Hey guys now don't want to start a fight again about can't play chords on cbg as it's been well settled that you can well most chords anyway!!
My question today is for the guys that don't play chords do you convert the tonic of the chord and just play that single note?
Do you play all the note in a certain scale for example song in key of G you convert the chords to the note from the G scales?
Appreciate any help thanks!
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Scruggy, I've arrived late to this discussion. I read that you want to rock. I think the thing to do is go to youtube and find Mike Snowden's lesson on playing rock on a 3 string. Best rock lesson that I have seen.
Chords are made up from the notes of the scale. A major chord uses the notes from the major scale, and a minor chord uses the notes from the minor scale.
On a cigar box guitar with G open tuning, the strings are tuned 1 5 1. If you do barre "power" chords you'll be missing 3b, 6, 7b, etc. where all the "flavors" of the various chords are.
Like the others are saying, you can approximate the more complex chords by doing riffs based on the scale/chord you're trying to do. You can do riffs either across the three strings similar to a guitar at what you could call the "first position" - the first 4 frets or so. You can also do two note chords (dyads) on the first and second strings (the two skinniest ones), up and down the neck.
I'm sure there are other places to play scales and more complex chords, but those are the ones that came easiest to me and what I play the most.
You can make a heck of a lot of great music even with those limitations.
One way I think about this, in part thanks to The Phrygian Kid, is to consider a 3-string (or 6) guitar as a combination of a bunch of 1, 2, 3 (and 4, 5 and 6, in the case of a 6-stringer) string instruments, all with a variety of tunings. I've been playing standard git for 38 years, and it wasn't until 2years ago, after having been on this site for a year or so, that this finally became clear to me. It would have been clearer had I started out on a diddley bow or 3-stringer before progressing to a 6-stringer. In the case of a G-D-G 3-banger, you have a couple of possibilities for this: a 2-string G-D power chord G5, utilizing the lowest two strings with the lowest G as the root, and ignoring that first high G string; and a "reentrant" tuning, D-G, ignoring the third lower G string. You can play two note, two finger power chords on that G-D all day long up and down the neck at every fret, because of the 1-5 tuning relationship. If you are familiar with the E-G-A, E-G-B-A power chord riff from Deep Purple's classic "Smoke On The Water" (duhnt duhnt dah, duhnt duhnt dah dah, duhnt duhnt dah, dah dah), it's basically the same thing except using 3 fingers, and the lowest 3 strings on a 6-stringer, instead of two fingers and two strings, although you can also do it with two strings and two fingers. Look up the original TV show footage of DP on YouTube, and you get some very clear shots of Ritchie Blackmore playing the riff this way. Just one example of some classic rock for ya ;-)
Scruggy > Ron "Oily" SpragueSeptember 25, 2014 at 6:37pm
I always get this mixed up but you say " ignoring the third lower G string" is this lower in pitch string thickest string or the actual lowest string thinnest string?
Lowest in this case means lowest in pitch, the thickest string, the one nearest to you if you are a right hander.
ChickenboneJohn > Ron "Oily" SpragueSeptember 26, 2014 at 1:49am
This little point drives me nuts sometimes...in conventional music parlance, low or bottom string means the lowest in pitch, high or top string means the highest in pitch. To me that's totally logical..BUT lots of guitar pl;ayers say "top" string simply because to them, physically it's on the top..ie highest away from the floor.
Ron, in my book you're right, low G is the 3rd or bottom string on a 3 string guitar...I suppose it's because was classically trained (honest!) . For example, with orchestral instruments such as the fiddle, and especially with cello and double bass when you say low or bottom string , it's got to be the lowest in pitch, there can't be any other interpretation. I suppose with the guitar, people just make it up as they go along, and used whatever terminology suits them, which is fine, except when you start talking to other people, that's when conventional names come in useful.
Not only that, but when you look at a pack of 6 guitar strings, many manufacturers now label them E1 ( the thinnest, smallest diameter, furthest away from a right hander, and also therefore, the first, or top, meaning highest pitch), and E6 ( the thickest, largest diameter, closest to a right hander, and thus the last or bottom, meaning lowest in pitch). Believe me this drove me nuts when I was first learning to play, and even now, every time I sit down with a however many stringed git, I still consciously have to remind myself where first / top and last / bottom are.
That's also why I feel it necessary to define it 3 or 4 different ways, by thickness, diameter, pitch, and relation to a right handed guitarist, so there's no doubt what I mean. If I used frequency or relation to middle C, some people would get pissed off ;-).
Replies
Scruggy, I've arrived late to this discussion. I read that you want to rock. I think the thing to do is go to youtube and find Mike Snowden's lesson on playing rock on a 3 string. Best rock lesson that I have seen.
Hi Scruggy,
Chords are made up from the notes of the scale. A major chord uses the notes from the major scale, and a minor chord uses the notes from the minor scale.
On a cigar box guitar with G open tuning, the strings are tuned 1 5 1. If you do barre "power" chords you'll be missing 3b, 6, 7b, etc. where all the "flavors" of the various chords are.
Like the others are saying, you can approximate the more complex chords by doing riffs based on the scale/chord you're trying to do. You can do riffs either across the three strings similar to a guitar at what you could call the "first position" - the first 4 frets or so. You can also do two note chords (dyads) on the first and second strings (the two skinniest ones), up and down the neck.
I'm sure there are other places to play scales and more complex chords, but those are the ones that came easiest to me and what I play the most.
You can make a heck of a lot of great music even with those limitations.
This little point drives me nuts sometimes...in conventional music parlance, low or bottom string means the lowest in pitch, high or top string means the highest in pitch. To me that's totally logical..BUT lots of guitar pl;ayers say "top" string simply because to them, physically it's on the top..ie highest away from the floor.
Ron, in my book you're right, low G is the 3rd or bottom string on a 3 string guitar...I suppose it's because was classically trained (honest!) . For example, with orchestral instruments such as the fiddle, and especially with cello and double bass when you say low or bottom string , it's got to be the lowest in pitch, there can't be any other interpretation. I suppose with the guitar, people just make it up as they go along, and used whatever terminology suits them, which is fine, except when you start talking to other people, that's when conventional names come in useful.
That's also why I feel it necessary to define it 3 or 4 different ways, by thickness, diameter, pitch, and relation to a right handed guitarist, so there's no doubt what I mean. If I used frequency or relation to middle C, some people would get pissed off ;-).
(Someone had to...and Wayfinder knows I'm kidding. Sort of. Maybe...)
Meanwhile, in other news, and in case you were wondering, Texas blues wasn't all derived from T-Bone Walker: http://www.wonderingsound.com/spotlight/texas-guitar/
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