Playing in the Minors

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In an earlier chapter I talked about the musical theory of how minor chords are formed. Now let's look at the practicality of actually playing them on the Dobro.

You'll recall that in the case of a resophonic, the pattern for a major chord is a straight barring across the fret where the third string is the root note. So for a D major, we can bar straight across the seventh fret--getting a D, F#, A. The pattern for a D minor looks like a chevron, the third and first strings "fretted" on the seventh fret and the second string "fretted" on the sixth fret. That would render a D, F, A. I know, unless you are using a  horseshoe for a  slide, it's going to be a bit hard to get that chevron pattern. So what do you do if you need to sit on that chord for awhile? Well, here are five solutions.

 

Solution 1: The easy minors

Some minors have patterns that use open and "fretted" strings that allow you to maintain a fixed slide position and pick the minor chord. The two I use the most are E minor and B minor.

A nice E minor is:
G B D G B D
x x 2 0 0 x

As you can see, that pattern would give you E, G, B. Voilla! E minor.

Here is a workable B minor:
G B D G B D
x x 4 4 0 0

That gives you F#, B, B, D which is an inversion of B, D, F#, which is B minor.

And these are common minors! E minor is the vi chord in the G progression (and the relative minor of G major), and Bm is the vi chord in the D progression. That opens up all the I, vi, IV, V progressions in the keys of G and D.

Solution 2: The minor seventh

Remember that a minor chord is a minor interval (3 half steps) and a major interval (4 half steps). To make a minor seventh, we just add another minor interval to the chord (the same way we make a dominant 7th). So the pattern is 1, b3, 5, b7.

OK, for starters, the flatted seventh doesn't have to be at the top, a rich-sounding seventh adds it at the bottom as in b7, 1, b3, 5.

Next, you can drop the root note if you need to (and trust me, you're going to need to) and still get a good, workable minor seventh. For one thing, the context of the song and the other instruments will establish the root note in the ear of the listener.

And here is why this is all cool.  If you "fret" the fourth, third, and second string along any fret, you are playing the b7, b3, 5 for the chord that would normally be played three frets down. Wait! It's not that bad. Play the fourth, third, and second string on the fifth fret and you are playing an A minor seventh! Technically, it's a C, but look at the notes: G, C, E. Well,an A minor seventh would be G, A, C, E. So all you've done is drop the root. Again, the other instruments and the context of the chord will establish that it is an A minor seventh.

So here is the "cheater's rule:" If you need to hold a minor, go three frets up from the fret you would play its major on--and play the fourth, third, and second strings.

For example, say you're playing a song in D and it has an F# minor. OK, you would play an F# by barring the eleventh fret. Go up to the fourteenth (or the second fret which is one octave lower) and play the fourth, third, and second strings.  (Advanced tip: One way to "sell" it to the listener is to start your chord on the true root and then slide down two frets to the flatted seventh and then hold the chord with a roll.)

Solution 3: Passive minors

If a 1, 3, 5 is a major chord and a 1, b3, 5 is a minor chord, what is a 1, 5?


Technically, it's call a fifth, but the important thing is it does not cause any dischord with the minor! So you can play a straight bar but just avoid playing the 5 and 2 strings and you are not "getting in the way" of the minor. I call that a passive minor. The only problem is that you are leaving out the money note--namely, the flatted third. Don't expect anyone to say "Cool sound," but they won't give you any dirty looks either.

Solution 4: Minor intervals

If you can cheat with a 1, 5, you should be able to cheat even BETTER with a 1 b3! What luck, the open tuning of the Dobro puts 3 half steps (minor interval) between the 5th and 4th strings and between the 2nd and 1st strings. This means that if you play the 5th or 2nd string as the root, you can easily play the minor interval by barring and playing the 4th or 1st string on the same fret.

The down side is you only have a two note chord, BUT, you can use an open string to establish the third note of the chord and get the following minors:

C minor  (C, Eb, G) 
G B D G B D
x 1 1 0 x x

E minor  (E, G, B) 
G B D G B D
x 5 5 x 0 x

G minor  (G, Bb, D) 
G B D G B D
x 8 8 x x 0

Solution 5: Play a run through the chord

Here is where all that practice you put in on playing scales pays off. If you practice playing the relative minor scale every time you practice a major scale (like I advised in an earlier chapter on practicing) then you have a nice group of runs you can play for a lot of the minor chords. 

