Classic guitar chords that make the song, make the sound, make the guitarist, in some way. Tabbed by David Bradley with a simple infographic showing the chord chart, musician iconography and a short audio clip of Bradley playing the chord and putting it into a little bit of musical context.
My band C5 rehearsing Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” last night and trying to get that Nile Style guitar part as close as possible to the original song. Basically, the chords are Bm, D, F#m, E, with the usual Chic cleverness of not playing whole chords and doing something neat with the transitions, so there’s a bit off hammering-on and almost certainly some 6ths when it comes to the D and the E chords, and that F#m can toggle between an F#m7 when it feels happy too.
Anyway, it occurred to me that a neat mashup would work between “Get Lucky” and Tears for Fears “Mad World” (made relatively recently famous again by Gary Jules). The verse for that song is in Am, so the sequence is Am, C, G, D…but if we transpose up a tone we get… Bm, D, A, E. Now, I know what you’re thinking that’s not the same as Get Lucky, there’s an A major chord where Daft Punk play an F#m…but…look at the chords Amaj is A, C#, E. F#m is A, C#, F#. Different! But, if we add the 7th to that chord that’s the not E, so F#m7 is A, C#, E, F# or think of it another way (see diagram) F#m7 is basically an Amaj with F# as a bass note. Let’s mash!
Here’s a short clip of me playing “Get Lucky” followed by “Mad World”
Oh, by the way, that background to the chords is a photo of the windfarm off Skegness I took with a big zoom at sunset from the campsite in Stiffkey, North Norfolk, a couple of summers ago. Shout out to Roger and Jo L!
Meanwhile, persuaded my daughter to join me on vocals for a new cover of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”, which I was working on but couldn’t get as high as Pharell, here it is in all its mixed down mastered funked out technicolour glory on my Imaging Storm sound and vision site.
UPDATE: Rich, the lead guitarist in my band, C5, showed me an alternative fingering for the Em9/A in this song, a version he’d been playing since his high school band. Sounds good to me, I reckon Kossof overdubbed with this version of the chord.
“All Right Now” was the big 1970 hit from the blues-rock band Free with one of the most recognisable but easy to fluff guitar riffs of all time. Unfortunately, for the budding axe hero, Paul Kossoff was not playing anything particularly simple on a single guitar in this song by bassist Andy Fraser and singer Paul Rodgers. Ostensibly, it’s just a standard A major chord with a jangly bit of a D(add4). But, the song has been dissected and aficionados know only too well that there are at least two guitars overdubbed, one playing the A major with a fretted A on the sixth string and the other playing an A major with a fretted A and E on the 1st and 2nd strings.
The D(add4) is often played incorrectly as an open (first position) C major chord shape at the third fret, a D(add2), but the fifth string isn’t fretted in that jangly chord at all, there’s an A at the 5th on the sixth string instead of the C note on the fifth string. There’s a nice Youtube tutorial showing what’s really going on in the studio version of “All Right Now”. Of course, if your the band’s only guitarist and you want to cover this song live, you’re going to have to compromise, unless you’ve got a twin-neck and two left and two right hands.
That “jangly” D(add4) chord is, funnily enough, a substitue for an A7 that is taken up a kind of non-scale in various blues-rock songs, the break in Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” for instance, and in the main riff of Rush’s “Beneath, Between and Behind” (which inevitably sounds very like the former) and no doubt others. Have a listen to Heartbreaker from 2’51” and the opening of BB&B to hear what I mean, same riff basically, you have to agree.
I’ve now recorded myself playing the riff twice in both formats and overdubbed them here:
Ever since I first figured out how to do those funky flicks of the wrist to get the disco guitar sound I’ve attempted to get close to what Nile Rodgers does in terms of those chops; his technique is very different, unique even. Everything from the late 70s Chic and Sister Sledge stuff to Bowie’s Let’s Dance and the Daft Punk reboot of 2012. He, like many of the other greats, comes with a jazz background, so lots of his chords aren’t the usual E-A-D malarkey, but have the minor and major 7ths, 9th, 11ths, 13ths, the sixths, the 7ths with a suspended 4th, the minor7 flat 5s etc etc. There is no classic chord for Nile, there’s the whole Nile Style of The Hitmaker.
