Chords for Dark Folk Guitar - Melancholy Minor Voicings

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Hey everybody, Corey at Gemini Guitar.
So we are returning to the acoustic realm today and we'll be exploring a
couple of minor shapes.
One
sort of toward the nut more in the open position.
We are using open strings there, but we're also using
open strings in the seventh position with pretty much the same shape.
So this is a great way of using just a simple shape, moving it and getting some, you know, some good value for
what you're doing.
Okay, so first we're starting with E minor 9.
So a minor 9 chord features the minor seventh along with the
ninth and in this case, we've got the root and the fifth along for the ride.
So we've got the open E
which is our root.
The second string second fret where my [E] first finger is and that's the B note which functions as our [F#] fifth.
The F sharp is our [G] ninth.
The G is our third.
_ D is our minor seventh and we've got another [Em] repeating root on top with the E.
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_ _ There's something very wintry about this sound.
I'm thinking Nick Drake just a little although he did use alternate tunings, of course.
But it just brings that to mind.
So what we're gonna do
is just make one change.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna add in the 11th and [E] that's at the fifth on string one.
So that's the A note.
[B] _ _
_ [N] Now remember that all these degrees are formed from the scale.
So on the E minor scale
if we play from the root at the second fret on the D string and we went up
11 in that scale, that's basically how we arrive at the 11.
_ You can also think of it as a
_ [F#] or the fourth degree in the next octave.
So for example, we have E, F [G] sharp, G [A] and A.
That's our fourth
and _
[G] the 11th is in the next [E] octave from there up here.
So we get 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [Am] 10 11.
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_ So it [Em] sounds like this.
_ _ So everything else is the [E] same, just with the addition of that A note.
So from minor [Em] 9
_ _ to minor 11. _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] Now we could pick through it a bit.
I'm just using my fingers, although I'm not really in great shape at the moment with my
finger picking [Em] technique. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ So [A] what we're gonna do now is move up into the seventh position and we're gonna start with the
identical shape including open strings just in the seventh [Em] position.
_ _ Now if we break this down, it's pretty much just an E minor chord.
So we have open [E] low E, which functions as our root.
We've got that repeating on the next string at the seventh fret.
And that's the E note again.
So two root notes there.
We've got the B [Em] at the ninth on the D string.
That's our fifth.
G open third string and that's our third.
[G] Now we've got the eighth fret on the [E] B string.
And this is [Gm] the
G note again actually.
_ _ _ And to finish with an open [Em] E string.
So there's a bit of a more of a droning characteristic to this one since we've got E [E] here
[Em] repeating on the next string.
We've got G
repeating on the next string there plus the E at the top of it. _ _ _ _
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And what we're gonna do now is turn that into a minor 7.
So what this means is it's actually the
the same shape as the minor 11 [N] we did down here.
Although we're gonna go back to where we were just previously.
So that's at the
tenth fret on the E string.
Just gonna check [Em] I'm on the right shape.
_ And that D note is our
minor 7.
Now what's interesting about it is when [A] we were down using [Em] this
_ the minor 7 was here, third fret on the B string.
_ _ _ _ _ So it's pretty much the same chord only this time the minor 7 is in the higher octave.
Much higher octave.
_ _ _ _ _ Of course the E minor 9 had the addition [F#] of the 9th and we [Em] don't have that here.
So minor 7 chord.
_ _ [A] Just a bit of a picking pattern there to give [E] you an idea. _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _
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_ _ [N] _ _ Okay, so that wraps things up for today.
I hope you've enjoyed it and I'm gonna be concentrating a bit more on acoustic stuff over the next few months.
It's a little bit easier to record for me actually because I can just use the zoom with the acoustic.
So it's a much more stripped back approach
both physically and
well, pretty much just the setup of how I go about recording and
the audio and video here, so which is always a bonus.
Anyway, so there'll be more of this sort of thing now.
I will be uploading a chord sheet so you can get that from the website
GeminiGuitar.com.au
Follow the link in the description that will be in PDF format.
So pretty much compatible with everything and
practice those and experiment with them a bit and just goes to show that you can get a lot out of a little.
So I hope that's demonstrated this here and until the next lesson.
Bye for now.
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