Let's say that you need to play an A minor. Remember that A minor  is the relative minor of C (because A is the 6th note in the scale of C) and a relative minor has the same scale as its relative major. So one way to handle the A minor is to play a bit of the A minor scale for that measure. For example, you could play the following:

It doesn't have to be all of those notes or in that exact order, although that run will work pretty good as is. The point is that if you have been practicing playing the C scale, then you should be able to get that run off pretty quickly and smoothly--you've been practicing it all along!


But what if the A minor is the ii chord of a song in G? No problem, this run doesn't play the F note, which would be F natural in the key of A min but would be F sharp in the key of G. So no conflict. If there were a conflict, you would just not play the conflicted note in your run.


The principle here is to use scale runs as a basis for playing ANY chord where a straight bar is not available or where it would be impractical. For example, I play "City of New Orleans" in C and there is a quick change from one measure with an A minor chord and then one measure with an F. I use the run I show above for the A min, but I don't want to jump way up to the 10th fret to bar the F. So I just use a portion of the C scale to run through the F.

Note: As an aside. I sometimes hear people make the mistake of thinking you would play the run through the F by playing the F scale. No, you want to play the C scale but play the notes that run through the F chord. If you played the F scale, you would play a B flat which would sound dissonant. that's why you want to play the C scale, that will give you the B natural in this run.

Chords--Part 3: The Transition Chords

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I'll wrap up my discussion of chords in this third section on transition chords:

• Dominant 7th
• Dominant 9th
• Diminished

And, as a special bonus, I will discuss that tricky little chord in the scale that I have refused to discuss up to now.

The transition chords have an inherent tension in them--they're nice to listen to, but in general you don't want to hang on them for long periods of time (yes, yes, I know the blues players will disagree, especially about the dominant 7th). For example, if you're barreling along in a jam on G and the leader changes to a G7, wake up! You're probably a half-measure from changing chords.

Dominant 7th

The most common transition chord is the dominant 7th--the one people mean when they say "the seventh." Here is its pattern in the Nashville numbering system:

1, 3, 5, b7

The pattern starts with the major chord of the root note and adds a flatted 7.

So a G7 is G, B, D, F.  (Remember from my chapter on color chords that G, B, D, F#--the major plus the 7th note in the scale-- is called "G major 7"). When people say just "G seven" they are referring to the G dominant 7th.

On the Dobro, you can play the dominant 7 by fretting the first string three frets higher than the barred version of the chord.

Here is a simple G7:

G B D G B D

O O O O O 3

The following is another version that is great for doing a vibrato (playing two notes rapidly and alternately) on the 1st and 2nd string:

G B D G B D

x x x x 3 3

This pattern works for any chord. Let's say you are playing in C and are about to change chords and you want to get a C7 (C, E, G, Bb) in before you do.

Start on C:

G B D G B D

5 5 5 5 5 5

Then do a tremolo on the first and second string while you bar them on the eighth fret:

G B D G B D

x x x x 8 8

Here, the money notes are the G and Bb. And they are the only ones you need to play. Either the other players or the listener's sense memory will provide the other notes.

 

Dominant 9th

Any of the family of dominant chords is made by adding the number of the chord to a dominant 7th. So the pattern for a dominant 9 is this:

1, 3, 5, b7, 9

To play a complete G9 you would play G, B, D, F, A. 

When playing a dominant 9 you will have to pick a sequence of notes and it really helps to make sure you include the flatted 7. I often do this by playing the root chord, then play the b7 and then slide up to the 9. So to play a G9, I play the root chord, then play the first string on the third fret (F) and then slide it up to the seventh fret (A).

My absolute favorite use of a dominant 9th is as a substitution for a dominant 7, and I play it by dropping the 2nd and 3rd strings down two frets. 

Let's use the C chord transition again as our example. C9 would be C, E, G, Bb, D (the C7 plus the 9 note).

Let's say you are playing in C and are about to change chords and you want to get a C9 in before you do.

Start on C:

G B D G B D

5 5 5 5 5 5


Then do a tremolo on the third and second string while you bar them on the third fret:

G B D G B D

x x x 3 3 x

In this case the two money notes are Bb and D.

Try it and you'll recognize it right away. It's a more mellow transition that the dominant 7 would be, and it works beautifully in ballads and gospel songs.