Rodgers rarely just chops at all sixth strings at once in that conventional funk motif, he selects out triads from his chords, uses slides (glissando), hammer-ons, lots of left-handed muting and various other techniques to give it that percussive feel and ultimately the sound comes from all of that combined with his vintage Fender Stratocaster.
Here’s a straight strummed E-major7 as an example classic chord of his. It’s got what I think of as a melancholic, evening summer sound, but is simultaneously uplifting and bright, definitely the bipolar world of jazz. And, that’s followed by a little Rodgers’ type riff I ad libbed. You can also hear me doing this kind of stuff, for better or for worse, on some of the funkier tracks on the Dave Bradley BandCamp page.
UPDATE: It doesn’t use Emaj7 like, this but one of my favourite recent Nile songs is, of course, Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”. We’ve performed it at a few live events as a slightly more laid back acoustic, but we’re funking it up with the current incarnation of C5. I recorded a new demo at the weekend and got my daughter to sing the high parts that I simply cannot reach without radical surgery. It’s available in the sciencebase Youtube channel, alhough all you subscribers know that already.
I also videoed myself playing a funking medley of Rodgers’ songs in June 2015
I have a confession, I’d never knowingly heard the Manic Street Preachers until I picked up a set of headphones in an HMV back in the Spring of 1996 and listened to Everything Must Go, which had just that week been released. It grabbed me from the off, it was like post-Rush prog but with a gritty edge and shorter songs, but definitely lyrical depth. I recognised some of the intriguing chord voicings, the Hemispheres chord is definiely in there somewhere, although it was some years later that I head bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire discussing his love of Rush.
The classic chord, the standout chord, though is the Gadd4, arpeggiated in the intro to the song “A Design for Life”. It’s basically third position C major but instead of fretting the B string on the fifth fret, we have that string open (C,G,C,B), so that there’s a harmonic clash between the C played on the G string and that open B string, although by breaking the chord open it gives it a melodic feel. It’s definitely a Lifesonesque thing to do, although he more commonly would be fretting the G string on the B and letting that string beat against the open B string.
TL:DR – The opening chord of The Beatles’ song A Hard Day’s Night, is a bit more complicated than you might think. It’s a G9sus4 across several instruments.
Perhaps the chord that is the most distinctive and yet the most difficult to pin down as a solo player is the opening thrash of The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”. Everybody who picks up a guitar tries to get that chord, whether classical player, rock guitarist, 12-string player, whatever. Now, I figured it was some kind of Gm11 but with something extra going on. Or perhaps an F/G but with an extra note here or there. First off, I think George Harrison is on record as saying that he was indeed playing an F/G on a 12-string, but McCartney was playing a D note on the bass. But, that still doesn’t sound right.
Now, it was guitarist Randy “You ain’t seen nothing yet” Bachman who dug out the details having had an invitation to Abbey Road Studios from Giles Martin (Beatles’ producer George’s son) who had all The Beatles’ masters on his computer in Pro Tools and asked Bachman what he wanted to hear… “A Hard Day’s Night”, obviously. So, track-by-track they listened, there’s that F/G on the 12-string from Harrison but with a G on the high E-string and a C on the A string, which makes it an Fsus2 in fact, and there’s that D note on the bass guitar from McCartney, but…and here’s the key to getting the sound, John Lennon was playing a Dsus4. That’s some mixed harmony and you could say it kickstarted rock!
“A Hard Day’s Night” was already in the queue for Classic Chords, but thanks to Sciencebase reader Darren Michaloski for bringing the Bachman video to my attention and so allowing me to fill in the Dsus4. I’ve had a go at rendering it but Bachman’s band do it so much better. Bottom line is that overall it’s basically Dm11, but you could call it F 6/9 or a G9sus4…
As I mentioned, in Classic Chord #1 in my early teens I was chasing the dream of being the next Alex Lifeson, picking out the pseudo-classical intros to songs like “Panacea”, “A Farewell to Kings” and “The Trees”, later “Broon’s Bane” from Exit…stage left and rocking out (on a nylon string guitar!) to “Working Man”, “Bastille Day” and “Circumstances”.
One recurring theme in Lifeson’s playing is the chorused ringing sound of his big open chords where he leaves the B and high E strings open and chiming but roots the chord with the bottom strings. It adds an ethereal tone to the cleaner arpeggiated sounds, such as the big F-shaped chords in “Xanadu” and “Hemispheres”, and brightens up the likes of his E5 power chords adding harmonic timbre that isn’t present if you just play the E-B-E on the bottom strings or even just the E and B as you might in more traditional heavy rock riffage.
