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John Prine tabs for open tuning, 3 or 4 string?

Posted by ron carlson on July 4, 2012 at 11:51am in Performances, How to Play, Lessons, Concerts

Hey ya!  Has anybody here ever worked out dumbed down Tabs for John Prine's Paradise or any Prine tunes for that matter?  

I've been horsing around with it (Paradise) and although I can hear them in my head, can't find the chords on my geetar.  I had some of his stuff down pat for 6-string in a past life, but that was about a million years ago. Not sure how to approach it for 3-string with a open tuning.

Thanks, Ron

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  • Uncle John July 7, 2012 at 11:44am

    Ron,

       Go to a site called chordie for the chords and lyrics to songs - they have a great many.  Plus there is often a feature to change the key to the key and chords you want.   Paradise is a great song and it's in 3/4 time also called waltz time.   So it's a 3 count instead of the usual 4 count.   It's easy to play - but with a IVI git, it won't sound too good just strumming.  I would suggest you practice the 3 count hitting the big string with your thumb or pick for the ONE,  hitting the middle string for the TWO and the small string for the THREE.   You could do that with you thumb, pick or index on TWO and middle finger on THREE.  

    That pattern through out the song. 

    • ron carlson > Uncle John July 7, 2012 at 2:55pm

      Hey, thanks John!

      I'll go check out chordie  tonight when I have a little more time to spend there. I'd much rather do it now, believe you me, but I'm in the middle of spray texturing a ceiling. Just taking a break here.

      I think I'm following you on the strum pattern and will definitely give that a go. Thanks for the tip!

      RC 

  • ron carlson July 6, 2012 at 6:41pm

    Ha!  Teacher? Not sure what I would teach. I'll tell ya this much,  I would  probably make a good teacher of why it's important to stick with it and learn how to read music at a early age, that's for certain  ;)

    You must be talking about the other Ron.

  • ron carlson July 6, 2012 at 9:17am

    Hey, thanks guys!

    That should help out quite a bit to get me started and your right. I really need to take that, dig in and learn how to pull out and convert to what I need. 

    I remember buying a chord book for Prine songs (among other books)  about a hundred years ago. That was for 6 string and was kind of a cheat because it showed finger positions along with everything else so I never learned how to read anything.  It's time I actually learn how to better read and convert for myself.

    My birthdays coming up in august and my wife asked me what I wanted about a month back. I told her that ordering me up Keni's and John's  DVD's would really put a smile on my face.  Hopefully between the two approaches, I'll be able to make a little more sense out of it all.

    • Ron "Oily" Sprague > ron carlson July 6, 2012 at 12:15pm
      Ron,

      While you're waiting for your DVDs to arrive, maybe this'll help you map it out in the meantime:

      http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/3-string-blank-tab-sheet...

      And if it makes you feel any better, I haven't done this except for specific songs. Right now, I'm letting the different tunings I use dictate what I make up and play, and only later am going back and writing it down.
      • RTZGUITARS > Ron "Oily" Sprague July 6, 2012 at 6:07pm

        You should have been a teacher Ron.

        • Ron "Oily" Sprague > RTZGUITARS July 7, 2012 at 4:23am

          RTZ and Ron,

           

          Nah, tried the whole giving lessons thing - didn't work, at least in person. Didn't work with my kids - too impatient with one another. Didn't work with adults either - same problem. Argued with the kids, adults refused to practice. Now I just teach myself. Sometimes, I even listen ;-).

          But over the Internet, with a 12-hour delay - that seems to work better. And anyway, we're all learning here. Just sharing what little I know for free.

          Gotta agree with you, Ron. I really wish I would have focused on learning music much earlier in life. ot no parental support. That's precisely why I browbeat my kids to practice their instruments, but pay a real teacher come in to do the patience thing. ;-)

  • Ron "Oily" Sprague July 6, 2012 at 5:24am
    Ron (nice name ;-) ),

    RTZ's link below shows the song in D. Other sites list it in C. Here's the basic chord structure of the song (alternate chords in parentheses):

    D (C). G (F). D (C)
    A7 (G7). D (C)
    G (F). D (C)
    A7 (G7). D (C)

    There is a selection of 3-string chord charts here on CBN:

    http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/playing/forum/topics/chord-char...

    For a 3-stringer tuned G-D-G, you should be able to work out the fingering from that chart. Mapping out the fretboard for 3- and 4-stringers in different tunings is a really useful exercise, as Keni Lee Burgess will tell you, since you learn some chord theory along the way.
  • RTZGUITARS July 6, 2012 at 1:10am

    Don't have 3 string but this is a good list to work with.

    http://www.jpshrine.org/chords/leftindex.htm

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