The Diminished

I'm stretching it a bit to call a diminished a transition chord, but it does have a lot of tension and you surely would not want to play it for any length of time, Here is its pattern in Nashville notation:

1, b3, b5

It is the root note plus a flatted third and a flatted fifth.

Here is a classic use of it in bluegrass to end a song on a D chord. The second chord is a D dim, using the the b3 (F) and b5 (Ab):

G B D G B D

x x 7 x 7 x

G B D G B D

x x 6 x 6 x

G B D G B D

x x 5 x 5 x

G B D G B D

7 x 7 x x x 

That same run can be played going up to transition into a D.



Here are the opening chords to Panhandle Rag that build around a D6 rather that a straight D:

G B D G B D

x 7 7 x 0 x

G B D G B D

x 6 6 x 0 x

G B D G B D

x 5 5 x 0 x

The Chord of Whom I Do Not Speak--and a Fiddler Named Throckmorton

 
Remember this graphic?

 













Well now we can speak of the asterisked chord: It is an F# diminished. 

But I've got a big problem with it!

The first six chords have a particular beauty and closure about them. The three major chords are the tonic (G), dominant (D), and sub-dominant (C) chords. The three minor chords are their respective relative minors.

Then we get that darn F# diminished! What's with that? It's like meeting the folks in a jam: The banjo guy says, "I'm Fred," the mandolin player says, "I'm Skip," the guitar player says, "I'm Jack," and then the fiddler says, "I'm Throckmorton." What the...??!! How did he end up with the others?

And that's the problem I have with the F# diminished here--it just doesn't seem to belong. Have you EVER played a song in G where an F# diminished showed up? I haven't. But the other six chords are mainstays for G progressions.

I've fretted (no pun intended) over this for a while, and I think I've resolved it, at least for me. That seventh chord is a D7 without the root D. A seventh is the 1 3 5 b7 and in the case of D the 3, 5, and flatted 7 would be F#, A, C--exactly what we have in an F# diminished. That would make more sense, except now I have the problem of where did the lost root note go? That's a problem I pondered for a long time.

Then my tech writer background kicked in and I solved it! Think of these seven chords as a seven-page document in a word processor. The first six are in Portrait and the pages are three strings wide. That's plenty wide enough because major and minor chords are properly rendered with three notes. 1, 3, 5 or a 1, b3, 5.

But what if the last page is supposed to be in Landscape? That would make the page four strings wide and--lo and behold--look what we now see if we go into Landscape view: D, F#, A, C  our D7. We were missing the root because it takes four notes to properly render a dominant 7th and we were looking at just the last three! Now it's as if that fiddler named Throckmorton winks at me and adds, "But my friends call me Buddy."

I'm sure the purists will take me to task for this, just as I'm sure Throckmorton's mother thinks it's a perfectly lovely name. But for me the world makes sense again.

Chords--Part 2: The Color Chords

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OK, get out the wine, light some aroma therapy candles, and practice your very best FM radio DJ voice, because we are going to cover some of the cooler, laid-back chords.

Specifically, we will cover the Suspended 2, Suspended 4, 6th, and the Major 7th (not to be confused with the Dominant 7th--the one you are probably used to).

Suspended (sus) Chords

Here are the patterns:
Sus2: 1, 2, 5
Sus4: 1, 4, 5

Pretty easy to remember in context of the major chord 1, 3, 5. Just replace the middle 3 note with a 2 note or 4 note.

Sus4

Let's start with the sus4 because it's the one you probably hear more often. Let's say you're playing a ballad in G and there is a measure or two between verses or between the chorus and verse where you just hang out on the G. Instead of just rolling on the G chord with open strings, try starting with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings open, but then play the 2nd string on the first fret for a beat or two (continue playing the 1st and 3rd strings open), then come off. That is a Gsus4 you're throwing in there when you fret the second string on the first fret. Experiment with how long to hold it before coming off. Like with most of the color chords, less is probably better. To me it has the effect of watching a paper airplane gliding to a landing but then at the last second it wafts up one last time for just a second before it touches down.

You can play a sus4 on any of the bar chords by starting on the straight bar chord, then slide up one fret to the 4 note on the middle string (mute the other two) and then slide back down to the 3 note in the straight bar position to come out of the sus4. Once again, decide how long to hold the 4 note based on the effect you want.

