Frank Gambale Magic Chords 4

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day continues our series looking at Frank Gambale's Magic Chords.
Here's the fingering for this guitar 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

We've looked at using the Magic chord as major7 and minor7 chords, today we'll look at using the Magic Chord as a Dominant 7th chord.  For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it could function as a C7:

2nd position C13 (D, G, A, D)
5th position C11 (F, Bb, C, F)
7th position C9 (G, C, D, G)
9th position C69 (A, D, E, A)
12th position C11 (C, F, G, C)

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. 

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.

Here's the fingering for this guitar 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.

Frank Gambale Magic Chords 2

Continuing our look at Frank Gambale's "Magic Chords", today introduces another inversion of the Magic Chord constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C.

Here's the fingering for this guitar 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
chords

Alternatively we could 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 Cmajor7:
2nd position (B, E, A, E, A) - C major 13
5th position (D, G, C, G, C) - C add9
7th position (E, A, D, A, D) -C69
9th position (F#, B, D, B, E) - Cmajor7#11
10th position (G, C, F, C, F) - Csus4
12th position (A, D, G, D, G) - C69

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

Frank Gambale 'Magic Chords' 1

Some years ago, guitarist Frank Gambale had a regular monthly column in Guitar Player magazine. Some of his monthly columns looked at what he described as Magic Chords. These are advanced guitar chords that are constructed differently to regular triads and are therefore a little ambiguous. The good thing about this is that we can use this chords in several different contexts.

The first Magic Chord is constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C. We might think of this as being a Csus2 chord:  

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

It's not necessary or sometimes even possible to play all of the notes in a chord, so we can also think of this same chord in the same position in several different ways. Here are some examples of how we could use this same chord - the intervals we're using from the chord are after the chord symbol:

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

That's a lot of possible uses for one chord. Try using this magic chord in some of the songs you usually play and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.