A7) by using what is called the harmonic minor scale, but there are other minor scales (natural and melodic) so this is not always the case. Also, many old traditional tunes that we might describe as being in minor keys are actually modal, and the modes have their own "sets of rules."

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    Registered User Jon Hall's Avatar
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    Mandodebbie

    Have you memorized the chord progressions to any of the songs they play at your jam? If not that would be a good place to start. What kind of songs are played at your jam?

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    coprolite mandroid's Avatar
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    Try this:A movable chord on the 3 higher strings 2245 (a) the I
    shifted to the lower 3, 2455 (D) IV
    And then up 2 frets, 4677 (e), V , is a movable pattern in itself,or 7677 (e7) v7, fairly economical of motion too.
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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Debbie, reading the posts in answer to your question, I think there is a possibility you may still be confused. I understand the theory involved and I had a hard time reading some of them! If you would like a very understandable explanation of basic music theory and ear training, including the concepts listed above, I recommend the DVD "The Formula of Music" by Dan Huckabee. It really makes all of this very simple and easy to understand, with very do-able exercises that help you internalize the concepts. It is helpful, but not absolutely necessary, to work through the DVD with a musical keyboard, even if it is a cheap toy keyboard. Dan lays out his explanations and exercises on the keyboard, because it helps in visualizing the principles.

  7. #7

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    When I was 9, my dad got me one of those chord wheels. You turned it to whatever key you wanted, and it would show you the IV and V/V7 chords as well as the relative minors, diminished chords, etc. that fit with that key as well. Basically, every note of the scale of a particular key is the root note of one of the chords. The II, III, VI & VII chords can be minors, sevenths, diminished, or augmented - depending on the voicing that fits the song. I'm not a theory expert, and I'm sure there are reasons and rules that apply to that. I usually just find the one that sounds right.

    The wheel thing is helpful in being able to visualize chord progressions. Pretty much the same thing as a scale shape moving around to different spots on the fretboard for different keys.

  8. #8

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    Those chord wheels are still available. The Ron Green music dials have all the chords for each key plus practice progressions on a CD. I don't recall where I bought mine but a search on the web would no doubt find them. I don't always use the chord forms he uses but the practice progressions were immensely helpful. It was pretty inexpensive if I remember right.




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    Registered User dwc's Avatar
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    I agree, my post was quite a bit less than I was hoping. I think it would confuse far more than it would clarify so I deleted it. I suppose it is one thing to understand something and quite another to understand it well enough to articulate it. However, I do think a book on basic music theory could prove useful in endevours such as these, as there are those who can convey the concepts. So, yes, there is music theory, but I do not understand it well enough to distill it into a single post.
    Northfield Artist Series F5 (2 bar, Adirondack)

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    You need to know what chord progression is called for by the melody in the song. It seems to me that to know what chords to play next, it helps to know the melody unless your ear is trained to hear the chord changes which takes a fair amount of time to accomplish. For example-- Some songs may start using the the tonic I chord (say key of G , the I chord is G ) then the melody may go to requiring a C , the 4th of G, then back to the I chord of G. Other melodies also in key of G will use the G chord to start then go to requiring the 5th of G , which is D or maybe a D7 . So if everyone else is playing the 4th C chord and you are playing the 5th D or D7 chord it will sound like a train wreck -- very discordant and strange -- and you will get some nasty looks at most jams. Complicated songs that use the minor 3rds or 6ths are even harder to follow if you don't know the melody. My suggestion is to get a basic bluegrass book and learn the melody and chord changes for the top 25 or so songs played in your area. There is no easy shortcut to learning the chord progressions and changes.

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    Registered User 8ch(pl)'s Avatar
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    Of all the books available, the one I like most is "Mandolin Chord Dictionary" by Morton Manus, published by Alfred. On the back 2 pages is a Chord Accompaniment Guide which gives the chords in any key, the relative minor key, and alternate chords.

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    I find the following warm up exercises helpful in keeping me sharp on music theory, which is the key to "guessing" which chords go with which others:

    Play the Aonzo scale (from Mandozine???) in any given key;
    Play Tim O'Brien's arpeggios (also from Mandozine?? in the same key
    Play the Chords represented in the O'Brien arpeggios in open, then in closed positions.

