Friday, August 15, 2014

A practical tool for writing chords

There are many formats used for writing down chords, all of them non compatible of course :(

I have prepared a simple tool you can use, amend, etc ... It´s in Excel, so you may use Office or Open Office or whatever, it will work.

As you may see, I have prepared it in two different styles. As a example, I have written down the E chord. In one of the spreadsheets, you may change the color of the cell (they are square of course as it is an Excel spreadsheet). In the other one, you may just drag some of the black circles to the positions you need in order to draw the chords you want to work with or you want to print.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByEh7B3Y4qIlOGZLcDkzWGQ1aFE/edit?usp=sharing




Hope it helps :)

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Simple tricks for figuring out chords


A common question when it comes to figure out the chords of a given song is … well … how do we figure them out?

Nowadays, thanks to Internet, you may find nearly any song and its chords just with one click. But let´s say you don´t have an Internet access or the song is pretty obscure and nobody dared uploading the chords to Internet.

So, there we go. First thing, the chords progression are not random, (only in experimental music, but let´s not stray from our path) and there´s always an underlying harmony structure. Problem is, many of us have no idea whatsoever about harmony, so here are two basic tricks:

A - If a song –most popular songs apply- goes like this: opening, verse, chorus, verse, and ends on the chorus, then you have three different parts to learn. Some songs have non-chorus based structure but they are not common in pop music.

B - To figure out the chords, figure out the bassline (this is the key trick). The easiest way is trying to play the bass line on the low E string (la cuerda de Mi grave). Let´s say the bass line is E (Mi)– G (Sol) – A (La) then most likely the chords will be E G A (probably Major, so try first with the Major chords).

Once you have it all figured out, from then onwards, you might try experimenting with the 7th, the 6th, the sus2, sus4, whatever … provided that it “sounds” Ok to you.

Once again, in order to do this you don´t need to know anything about harmony, however some basics might be helpful, but it´s up to you -and me by the way :)- to investigate a little bit.

Hope it helps :)

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Let's Kick it up a Notch...Gipsy Kings / Chambao!

Beginning in September, we will begin to add more styles of playing guitar. A good way to begin playing flamenco styles is by learning Rhumba (rumba). Some of us can play the guitar parts and others can sing. We can also add percussion and "palmas".
Lyrics:
Gipsy Kings / Chambao- Caminando por la Calle