The GoYin Store: Buy GoYin Wholesale

So I was browsing one of my new favorite blogs, Sock Pr0n (which I wish she updated more often, but knitting takes time obviously) and I was thinking about how I wish my own blog were a little less shallow than just making fun of crap that I hate.

So in an effort to supply the world with slightly more valuable content, I’ve decided to start a column on faking like you’re really awesome at playing guitar.

To kick off this long and strange trip, here is a little PSA that Slam Garfield filmed on his phone. I of course was joking, I’m only the third greatest guitarist in the world. Apparently, John Mayer actually said and did something like this in a concert in all seriousness:

Anyway, here’s the tip and trick of the day:

The jazzy/muddy sounding moveable 7th chord

Moveable chords are great, especially this one. This one got me through a lot of hard pieces in jazz band when I was in high school. Whenever I had to sight read something, which was like almost always, I often forgot which tones to add for certain chords, so I’d always just find the root tone and strum a moveable 7th.

This voicing of a moveable 7th is muddier sounding than the more common one because it puts the major 3rd as the second lowest tone in the chord. Usually the lower the 3rd is in any musical format, the muddier the sound and the more artsy and edgy you will appear. Putting the 3rd on the very bottom is hard to pull off unless you’re doing arpeggios (which is essentially what you call when notes of a chord are played in succession). Also notice that the fifth is missing, which definitely adds another element of ambiguity.

jazzy/muddy moveable seventh:

G7

—x— Dick Cheney’s clout as of late

—x— your brain on drugs

—4— major 3rd

—3— seventh

—2— major 3rd

—3— root

The more common moveable seventh:

G7

—3— root

—3— fifth

—4— major 3rd

—3— seventh

—5— fifth

—3— root

Now these are moveable chords which means you can play any 7th chord by putting the root on that note. so, if you want to play a:

Bb7 (muddy)

—x—

—x—

—7— D (major 3rd)

—6— G# (Seventh)

—5— D (major 3rd)

—6— Bb (root)