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Do It Yourself

Fret Fax

Article from Phaze 1, January 1989


HANDS UP ANYONE who's fed up with D and A7 as a chord change! That's where we left off last month, struggling with the physical problem of moving between the two shapes.

If you're new to this Fret Fax lark, you'll get the background information on tuning and working out chord shapes from box diagrams in the first two articles (send off to the address at the front of the mag for back issues), though with a bit of luck, this article will clear up any problems you may have reading the boxes. Here are D and A7 again (Diagram A).


Remember, you should be playing only strings 1-4 on the D chord and strings 1-5 on the A7 chord. The number of strings you strike on any chord is vital. Your ear should tell you when you play a wrong string with a particular shape. For instance, play all six strings while you're holding the D chord shape, and the result will be horrendous - because you've now included the Open 6th string E in your D major chord, and a D major chord just shouldn't have an E in it. More of the technicalities as the series progresses; for now, just follow each instruction as it comes and you should be OK.


There are three new chord shapes in Diagram B. (Em stands for E minor, "m" being the conventional symbol for a minor chord type.) When you're playing the G chord, particularly, you'll probably find it's a bit of a stretch trying to use the fingering I've shown. Persevere with the 4th finger (your little finger, remember) in the left hand though, since this is the key to the most economical way of changing chords in the long run. The whole point of all basic chord shapes is to provide the easiest route from one change to the next. It's no use having a simpler fingering if it doesn't allow you to make the changes you want as smoothly as possible.

So, what we have is another example of a physical problem rather than a musical one. It's obvious, when you try and change from G to C, that the 2nd and 3rd fingers of your left hand have to travel a much shorter distance between the two chord changes if you finger G as in Diagram C, rather than in Diagram D.



Just to clarify that, here are the five chords shown together (Diagram E), so you an practise the left hand movements. Pay particular attention to the common fingers between chord changes - in other words, the fingers that you an leave on the neck of the guitar as you change the chords. (I've marked these with an arrow in the order I've shown them here.)

The next stage is to practise "ghosting" the changes in the left hand, watching the way your fingers track from one chord to the next. This is very important, and short-circuits the learning process if you do it carefully. Be certain that your "verbal movement" is sensible, by which I mean: does your left hand 2nd finger go down the line of the 2nd fret when you change strings in the G to A7 change, or does it spiral a couple of inches?

Practise the progressions in Diagram F, strumming or using a fingerstyle. Count four beats to each bar, and play slowly and evenly, preferably counting aloud to start with. If you find it difficult to count and play, record a count onto cassette, and play to that: 1 2 3 4/1 2 3 4/1 2 3 4, and so on. In time, you should be able to count and play live. Trying to count live, and out loud, is good practice because at some stage, chances are you'll want to be able to sing and play at the same time.


Now you should be ready to try your first song material. I hope you've been reading the "Do-It-Yourself' articles back to back; if so, you'll have seen some discussion of 'The Locomotion' in Jenni Cooper's 'Write Now' series. Here are the chords for the verse of that song, shown as a block diagram (Diagram G).


Notice the problem of changing to D in the last line on the last beat of the 13th bar, rather than on the first beat of the next bar. Read over the article on the lyric of 'The Locomotion', and you'll see why this is the way it is. Practise the whole thing (remembering to strum or pluck the correct number of strings for each chord), and you should get some idea of the format, providing you've practised the basic changes enough in the first place.

You should now be able to sing and play the lyric shown in Jenni's article. I'm deliberately not writing it here, because you'll want to inflect your own style as you play the steady "four-in-a-bar" accompaniment.

As we go on, you'll no doubt find the steady, metric four-to-a-bar feel quite tedious. So if you want to experiment with a more "rhythmic" strum, go ahead. Just remember the basic pulse is still four-in-a-bar, and that's what keeps you in time!


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Black Is Back

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Key Lines


Publisher: Phaze 1 - Phaze 1 Publishing

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Phaze 1 - Jan 1989

Do It Yourself

Feature by Peter Driver

Previous article in this issue:

> Black Is Back

Next article in this issue:

> Key Lines


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