Following my first double-barreled eureka, I decided to try and figure out the chords I had played on Maubert, Dark Indigo etc, because by then, my usual amnesia had already set-in. So I painstakingly backtracked and figured them out. However, because I had cheated profusely, I was incapable of comfortably playing any of the songs for real. Also, I would have to complete my chord arsenal to be able to decipher older songs that seemed like good candidates for the guitar.
Actually, I’ve known forever how to tune a guitar and play your basic open chords (the E’s and As and Ds and even a few Gs). I also know « barré » chords that allow you to play the basic open chord shapes up and down the fret board. But I hate barrés, because they are so tiring to play. I guess my fingers are too weak and/or chubby to get a good sound without squeezing like a maniac… So I went scouring the Internet for alternative chord shapes. Turns out there are hundreds of sites with automatic chord finders (do your own Googlin’) but they all serve up either the same basic shapes and barrés, or shapes that seem insanely complex, stretching over too many frets etc.
Just as I was about to abandon my new quest and give up on my hopes and dreams of playing the guitar (sob), I stumbled onto some jazz guitar sites and by trial and error, zeroed in on a few basic jazzy (i.e. with 7ths & 9ths) movable chord shapes that sounded good to my ears, and were comfortable to play. I’m talking about chords such as:
So armed with these new chords, the basic open chords and the occasional barré for when jazzy is not cool, I would be able to cover pretty much any chord progression, and physically make it through a whole song. Maybe several. (That’s also more or less when I wrote my little practice application to help me, well, practice.)
Victory at last! (what’s with all these weapon and war metaphors anyway?).
Yes, I too would soon be able to play some of my songs around the proverbial campfire, hypothetically speaking of course.
So I went ahead and learned some of my songs, sometimes transposing them to more comfortable keys and for the first time in my life, I was playing my own music live, without cheating and/or robot-orchestra playback tracks.
And you know what? I discovered that good songs still sound good when you strip away most of the ear-candy.
But something else started gnawing at me. I could learn to sing and strum along (and for some reason, I have little or no problem singing complex rhythms while playing another rhythm on the guitar) but all I was learning was when and where to move the chord shapes. I still felt like I didn’t know the instrument. If I look at a keyboard, I know where to find a D flat instantly. On the guitar, I’d have to start from an open string and count frets.
So having made it past the first hurdle, I came to the conclusion that to progress any further, I probably wouldn’t be able to avoid learning the instrument from the ground up…