He used this to great effect in the classic “Limelight” from Moving Pictures where he descends through a B to the open A string and the E string, but keeps his pinkie on the G-string fretted at the B and lets the open B and E strings carry the harmonics. Playing an E5 like this cuts out the often dischordant G# that you’d expect in the E-major chord, and if the pitching of that open B string against the fretted B on the G-string isn’t perfect you get some degree of phasing and beating as you do with a 12-string.
In the descending run on the “and what you say about his company” sections of Tom Sawyer from the same album, he uses a B-major shape rather than the E-major in this position and lets the bass notes descend (B-A-F#-G) across those ringing B-B-E notes on the top three strings. An arpeggiated version of that shape but shifted up a semitone to the C is used by Manic Street Preaches in their song “A Design for Life”. More Classic Chords can be found in the series, here including The Hemispheres chord, the famous Hendrix Chord from Purple Haze and many more. Meanwhile, check out some of my own music influenced to no small degree by Rush, the Manics, and dozens of others over the years.
Here’s me playing a bit of the intro riff to “Limelight” that showcases this E5 chord followed my an undistorted chorused strum or two.
Composer John Cage (1912-1992) is perhaps most famous not for the music he wrote but the silence. In the piece known as “Four minutes, thirty-three seconds”, 4’33”, which is ostensibly in three movements Cage instructed musicians, with any instrument or any combination of instruments and presumably voice to not play their instrument(s) for the during of the piece.
When it was first performed in 1952 and ever since, the audience gets nothing but the ambient sounds of the environment in which they and the performers exist for those four minutes and thirty three seconds.
Needless to say, there has been a lot of discussion of the metaphysics of what it means to write a piece of music that is entirely silence. I was thinking of forming a death metal band and calling them Homeopathetik. They would have only 4’33” in their repertoire and would never play live. This is their chord. In fact, I recorded a demo of the song years ago…stick your fingers in your ears and have a listen. One wag has already suggested I do a 12″ remix at 9’06”.
Apparently, in 2016, a band did a cover of my arrangement of this piece. I was also hoping to somehow get Napalm Death to reform so that could do a version that lasted 4.33 nanoseconds.
I thought I’d lost my death metal demo of 4’33” but I found the file, here’s a 1’09” sample from my archives, best listened to on headphones, but don’t turn it up too loud…
There’s one chord every wannabe rock guitar hero has to figure out at some point…we all listen to Jimi Hendrix, we all marvel at what he’s doing with that Fender Stratocaster, whether plucking it with his teeth or setting it on fire. But, what is it he’s doing exactly to get that E-major power chord that is something like a dominant 7th instead of a no-third, but has a little bit of funky extra hidden behind all that disortion. Well, it’s the pinkie finger on the B-string at the 9th fret that gives it the unique Hendrix flavour. Anyone could play the dominant 7th, he adds a sharp-9th.
Here’s a little sample of me attempting to do something akin to Hendrix on Purple Haze where this proto-funk rock chord features prominently
These #9 (sharp 9) chords are all over the place. There’s one at the bridge between chorus and next verse in Pink Floyd’s “Breathe”, where the chords modulate from the G major back to an E minor via D#9 and Db9 (it’s also in “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”). The bridge in the Kula Shaker version of the Joe South song “Hush” first recorded by Billy Joe Royal, then Deep Purple and Gotthard has a C#9 (same shape but with secod finger on the C at the third fret on your A string. It’s also on The Beatles’ “Taxman”, Pixies “Here Comes Your Man”, and “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave.
Intriguingly, Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” also builds on the Hendrix chord in a funky way and easily segues into Purple Haze, viz:
We all have songs that stick with us, the ones to which we’re the most attached, emotionally perhaps. “Blackbird” by The Beatles has to be one of those for me. The words are important, of course, but it’s really those chords and specifically the style and that chord at the top as he jumps up in the “dead of night”.
I think we can call it a G-aug, although it’s really only got G and B notes in it, as far as I can tell. Nevertheless, in the context of the ascending progression and subsequent descent across the arc of the melody it seems to fit with that description. I am sure purist music theorists would correct me, but a chord by any other name would sound as sweet (to paraphrase The Bard).
