Allied to the cool looks and sound materials, they make for excellent value in what is a crowded market for semi-hollow electrics.įor many that is working out what that Varitone does and how it can shape the tone. Guild Starfire I DC and Guild Starfire I SC GVTīoth make great options for blues, jazz or rock 'n' roll but there's a nice versatility to these Starfire models' voice.The Dan Auerbach favourite remains an awesome choice for blues players looking for something to stamp their identity on. Taking this idea forward, it means you can experiment with any dom 7th chord in place of a regular 7th and come up with an alternative effect.The classic hollowbody electric that helped make the 60s swing remains every bit as relevant and thrilling today, with a range of superb blues, jazz and rock ’n’ roll tones, and a great neck. It may sound different, but it’s performing the same job it’s just an alternative colour. The most common substitution is to take an ordinary C7 and turn it into a C9 by adding a D note (Ex 9 and 10). So, given that they are a family, we can actually swap a dominant 7th for any other chord from the group with the same root without losing any of its essential character. They sound different and they function differently in music, too. Just the tiniest amount of music theory tells us that dominant chords belong to a particular musical group and are distinctly different to majors or minors. We’ve seen how it’s possible to cut a blues accompaniment down to two-note chords, but how about looking at things from the other end and actually thinking about how we can make them more interesting by adding notes, rather than subtracting them? Absolutely essential for those moments when you want to pull everything back, drop the level right down and get into some heartfelt, downhome blues! Prev of 6 Next Prev of 6 Next So, we can play an entire blues just using two-note versions of the chords we need to make it work. If you guessed that this is a two-note version of G7, you’d be spot on. Once again, we’ve cut it right down to maj 3rd and dom 7th, but wait, it gets even more interesting when we do this (see Ex 8). Magically, it has transformed itself into an F9 – exactly the chord we need to continue our blues in C. Looks exactly the same doesn’t it? Let’s fill in some detail – see Ex 7. It might not sound too pretty by itself, but watch what happens next in Ex 6. This is the part of any dominant chord that demands resolution and gives the chord its urgent, unfinished nature. These are the 7th and the maj 3rd and the interval they form is the b5th – the so-called ‘devil’s interval’. Take a look at the C7 chord in Ex 4: it’s a regular barre chord on the 8th fret, but if we strip it right down, we get the two notes in Ex 5. Here, we’re going to do things slightly differently. When we think about conveying harmonic information, it’s no wonder that we might first reach for a satisfying six-, five- or four-note chord as an accompaniment.Īfter all, the theory books tell us that there are three notes in a major chord and so there must be four in a dominant 7th, right? Absolutely correct, but what are rules if not for the observance of fools and the guidance of wise men? Try a few of these as substitutes – they’re all movable shapes and so all you have to do is move them around and voila, everything suddenly sounds more varied and interesting (Ex 3). The first thing you need to bring a bit of variety to your blues rhythm playing is an armoury of different 7th shapes to work into your playing. They’re perfectly fine, but the dominant 7th story doesn’t end there – far from it. So, if the dominant 7th is so important, why is it we always seem to default to two versions of it? These two, in fact (Ex 1 and 2). It no longer sounds like ‘your baby done left ya’ – more like you’ve just won the lottery and have decided to spend the rest of the day watching TV in bed! Not the mood we’re trying to create… To hear this for yourself, try playing a blues 12-bar all the way through using straight major chords. The restless nature of this particular chord is the backbone of a blues and adds the right touch of necessary drama to any blues song. The dominant 7th chord is the staple of blues arrangements – it’s everywhere.
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