Guitar people: help me figure out what chords are being played in this song (with video)

Luka Bloom - Natural Mystic

There’s also a studio version of this Irishman’s sublime rendition of an old Bob Marley hit, but this video shows him actually playing the song.

I’m kind of dumb about guitar chords and I can’t really tell what he’s playing even with numerous close-up shots of his hand on the fret board. It kinda looks like his fingers are in the shape of a C chord, but much higher up on the neck than I know how to play a C. So I have no clue.

I’ve already scoured the 'net for a tablature (no I can’t read sheet music, just tabs). There are none anywhere. I found a page that suggests the song is played in drop-D tuning, but no tab.

Please help! I’d really like to be able to play this song.

tutorial for Natural Mystic. Pretty Standard three chord song. Am Dm and G

You can play it with a capo like this guy… Easier than barre chords

Well, that’s the Bob Marley version - but it sounds like he plays it differently. Maybe I’m totally tone deaf and they are the same chords just being strummed differently, but it sounds like completely different chords to me. How do you think he is playing it in the video linked in the OP?

I’m not a guitarist by any means, but I do pick out chords a lot on piano.

The first thing I notice is that all the chords are down a half step from those given above. They are G#m, C#m, and F#. The second thing I notice is that, for as high as he’s playing on the neck, the chords sound kinda low. I map it out, and it’s very clear that he’s not playing the bottom (highest) string.

The next thing I notice is he’s not playing a single bar chord. So I look more closely at the frets, and realize he’s somehow playing G#m on the seventh fret. This would only make sense if he’s playing in a drop-Db tuning, or a drop D tuning and the recording is lower by a half step. We can also make out which fret some of his fingers are on.

Knowing all this, we can put together the exact guitar fingerings he is using. They are 7(7)757x for the G#m, 78(7)79x for the C#m, and 5(5)545x for the F#. The parenthetical frets are possibly covered by using one finger to cover two strings, or that finger may just be muting that string.

The last thing I notice is that he sometimes takes all his fingers off the frets (possibly save one), which would allow him to play an F# chord for coloring. Since he normally does this on the G#m, that fits, as to would make a G#11.

Finally, since I am a keyboardist, I’ll give the actual notes.
G#m: G#,(D#),G#,B,D#
C#m: G#,E,(G#),C#,E
F#: F#,(C#),F#,A#,C#
G#11: G#,C#,F#,A#,[D#]

BTW, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Studio version is in a different key. Drop C# is kinda odd, and might just be an accidental tuning. I mean, the guitar gets flatter and flatter throughout the song, so it’s possible he thought he was in drop D. And it’s also possible the recording is jacked up.

Near as I can tell, he’s playing a jazzy chord on a standard-tuned guitar.

I don’t know my theory well enough to name it, but if you go to 1:01 in the Luka Bloom video, he’s got his middle finger on the Low E, 5th fret, ring on the D, 5th fret and pinky on the B, 5th fret, so his index finger is probably on the G at the 4th or 3rd fret.

I know that chord and play it when I get jammy and need to mix it up from simple majors, minors and sevenths, but couldn’t tell you what its name is. Since the Middle finger is on the Low E setting the bass-note as the Tonic (“Do” of do re me - the key of the scale), you can just move it up 5 frets for the IV and two more frets for the V of the scale, no doubt tossing in minors as harmonically appropriate…

Does that help?

Nah, I’m pretty sure they are standard chords, just in drop tuning. Any jazzy sound you hear is just how bad the guitar is going out of tune. It gets pretty bad towards the end.

No worries - don’t have a guitar in front of me anyway. So you think:

  • He’s playing a guitar dropped down half a step - so it if WAS in standard tuning, it would be in Eb not E. Cool - I tune my gig guitars down a half step to make it easier to hit some notes when I sing - it’s a pretty common thing to do.

  • In addition, the guitar is in a dropped tuning - so the Low E is down a full step to D (or, in this case, Db, since the whole guitar is dropped 1/2 step)

  • The chord form I see is him playing a G at the 5th fret (actually a Gb, given the half-step overall drop).

Hmm - okay; I will have to check that out next time I can get a guitar in my hands…

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try them out after work tonight.

I’m hearing the same thing as BigT: G#m, C#m, F#. A root, a four, and a seven chord.

It is increbly long ago since this thread got started but i tried searching the chords for exactly this song and ended up here.

And after I heard and tried around a littlebit (I have not seen the Video, but heard the recording of the live-album “amsterdam”)
I think I got pretty much exactly what he is playing.

First off, he is playing in open-C#, i guess… Don’t know what it is called, but it is:

C#
G#
C#
F
G#
C#

Then the Chords he is playing are pretty simple, they are as following: (not sure about the names but the tabs should be right)

Gm Cm F

x x x
7 11 4
6 10 4
7 11 4
7 11 4
7 11 4

He is - as stated earlier in this thread - not playing the high e (with this tuning C#) string at all.
Note, that he is putting in an
Dm
x
13
12
13
13
13

at the end of the chorus.

Btw: Try to cover the lowest two strings with one finger (the middlefinger) or if you can grasp around the neck, use your thumb for the lowest C#-String.

Maybe that’ll still help someone, even if this thread is pretty old.

Edit: ouw… The layout is completely messed up, sorry for that… Looks like the Forum deletes repeating spaces… Hope it is still readable…

It is increbly long ago since this thread got started but I tried searching the chords for exactly this song and ended up here.

And after I heard and tried around a littlebit (I have not seen the video, but heard the recording of the live-album “amsterdam”)
I think I got pretty much exactly what he is playing.

First off, he is playing in open-C#, i guess… Don’t know what it is called, but it is:

C# ---- Highest string
G#
F
C#
G#
C# ---- Lowest string

Then the Chords he is playing are pretty simple, they are as following: (not sure about the names but the tabs should be right)

Gm ---------- Cm ---------- F

x -------------- x ------------ x
6 ------------- 11----------- 4
5 ------------- 10 ---------- 4
6 ------------- 11------------4
6 ------------- 11----------- 4
6 ------------- 11----------- 4

He is - as stated earlier in this thread - not playing the high e (with this tuning C#) string at all.
Note, that he is putting in an
Dm
x
13
12
13
13
13

somewhere at the end of the chorus.

Btw: Try to cover the lowest two strings with one finger (the middlefinger) or if you can grasp around the neck, use your thumb for the lowest C#-String.

Maybe that’ll still help someone, even if this thread is pretty old.