Sus2

To me the sus2 has a very similar effect as the sus4, and I use it much the same was as a sus4. A Gsus2 is easily played by playing the 3rd string open then hammering the 3rd string on the 2nd fret then playing the one string. Here is a roll pattern that Jerry Douglas uses in the key of C. It is built on the Csus2 chord (because of the open 1st string which is a D), which provides its distinctive sound. [1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6th

The Major 6th is a jazzy little chord with the pattern: 1, 3, 5, 6


An easy way to play a G6 is just play the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings open and then hammer on the 2nd fret of the 1st string. That gives you a  G, B, D, E.



If you've ever heard Panhandle Rag and wondered where it gets its jazzy sound, it uses D6 a lot by barring on the 7th fret but leaving the 2nd string (B) open. (D, F#, A, B)

Here is another Jerry Douglas roll exercise that is built around a D6 chord. The open 2nd string is a B. [1]

Note: You can also play a Minor 6 with the pattern 1, b3, 5, 6.

Money Notes

The 6th chord is the first chord we've talked about that has more than three notes, and so this is a good opportunity to talk about an important principle of playing chords with a Dobro, Namely:

You don't have to play every note in the chord!

Sometimes the combination of key, chord, and melody just make it darn near impossible to get every note in. In these cases, you want to let the Dobro stress the "money note," that is, the one that really establishes the chord you are playing. To find the money note, just ask yourself "How is this chord different from just a plain old 1-3-5 major chord? In the chords we have studied so far the money notes are the following:

• Flatted 3rd in a minor
• 2 note in a sus2
• 4 note in a sus4
• 6 note in a 6th

Another important note in establishing a chord is the root note for that chord. So if you want to get the essence of D6, you could play a D and an A (1, 6).

Playing a 1, 3, 6 or a 1, 5, 6 gets you even closer.

What about all those other other notes you're not playing? Hey, you're not the only one in the band or in the jam! Whoever is playing rhythm will pick them up, or if they are in the melody line, the singer or whoever is playing the solo break will pick them up .

Major 7th

This isn't the 7th you're used to playing--that one is a dominant 7th, and we will talk about that one in the lesson on transition chords.

This one is the grand daddy of cool chords and you will recognize it as soon as you play it. Here is the pattern:
1, 3, 5, 7

The reason it is called a major 7th is that it adds a major interval (four half-steps) to the root chord.

It can be especially effective at the end of a sad ballad. (I use it to end Over the Rainbow and Both Sides Now.) Here are two alternate endings using a G Major 7:

Conclusion

These are not what you would call traditional blue grass chords, but when you play them on a Dobro, especially if you pick the strings a little up the neck, say right between the sound holes, where you get those rich even-order harmonics like the notes are coming from a Les Paul through a vacuum tube amp--you will add some real mood to the right songs.

Now, let me go to the fridge and pour another glass of my cardboard-eaux (wine-in-a-box) and play like Josh wearing an ascot.

[1] http://www.homespuntapes.com/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=1015566&A=SearchResult&SearchID=2507194&ObjectID=1015566&ObjectType=27

 Chords-Part 1: Major and Minors

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A chord is a group of notes (usually three or four) that have a complementary relationship when played together--that is, they go together in a pleasant or emotive way.

On the one hand, you can think of them as melodic probabilities. For example if you tell me the chord for a particular part of a bluegrass song is A minor, I'd be willing to bet that the melody at that part starts or ends on an  A, C, or E.

Chords also put melodic notes into a context or mood. For example, the note B can be found in the chord of G major, and it is also in the chord of E minor. If you sang a song that was just the note of B repeated over and over (hey, don't laugh, the group America got away with just about that in the song Horse with No Name), and I backed you up by starting on a G major chord and then shifted to an E minor, the mood of your simple song would suddenly shift.

Go to any book store and look at a chord book and you could easily feel overwhelmed by the number of chords there are. But we are going to learn the patterns for just nine chords, and these will supply you with darn near every chord you could possibly want to use in bluegrass.

We'll cover them in three categories:

• Building block chords: Major and minor
• Color chords: Suspended 2, suspended 4, 6th, and major 7th
• Transition chords: Dominant 7th, dominant 9th, and diminished

In this post, I talk about major and minor chords; I will cover the others in my next posts.

