I think that the guitar's strength as a chordal instrument has a lot to do with the color tones you can add to the standard triads. By choosing cool extensions and voicings you can really dress up a song in a sensual, interesting way. This week on Dark as a Dungeon I'll show you how I play the B-part, which we'll use as a canvass for adding some color to the melodic accompaniment. We'll look at some Clarence White-ish embellishments to help the melody to flow and sound more elegant. We'll also see how you can use passing Major 2 chords, ninth chords and minor 7th chords to get a richer, more interesting chordal sound than what you get from standard triads.
Enjoy!
Chris
Topics and/or subjects covered in this lesson:
Chris Eldridge
Dark As A Dungeon
Merle Travis
Johnny Cash
Print Chords & Tab
Loop 0:00 Run-Through of Dark As A Dungeon Melody
Loop 0:43 Introduction to Lesson
Loop 1:28 Breakdown of B Section Melody
Loop 17:54 Closing Thoughts
Comments
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Thanks Chris ... I appreciate the encouragement ... I'll keep plugging away. I hope everyone has a great New Year and look forward to whatever you have planned for us. This site and community have truly been a blessing.
Chris
I thought I'd upload this to show you where I'm at with it because I'd eventually like to try and sing it ... though I think I'd have to capo up even more than I am already to be able to do that. ... so anyway ... here it is not exactly played note for note or fingered the way you do it. I played directly into my lap top because I didn't feel like digging out my microphone from under the Christmas avalanche ... hope you can hear it.
Thanks
Kip
Kip, sounding great! You've made so much progress - it's awesome. I love that you are taking what I showed you and doing your own thing with it. That is what this is all about. The only critical note I've got is that a beat was cut out of the last phrase of the song (phrase starts at 1:05, beat gets skipped at 1:08). Try singing along to see what I mean. Other than that, fantastic job.
Also, thank you for always being so willing to share your videos. It's a great way for us to interact and it really helps out the rest of the community here as well. Hopefully more people will follow your lead in that regard in 2017 ;-)
Chris