Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Frank Gambale Magic Chords 3

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day continues our series looking at Frank Gambale's Magic Chords. This example is another chord inversion constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C. As these advanced guitar chords aren't constructed in the usual way of stacking 3rd intervals from a scale they are  ambiguous and can be used in lots of different contexts.

Frank Gambale Magic Chord


Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:
Frank Gambale Magic Chord

As with yesterday's inversion, today's Chord of the Day can be considered in many different ways.

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position. The chord can function as:

C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords

Yesterday's Frank Gambale Magic Chord post looked at using this chord a major7, today we'll give more examples of using this chord as a minor7th chord. We can play this chord in several different positions and still have it function in the same way. For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it would work as a Cminor7:

3rd position Cm11 (G, C, F, G)
5th position Cm69 (A, D, G, A)
8th position Cm11 (C, Bb, F, C)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)
13th position Cm11 (F, Bb, Eb, F)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)

Try playing through some songs you know and dropping in other Frank Gambale Magic Chords in place of major and minor inversions you might use and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.


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