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.   

E minor11 guitar chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is E minor11 or Em11.  This chord is down in open position and works as a nice variation on a regular Em chord.
We've played a few other minor11 guitar chords here.

Minor11 chords can be played in the place of most minor chords and can replace chords ii, iii and vi in major keys.
Minor 11th chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, b3, 5, b7, 9, 11
Em11 uses these notes E, G, B, D, F#, A
Our guitar chord of the day uses the notes in this order:
E minor11 guitar chord E, B, F#, G, D, A

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C minor11

We've previously looked at a nice sounding minor 11 chord with it's root on the E string.Today we'll play a very common minor 11 inversion with it's root on the A string.
This chord is quite easy to play barring across 5 strings with your 1st finger and holding down the B string with your middle finger. This is a common inversion and was used in the famous Miles Davis track 'So What' from 'Kind of Blue' - this song used a bass riff followed by Em11 and Dm11.

Minor11 chords can be played in the place of most minor chords and can replace chord ii, iii and vi in major keys. Minor 11th chords use these degrees of the major scale: 1, b3, 5, b7, 9, 11 it's very common to leave some notes out - our inversion is missing the 5th and 9th.

Cm11 uses the notes: C, Eb, G, Bb, D, F

Our inversion uses the notes in this order: C, F, Bb, Eb, G

Tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord Of The Day.