This video goes great with your fret board video!! A HUGE light just went off on my head!!! Thank you so much!!! I've been learning for about a year now and I know a few songs but now I'm ready to learn about my uke. Thanks again!!!
I'm convinced! Sometimes when I'm unsure or I forget a chord shape, I find the notes within that chord and try figuring it out. Sometimes I'll play a chord and consciously ask myself,"Now what notes am I playing?" Playing chords are new and difficult for me. It's just my way of trying to understand them better. 😊🎶
This is really useful advice. For example, when I was quite a newcomer to the ukulele, I was at a jug band play-along meeting where the leaders handed out song sheets. One of the chord names was unfamiliar to me and to most of the people around me, and there were no chord grids on the sheet. I didn't have my chord reference card at that time, but I recognized that the chord could be constructed by moving a familiar chord up a whole step higher in pitch. I showed the others how to make the chord and we were in the groove.
And that, right there, is being a musician! You spend an awful lot of time figuring out what is going on or digging yourself out of a hole, but with enough skills, you can do it.
There's a little nuance that you didn't touch upon, Phil. Sometimes the root note is actually omitted but your ear hears the chord as though it had the root. A perfect example is the Hawaiian D7: 2020 (reading from string 4 to 1 on a C6 tuned ukulele). That's ACF#A which clearly has no D in it. Yet it sounds like a fine D7 in the context of songs. In a band, there may be another instrument, such as a bass, which plays the missing root to fill in the gap, but even without that, our brain seems to fill in the implied root. It's mysterious. I wonder if there are other rootless chords we play without realizing it.
That's a very good point! The 2020 D7 is probably the most common, but I sometimes play B7 as 2320, which bas no B in it. Most 9th choird voicing drop the root too, as those are 5 note chords, plus the 9th is physically close to the root, and usually found on the same string. I was recently watching jazz guitarist James Chirillo talking about using 3, 2 or even 1 note when playing rhythm (basically playing a harmony line to the walking bass), and many players will focus just on the 3rd and 7th of a chord, as that's where most of the info about the chord's 'flavour' is. It's amazing what the listeners brain can fill in!
this is _exactly_ why I came in to comment. while I’ve often used the “count up the fingerboard“ method to find a different voicing of the same chord, and it’s really helped to spice up my arrangements, my aging brain can’t handle that process on the fly. I rarely disagree with you (cuz like… I love you man) but sometimes cheating like nearly every politician in the world is the only way to get where you’re going. so when there’s no root I default to using one of those chord finder apps. it’s probably not the correct way to do this, but it’s most always the way that works.
watching you videos for one week, i learned more about music than the last 33 years.🙏
First class instruction. Thank you very much.
This video goes great with your fret board video!! A HUGE light just went off on my head!!! Thank you so much!!! I've been learning for about a year now and I know a few songs but now I'm ready to learn about my uke. Thanks again!!!
I'm convinced! Sometimes when I'm unsure or I forget a chord shape, I find the notes within that chord and try figuring it out. Sometimes I'll play a chord and consciously ask myself,"Now what notes am I playing?" Playing chords are new and difficult for me. It's just my way of trying to understand them better. 😊🎶
Great again, now watching your learn the fingerboard video.
You make it easy to learn.
Excellent advice and not just for ukulele.
This is really useful advice. For example, when I was quite a newcomer to the ukulele, I was at a jug band play-along meeting where the leaders handed out song sheets. One of the chord names was unfamiliar to me and to most of the people around me, and there were no chord grids on the sheet. I didn't have my chord reference card at that time, but I recognized that the chord could be constructed by moving a familiar chord up a whole step higher in pitch. I showed the others how to make the chord and we were in the groove.
And that, right there, is being a musician! You spend an awful lot of time figuring out what is going on or digging yourself out of a hole, but with enough skills, you can do it.
Clearly explained, thanks Phil.
Nice one Phil. 🙂👍
There's a little nuance that you didn't touch upon, Phil. Sometimes the root note is actually omitted but your ear hears the chord as though it had the root. A perfect example is the Hawaiian D7: 2020 (reading from string 4 to 1 on a C6 tuned ukulele). That's ACF#A which clearly has no D in it. Yet it sounds like a fine D7 in the context of songs. In a band, there may be another instrument, such as a bass, which plays the missing root to fill in the gap, but even without that, our brain seems to fill in the implied root. It's mysterious. I wonder if there are other rootless chords we play without realizing it.
That's a very good point! The 2020 D7 is probably the most common, but I sometimes play B7 as 2320, which bas no B in it. Most 9th choird voicing drop the root too, as those are 5 note chords, plus the 9th is physically close to the root, and usually found on the same string.
I was recently watching jazz guitarist James Chirillo talking about using 3, 2 or even 1 note when playing rhythm (basically playing a harmony line to the walking bass), and many players will focus just on the 3rd and 7th of a chord, as that's where most of the info about the chord's 'flavour' is. It's amazing what the listeners brain can fill in!
this is _exactly_ why I came in to comment. while I’ve often used the “count up the fingerboard“ method to find a different voicing of the same chord, and it’s really helped to spice up my arrangements, my aging brain can’t handle that process on the fly. I rarely disagree with you (cuz like… I love you man) but sometimes cheating like nearly every politician in the world is the only way to get where you’re going. so when there’s no root I default to using one of those chord finder apps.
it’s probably not the correct way to do this, but it’s most always the way that works.
phil, excellent. please do the same for the baritone uke. It will open up a world for me.
Will do!
Thanks for that tutorial very helpful cheers John 🍺
Wow