A b5, B b5 and C5 played in this way (6th, 8th and 10th frets) sounds similar to the heavier “woo hoo” section in Song 2.A diminished seventh chord usually has a tense, dissonant, and dense sound. F5, for example, is now at the third fret and E b5 is at the first fret. Just remember to recalibrate your brain to the change of notes on your E string. The great thing about drop D tuning is that you can play a five chord using just one finger, and the lower pitch makes it sound even heavier. Around a quarter or half a turn down and they should be an octave apart. Grab the tuning peg for your low E string and sound the note at the same time as your open D string. We end with a new departure for Chord Clinic – drop D tuning. The other shapes in the example show that these chords are playable on other pairs of strings too. Play them by flattening your first finger across two strings. As you can see from the first three chords, these can be moved around, too. Because we don’t generally recognise there being such a chord as D4 or A4 (though personally I think that would be just fine), we have to say G5/D, or D5/A, meaning G5 with D in the bass, or D5 with A bass. You have heard this interval if you’ve ever listened to the intro to Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water. Turn a fifth upside down and you get a fourth, which coincidentally happens to be the interval between most of the guitar’s strings. Playing in this style, though, is harder than it might seem accurate picking and left-hand damping are essential. The recorded version, at least for the intro and verses, demonstrates that you don’t have to use distortion when playing five chords. The first two chords in figure 4 were used in a different order to make Blur’s Song 2, which has one of the best guitar riffs of all time. You really can play just the root and the fifth, and when it comes to sliding chords around this can make things much easier. You don’t have to add that extra root note at the top of a five chord. The E b5 chord shows that the D5 from figure 1 also makes a movable shape, albeit somewhat high in pitch. There are hundreds of bands who have made use of this type of chord on thousands of songs, from pop to rock to metal to… well, maybe not jazz funk but you get the idea. Try sliding the F5 chord up two frets to G5 for The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, or keep the F5 and B b5 and slide up to A b5 and D b5 at the fourth fret for something akin to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. F# is the same as G b, G# is the same as A b and so on… For theoretical reasons related to key, we often use flats instead of sharps. Just remember, there is a sharp between every note – except between B and C, and E and F. Knowing your chromatic scale is clearly useful with these and other movable chords. Carrying on fret by fret will give you B5, C5, C#5, D5 and so on, until you reach A5 again at the 12th fret. B b5 is the same as A5, moved up one fret. Continuing up one fret at a time from there would give you F#5, G5, G#5, A5 and so on, until you reach E5 again at the 12th fret. So, basically, F5 is the E5 shape moved up one fret. You can slide them around to your heart’s content and invent your own five-chord riffs, but to name them it’s best to recognise where the root note of each chord is and then familiarise yourself with the names of the notes on that string. The chords in figure 3 are movable – they include no open strings and each shape can be moved and played at every fret. One of the coolest things about five chords is the ease with which they can be moved around the guitar. Ziggy, as Mr Bowie pointed out, played guitar… Then play some slash chords (see last month’s lesson): C, C/B, C/A and round again. You could also experiment with G5, followed by D and Dsus4, wiggling your little finger on and off as you strum. For the sake of completeness, we’ve included a stacked-up C5 as well, although G5 also sounds good followed by Cadd9, keeping the same top two notes. The second chord shows that you can also stack up the roots and fifths to produce a five-note G5 chord. Try starting on A5 for some Van Halen-style rhythm parts. In figure 2, the three-note G5 chord includes a muted A string.
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