Anyway, I can just about play this song. It’s a perennial favourite of mine when the sun is shining, ironically enough, I’ll grab a cold beer and take my acoustic into the garden to annoy the neighbours…at least I don’t do it in the dead of night. Meanwhile, you can listen to some of my original songs via the Dave Bradley BandCamp page.
TL:DR – The Hemispheres Chord, the Alex Lifeson chord. Used in lots of Rush songs is basically a barre F# major, but you lift your barre finger off the high E and B strings, makes it an F#11.
One thing I noticed as a teen teaching myself to pick out the wondrous chords played by Rush’s Alex Lifeson by ear was that he used a lot of chords where the top two strings, the B and the E string were left to ring while a moveable chord shape, often a B major shape or more commonly an F major shape (but, not barre) was relocated up and down the neck. Occasionally, the first finger would be on the B string to make a more conventional Fmaj shape but still with that E string ringing, and the whole chord often arpeggiated intricately rather than strummed as a unit.
However, it is the Fmaj shape shifted up a fret (a semitone) to give us the rather weird, dissonant, and suspended F#11 chord (F#,C#,F#,A#,B,E) [you could call it an F#7(add11)]. It powers the opening of the Hemispheres album and was later revisited as the big power chord of “Far Cry” from the 2007 Snakes & Arrows album.
Apparently, it was producer Nick Raskulinecz who had wanted the band to put a modern twist on some of their classic musical motifs and the Lifeson Chord stood out for him. Interestingly, the way Lifeson plays the first position Emaj in the intro with his pinkie adding a B on the third string and there being no G# resembles the modified chords he uses on Moving Pictures track “Limelight”.
The “Hemispheres Chord” itself features a lot throughout Rush’s early albums in various positions up and down the neck, on The Fountain of Lamneth, in Xanadu, Hemispheres (obvs), later on The Spirit of Radio and Natural Science. Other players have used similar chords to thicken their sound and to give the six-string something of a 12-string sound. If I remember rightly, it features on some Manic Street Preachers songs too and given that bassist Nicky Wire is a massive Rush fan, that’s perhaps no surprise. And, speaking of the Manics, they also use one of those Bmaj shaped chords on the song Design for Life more on that later in my Classic Chords series. Meanwhile, check out some of my own music influenced to no small degree by Rush, the Manics, and dozens of others over the years.
I should add that there is some controversy about this chord. When you’re learning guitar, it’s a fairly obvious thing to do, lift your barre index finger from an F major and move it around the fretboard, Dream Theater’s John Petrucci reckons Lifeson invented it. Alex certainly did it on Caress of Steel (Fountain of Lamneth) with a B and an A type chord at 7th, 5th fret, respectively. But, have a listen to Journey’s mid-1970s instrumental Nickel and Dime; recorded May – October 1976. Remind you of anything?
Fundamentally, one of the two bands was perhaps massively inspired by the other’s motif. Journey supported Rush on the 2112 tour for one gig, at least. Could Alex Lifeson or Neal Schon have been more than a little inspired by the other, did they jam together and share some ideas backstage? Rush have been great assimilators of musical styles throughout their careers. The Nickel and Dime riffing in the middle is almost identical to the Xanadu rocking between E and the F#11 and arpeggiating the top edge of the chord too…and actually again in Hemispheres, Natural Science and then the ending of Tom Sawyer. Xanadu was previewed live in May 1977 by Rush.
They were probably both written at about the same time, by two guitarists who heard each other play live on the same stages. As I understand it, Schon has some beef with Lifeson with regards to the popular Tom Sawyer and not any of the earlier songs where Lifeson used this motif that pre-date Journey’s output. Bizarrely, Journey’s big hit Don’t Stop Believing is to my ear almost a straight clone of The Spirit of Radio, so who is fooling whom?
Probably also worth pointing out that Jimmy Page uses this kind of chord coupled with an Em7 chord in Achilles’ Last Stand from the 1976 Led Zeppelin album Presence, which was recorded late in 1975 some time after Rush released Caress of Steel, but, of course, Lifeson is a big fan of Page. Be interesting to know whether he thinks he invented this chord. There will be many others long before the 1970s prog rock scene that used it!
