Hey everybody, I thought I would try and come up with some useful chord recipes and post them.

Most any chord starts with a "Triad" (ROOT + 3RD + 5TH)
Remember just use the Root note + it's Key Signature to build the chord and it's appropriate chord tones.

Minor Chord = Flat the 3rd

Diminished Chord = Flat the 3rd and the 5th

Augmented Chord = Sharp the 5th

Major 7th Chord = Just add the regular 7th of the scale to your chord

7th chord = Just add the Flatted 7th tone of the scale to your chord

Minor 7th Chord = Flat the 3rd and the 7th

Minor 7th Flat 5 = Flat the 3rd , 5th, and the 7th

Augmented 7th = Sharp the 5th and add a Flat 7th

Diminished 7th = Flat the 3rd, Flat the 5th, and double flat the 7th

"Power Chord" = Just play the Root and 5th (no 3rd)

Major 6th chord = just add the 6th to a Triad

Sus4 chord = Substitute the 3rd of the chord with the 4th of the scale (it will want to resolve back to the 3rd)

"Add 9" chord (also called a Sus2) = add the 9th tone of the scale to your chord

9th chord = with the flatted 7th being in the chord also add the 9th

11th chord (or a 7sus4 chord) = with the flatted 7th being in the chord also add an 11th or 4th

13th chord = with the flatted 7th being in the chord also add the 13th or 6th

Major 9 chord = with the naturally occurring 7th also add the natural occurring 9th or 2nd

Major 13th chord = with the naturally occurring 7th also add the natural occurring 13th or 6th




"Altered Dominants" = all the following chord are a TRIAD + a 7TH added + a higher extension

Flat 9 Chord = flat the 7th and flat the 9th or 2nd

Sharp 9 chord = flat the 7th and Sharp the 9th or 2nd

Flat 13 chord (also a dominant 7th Augmented 5th) = Flat the 7th and sharp the 5th or flat the 6th or add a flatted 13th

Sharp 11th chord = Flat the 7th and Sharp the 11th or the 4th

Major 7th Sharp 11th = add the natural occurring 7th plus a sharp 11th or 4th

http://www.LessonsWithTroy.com

Posted - 02/08/2010 :  14:13:09    

I got lost after minor chords. I wouldn't know where to put those other chords.

Posted - 02/08/2010 :  14:52:16      

Troy,

Your tunes and training aids are making it difficult for me to stay away from the dobro.

Posted - 02/08/2010 :  18:14:13      

I have this book on dobro accompaniment. It invests a lot of prose on doing these chords as arpeggios. That's well and good; but in actual recordings, I hardly ever hear that sort of accompaniment. Even if you build up speed, it just sounds like the dobro pretending to be a guitar. I'm not sure what the point of trying exotic chords is.

Comments?

Posted - 02/08/2010 :  18:52:29    

Here is an example of a song with a lot of 9ths, major and minor 7ths, and major and minor 6ths. It's not Fireball Mail, but the dobro sound can be beautiful in other kinds of music besides BG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_N8CQGTo2Y

This is my solo dobro arrangement of The Christmas Song. Knowing a little about chord recipes helped me find the voicings.

Posted - 02/08/2010 :  19:44:16      

Enjoyable tune, Greg. You and Martin Gross have a nice clear tone & style.

Posted - 02/09/2010 :  00:13:21      

quote:

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Originally posted by Greg Booth
This is my solo dobro arrangement of The Christmas Song. Knowing a little about chord recipes helped me find the voicings.

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Posted - 02/09/2010 :  03:53:38    

Troy,

Your lessons and posts have been a very valuable resource to me. Thank you for everything.

Dean

Posted - 02/09/2010 :  09:13:17    

quote:

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Originally posted by StephenSelby
how much of that is exotic chords and how much is coming from the imagination of the listener.....I'm just wondering whether it confirms my view that good dobro playing is the art of deception rather then very technical stuff with chords.

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Posted - 02/09/2010 :  19:26:16      

Thanks, Greg. Point well taken.

Posted - 02/10/2010 :  05:04:37  

Great Troy!

Just a little comment. For me is not the same an Add9 chord and a Sus2 chord.

Add9 chord (as the name suggest) adds a 9th to the major triad, BUT CONSERVES THE 3RD, only adds a 9th (in fact, a 2nd) as tension, but the chords remains major.

On the other hand, a suspended chord (sus2 or sus4) haven't got the 3rd (so it's not a major nor a minor chord, but a suspended). The 3rd is substituted by the 2nd, root-2nd-5th (in sus2) and the 4th root-4th-5th (in sus4).

Ride

Posted - 02/10/2010 :  11:25:14    

Thanks Ride! Yeah, that makes sense to me.

~Troy~

Posted - 02/16/2010 :  18:05:51      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Greg Booth

Here is an example of a song with a lot of 9ths, major and minor 7ths, and major and minor 6ths. It's not Fireball Mail, but the dobro sound can be beautiful in other kinds of music besides BG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_N8CQGTo2Y

This is my solo dobro arrangement of The Christmas Song. Knowing a little about chord recipes helped me find the voicings.

---

Posted - 02/16/2010 :  19:17:55    

I first tuned my E down to play a riff on an album I played dobro on, Alaska Mando. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/pagejoe I discovered the potential of it while working on this project and I ended up using it for over half the songs. You can hear clips if you follow the link to cdbaby. I don't have a financial interest in the cd, but I recommend it and it has a lot of dobro on it. Joe Page and his music is very Grisman-esque. Since then I found out that Mike Auldridge used it on his recording of "Killing Me Softly" on Dobro/Blues and Bluegrass. http://popup.lala.com/popup/432627107977321526 I find that the possibilities the 6 in the bass opens up far outweigh the inconvenience of not having the low G, and when I need the standard G tuning it's easy to tune the one string up. You can hear some more of my arrangements with it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/aksliderdobro I gave some workshops at the Resosummit on the EBDGBD tuning last fall and plan to do it again in October.

Posted - 02/28/2010 :  19:40:49      

Greg, I've learned your 'Christmas Song'. It's going great on the lap steel (somehow doesn't sound quite as good on my Dobro.)

Your treatment would be great on 'Moon River', 'Over the Rainbow' and similar schmalzy songs. Do you have any tabs for those, before I try to re-invent the wheel and do my own?

Posted - 03/11/2010 :  22:54:39      

Bump question above.

Posted - 03/12/2010 :  06:25:35    

Stephen - is the book you mention the Doug Cox "Backup Dobro" book?

If it is, I had a similar opinion regarding the arepeggios and such. In regards to all of these different types of chords, it would seem they apply more to solo compositions than anything else. To me, it's definitely "the dobro trying to sound like a guitar" in the sense of filling up all the space in a solo piece. In a jam or band context, I'm not so sure about their relevance.