Intervals

Chord theory relies on the concept of an interval. An interval is the distance between two notes, and we measure intervals in half steps (frets). A major interval is four half steps and a minor interval is three half steps. OK, let's take that and go build some chords.

Major Chords

Rule: To build a major chord, start with a major interval and add a minor interval.

For example, let's look at the G major chord--the open tuning standard for the Dobro.
G, B, D

Lay your bar on the fourth fret of the G string and what do you get? B! Lay your bar on the third fret of the B string and what do you get? D! So there are four half steps between the G and B, and there are three half steps between B and D. A major interval and a minor interval. All major chords are built using that pattern.

Here's the pattern for a major chord in the Nashville numbering system: 1, 3, 5, where 1 is the root note of the chord. So to make a G major chord, start playing the scale in the key of G--the 1, 3, and 5 notes of that scale make up the G major. In this case, G, B, D.

Try it for a C major chord. Start at C and play the scale in C. What are the 1, 3, and 5 notes? C, E, G. That's a C major.

Minor Chords

Rule: To build a minor chord, start with a minor interval and add a major interval.

The pattern for minor chords are 1, b3, 5. In other words, a minor chord looks like its major chord form, but the middle note is flatted a half step. That makes three half steps between the first and second note, and four half steps between the second and third notes.

For example, an A major chord is A, C#, E. The A minor is A, C, E. Same as the major but the middle note is dropped a half step--i.e., we take the C# down a half step to C..

Why do I call these two chord types the building blocks? Well, for one thing, there's hardly any song you can't play if you know the major and minor chords. We'll see how the others can make some cool transitions or add some emotive color to your playing, but really, the majors and minors do all the heavy lifting in bluegrass.

And the scale is made up almost exclusively of the individual patterns created by these chords--which I'll talk about next.

 

Chords in the Scale

Ivan Rosenberg took me through the following exercise.

Start at the beginning of the scale and start making three-note chords by doing the following:

1. Play a note.
2. Skip a note.
3. Play a note.
4. Skip a note. 
5. Play a note.

Every time you do this, go up a note and continue until you have started a chord with every note in the scale. Here's what you get:
1, 3, 5
2, 4, 6
3, 5, 7
4, 6, 1
5, 7, 2
6, 1, 3
7, 2, 4

If you were in the key of G, this is what you would be playing (work them out on your fret board and notice the intervals):

1, 3, 5 (G,B,D: a major interval and a minor interval--G major)
2, 4, 6 (A,C,E: a minor interval and a major interval--A minor)
3, 5, 7 (B, D, F#: a minor interval and a major interval--B minor)
4, 6, 1 (C,E,G: a major interval and a minor interval--C major)
5, 7, 2 (D, F#, A: a major interval and a minor interval--D major)
6, 1, 3 (E, G, B: a minor interval and a major interval--E minor)
7, 2, 4 (can we just not talk about this one until later?)

So the scale contains three major chords, the I, IV, and V. How many times in bluegrass do you hear people ask "What's the chord progression?" and the answer is "Oh, it's just a I, IV, V."

Then you have the three minors: ii, iii, and vi. Notice that these are the relative minors of the three majors. G major/E minor, C major/A minor, and D major/B minor. Is that cool or what?

My first Dobro instructor, Mark Van Allen, made the same point but in a slightly different way.

He played the scale of G all up and down the top three strings from open to the 12th fret. He then asked me to imagine that we placed an adhesive dot on every spot on the fret board we had played a note (including open strings as dots on the nut).

It made the following patterns:

 

Since the Dobro is tuned to a major chord, you can see our three major chords of G, C, and D are straight bars. The three minors make a chevron like pattern, because the middle note of the major is flatted a half step. (Don't worry just yet about that hockey stick shaped guy I'm not talking about. I promise I will get to him later.)

By the way, I'll talk in another post about how to actually play minor chords, since you probably don't have a chevron shaped bar handy.

But there is more here than just a way to play chords. Think of each of these patterns as a roadmap for its particular section of the fret board. Learn their names, their notes' real names, and their notes' Nashville numbers. Then if you are on a note and someone asks, "What note is that?" you can just visualize what chord "map" it is in and instantly name it. And going the other way,  if I'm reading some sheet music and the note is F#, I know that shows up in my B minor and my D major map and that's how I find it.

In my next post, I'll talk about the color chords (you might want to have candles and wine handy for that one).