# Those Chords Are WRONG!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 15, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232 "2005-02-15T18:58:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232/41 "2005-02-17T12:23:33Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > There really could be a lot of different chords, and they don’t have to be in the same key. A chord could be a modulating bridge, and then all the other chords in some other key. The entire song could be chromatic. And even within a given key, there are a lot of chord variations — added dominant sevenths, dropped thirds, augmented fourths, and so on. You can approximate most songs using the tonic, relative minor, dominant, subdominant, and maybe the second and third minors, but a lot of songs have more complexity than that — secondary dominants, tertiary dominants, diminished sevenths, and so on. (And nevermind inversions.) Songs won’t sound really “right” until the proper harmonics are used. Which is why, to be honest, I find it easier to take ten seconds and pull up a chord chart, even an errant one, and glance at the chords, rather than taking half an hour to figure them out. It’s a lot easier to find errors on a chart than to sart from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232/42 "2005-02-17T16:06:46Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > You don’t need any magical talent. All you have to do is keep trying chords in the same key, and you’ll figure them out pretty quick. It’s not like there are a lot of different chords they could be. Actually, I do agree with this. Just play around with root-fifth voicing (aka power chords). There’s only 12 possibilities, so eventually you’ll find your chords. (Well, okay. Not totally true. There’s diminished and augmented chords that can get thrown in the mix. Thing is, most rock music doesn’t deal much in these. Yeah, yeah, there’s exceptions, but for 95% of what you hear on rock radio, you won’t have to worry about diminished and augmented chords. And they’re pretty easy to recognize once you practice playing them.) Anyhow, once you have your root-5th, just figure out if the chords are major or minor. After that, you can start playing with sevenths (dominant or major?) and extended harmonies, but, once again, you won’t hear much of that in most rock music. In more poppy rock, the worst you’re going to find is an add9 chord or a sus4 chord. Sus4s are usually easy to spot. Play a Dsus 4 (x-x-x-2-3-3) on your guitar. Can you hear the tension, and how that suspended 4th wants to resolve to F#? It’s hard not to hear x-x-x-2-3-3 without hearing the usual resolution x-x-x-2-3-2 (D major) following. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232/43 "2005-02-17T23:50:59Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > (David Wilcox’s forum, for instance, is great. This is an artist that not only uses capos, but split capos, and alternate tunings. Sometimes all at once which makes ear transcription really difficult if you don’t know all of that beforehand.) To lengthen my hijack, I was looking at a post about the tunings and capo positions he uses. I thought that this was kinda amusing: **One song gives the basic guitar set-up as:** 11) She’s just Dancing (Eb-A-C#-E-A-B, full capo 2nd fret, partial capo 6th fret, strings 1-5) **and another gets a bit more tricky:** 2) Someday Soon (G-C-G-A-C-G. Wilcox calls this “stage-two tuning,” where the tunings get so weird that you can’t use regular strings. The sixth string is a double-wound bass string that is so big he had to drill out the hole in the tuning peg and at the saddle. He tunes it to a low G, one octave lower than the lowest G on a standard-tuned guitar. He puts a regular sixth string in the fifth string slot to tune it down to C and replaces the regular first string with an electric guitar string in order to tune up to a high G.) These songs might be a bit more difficult to figure out by ear. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232/44 "2005-02-18T00:06:36Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > The song is actually capoed up one fret (that should help a bit) > > Se(Cadd9)ems like there’s a hol(D)e in my d(G)reams…(Cadd9)… > In my D(G)reams…(Cadd9)in my d(G)reams. > > Cadd9=x30030 > D=xx0232 > G= xxx433 Damn. Well, at least the tab was wrong too. I can see why it would be a Cadd9, but it still seems weird that it would end on a G. But then again I’m not proficient with a guitar and am not familiar with those particular chord fingerings. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232/45 "2005-02-18T00:33:47Z")
> [@Talon Karrde](#): > > Damn. Well, at least the tab was wrong too. I can see why it would be a Cadd9, but it still seems weird that it would end on a G. But then again I’m not proficient with a guitar and am not familiar with those particular chord fingerings. > Thanks. Sorry about that…it actually ends on a pickin’ D Se(Cadd9)ems like there’s a hol(D)e in my d(G)reams…(Cadd9)… In my D(G)reams…(Cadd9)in my d(G)reams… D ## ---------------------------2-------2-----0---------0-----2----------------------- --------3--------------------------------------3----------------3----------------- ----2-----------2----------------------------------------------------2------------ -0-------------------0------------------------------------------------------------- * * * One interesting note about their songs, the song “Don’t Stop” is actually the music from “Waterfall” played backwards. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-chords-are-wrong/290232.md?page=2)