    R

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    Distressed Model John Ritchhart's Avatar
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    So...guessing wasn't the right answer?!!! Man, I knew this was going to harder than it looked.
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    No, you just have to learn to guess right.

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    Registered User Pete Martin's Avatar
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    To me, the requirements of the rhythum section for the style of music determines what type of chord we play. #

    When folks play Bluegrass, the music needs the chop from the mando, thus the long stretching chop chords, which do this best. #Playing jazz, players dont use chop chords, as they don't voice well for using jazz type chords (major 7, dominant 7, minor 7, diminished, etc.)

    Only study and experience tells us what sounds best. #Chord books with thousands of chords don't help. #A good teacher is way better IMHO.
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    Jams can be tuff for a beginning mando player, especially if you have never played guitar. You tend to have one or 2 good rythmn guitar players who know the chords to most songs and everyone else is just following them (and sometimes strumming loudly). The other problem is that guitar and banjo usually get capo'd so that if anyone is calling out chords they're probably not calling out the actual chord but the chord relative to the capo position.

    See if you can get a decent guitar player to practice with you one-on -one. They'll be able to help you memorize the chord progression to a few songs and you'll probably learn to watch their hands and learn how to follow their lead on chord changes.

    Also playing along with your favorite CD is good because you can repeat a song over and over until you get it or just let it play and force yourself to see how quickly you can pick up the key and play along when a new song starts.

    When in doubt, chop a muted I chord. You'll be contributing to the rythmn without detracting much musically in most cases even when it's not the right chord for that particular point in the song.

    Don't forget to listen and enjoy the music. Sometimes if you quit thinking you hear better.
    If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

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    If you know your scales and are playing diatonic-based music, the first tone in the scale is a major chord, the second and third are minor, the fourth and fifth are major, sixth is minor, and the rarely-used seventh tone is a diminished.

    So, in G Major, your basic chords are G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim.

    Though there are a million different variations, a pretty good convention is that if you end a phrase on a V chord, it feels like the next phrase will need to end on a I. Kinda like the first line in a couplet in poetry. If you're not familiar with phrasing, some reading would be a good idea.




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    Thankyou everyone for helping and/or confusing me even more than when I first started with all the technical aspects of music theory,etc. I guess music is a mathematical science of a sort, after all. (Wasn't Bach an accountant for his church... or was that some other famous decomposing composer?) Anyway, I will look for the books you all have recomended and try to locate one one those chord wheels (they're kinda like the star constellation charts the Astromony Club uses, eh?). As for just playing muted chop chords, so to avoid nasty looks from my fellow jammers, I think I have already figured that one out all by myself for I've been getting fewer nasty looks lately. Again, as I have repeated many times before, this is the one of the few times that it is actually a good thing that the banjo drowns me out! Tonight is Jam night at the Legion. Wish me luck! And stay tuned to Positive Thinking: MandoDebbie's Adventures in Bluegrass on this Mandolin Cafe Messageboard. Hmmm... I need a sponsor....
    You are only young once, but you can be immature forever.

  19. #19

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    Also, sometimes the II, III, & VI and even the IV and/or V can be 7th chords. Sounds good in swing, blues, western swing, and the like sometimes. One western swing song that I wrote several years ago is in D, and it has an Em in the verse and an E7 in the chorus (more upbeat sounding). Those are just the chords that my ear was looking for to fit the tune. I didn't know enough about theory then (or now) to do that intentionally.

    "That's Alright Mama" sounds very good playing all 7th chords... I7, IV7 & V7.

    If you can learn the scale and then the major, minor and 7th chords for each root note, you'll be well on your way. If you have an average ear, you'll soon be able to hear when you should be playing a minor or 7th instead of a major chord. Now, the diminished and augmented chords can be harder to "hear", but you can get by without them much of the time anyway. They're basically 4 or 5 note chords built on a 3 note major, minor or 7th - as far as I can tell anyway. So the more simple chords usually work. The more complex chords definitely add something extra if you know them and know when to play them. That can wait though.

    As someone already said, if you know guitar chords it is MUCH easier to follow a new song just by watching what the guitar player is playing. It might even be worth your while to learn to play rhythm guitar if you don't already know how. If you have learned how to fret a string and use a pick, you've got half the battle won. All you have to do is learn a few new chord shapes. Learning the 2nd instrument is much easier than learning the 1st.

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