UD#101 Chameleon Jazz Chordfrom Ukulele in the Dark with Guido Heistek I love this chord shape. It’s super useful in jazz. There are many types of chords that this shape can play. I’ll just talk about one of them today, the 6/9 chord. How does it work? Let’s say that you are trying to play an F6/9 chord This shape can be used to play an F6/9 in two different places on the neck of the ukulele. First, a wee bit of theory. Here are the notes in an F6/9 chord. ROOT (1) 3 5 6 …Continue Reading
UD#100 Uke Bar-o-phobia!from Ukulele in the Dark with Guido Heistek Full disclosure. I don’t love barring, and I try to avoid it when I can. It’s tiring. So, in a series of chord shapes, if there is an opportunity to get up on my finger tips, I take it. For example, this chord shape would suggest barring with the index finger, as it has two notes on the same fret. Barring would look like this. However, I prefer to fret it like this, unless I have a really good reason not to. More comfy! Sometimes you don’t really have …Continue Reading
UD#97 Your Amazing Shape Makers!from Ukulele in the Dark with Guido Heistek I was recently working with one of my students, Angela, on the chord melody arrangement of St. James Infirmary from my chorld melody book. She was having trouble getting to an inversion of the G minor chord in bar 7. Here’s the excerpt, if you’d like to give it a try yourself. We both noticed that she was placing her fingers one at a time to make the chord shape and we agreed that it would be better if the fingers could “fly in formation” and land all …Continue Reading
UD #58 Getting from Chord to Chord: Leaving Early to Arrive on Time from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek I was working with a student the other day. A complete beginner. He asked me this question: “I seem to have no problem switching from G7 to C. But, I have a hard time going from C to G7. Do you have any tips to help with that?” We decided to play a simple two chord song using C and G7: Jambalaya. And indeed he was right. He went from G7 to C with no trouble. When it came …Continue Reading
Unidentified Flying Chords! (UD#57) from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek Today, I want to take a look at two songs: Creep by Radiohead and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. Both songs are in the key of G and have very interesting variations in the chords. As we learned in UD#17 the usual chords in the key of G are as follows: These are called the diatonic chords in the key of G. They are the basic building blocks for creating chord progressions in that key. While many songs use exclusively diatonic chords, both …Continue Reading
Trimming Away: How to Simplify Song Sheets (UD#52) from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek Today I want to talk about simplifying song sheets and chord charts. Sometimes it can be handy to know how to “trim down” or simplify chords on the fly. This is particularly true when you sit down to play with others. Sometimes there’s no time to look up chords you don’t know. It can help to know what your options are. I thought I would put together a few words on this subject today. CHORD CHART SURVIVAL: I often find myself saying something like …Continue Reading
12 CHORDS with THREE SHAPES: Around the Clock (UD#51) from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek Today I want to share an little activity that I use with my students. I find it helps for remembering the names of chords. Also, it creates a framework to see how chords are related to each other. And it’s a good introduction to chords “up the neck”. More on moving chords “up the neck” here: https://ukuleleinthedark.com/704/ We use three familiar open chord shapes for this activity: C, F and A. Images: If you are using a mobile device please make sure …Continue Reading
UD #44 The Case of the Mystery Chord: The Minor IV from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek EVER WONDER WHY THEY USED “THAT” CHORD? In UD #17 and UD #18 we looked at diatonic chords and how they help us to figure out songs by ear. Diatonic chords are the family of chords that are created out of the notes from the key the song is in. Once you figure out what key the song is inthe diatonic chords from that key are a good place to start when trying to figure out the chords by ear. There …Continue Reading
UD #42 Sus Chords: Got a Spare Finger? from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek I remember being excited by sus chords when I was a kid. Still am! Sometimes there are long periods in a song that only have one chord. Sus or suspended chords are one of the tools players use to add tension and release without changing chords. Here is a little exploration of the most common kind of suspended chord: the sus 4 chord. Hope you enjoy it. The first suspended chord I learned was on the guitar: the mighty Dsus4. On the uke this …Continue Reading
UD #41 CHROMATIC Wrap-up: Applying the CHROMATIC SCALE Ukulele in the Dark with Guido Heistek Use the chromatic scale to: CREATE SCALES, MOVE CHORDS UP THE NECK, LEARN THE FRETBOARD AND MORE! I ended off my last news letter with a list of uses for the chromatic scale. Here is a little expansion on each point and answers to the questions associated with each point. (Please check out last week’s newsletter if you haven’t read it: https://ukuleleinthedark.com/ud-40-chromatic-walk-in-the-park/) 1. Movable chord shapes Question: How many frets up the neck do I need to move a C chord for it to become …Continue Reading
UD#36 Chameleon Chord: Diminished Chords Part II (The coolest thing you can do with dim7 chords) from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek The coolest thing you can do with diminished chords…in my opinion… NOTE: For simplicity I will refer to diminished 7th chords as DIMINISHED CHORDS in this lesson. ALSO NOTE: If you don’t feel like reading there is a video at the bottom of the page. Try this experiment Take a diminished chord like this one: Lower one of the notes in the chord by one fret. Let’s lower the note on the G string. What …Continue Reading
UD#35 Angular Symmetry: Diminished 7th Chords from Ukulele in the Dark w/Guido Heistek Diminished seventh chords can be found in lots of different kinds of music. There are a few different ways to write them. Here are three different ways you might see a C diminished 7th chord written down: Cdim, Co, or Cdim7. For this lesson I will use this format: Cdim7 or Fdim7 throughout. Or I will write out the full name C diminished 7th or F diminished 7th. Most chord charts use the shortened form Cdim or Fdim. Now for some cool facts… 4 …Continue Reading
UD #24 The Secret Life of Roots (Naming Moveable Chord Shapes) from Ukulele in the Dark w/ Guido Heistek Last newsletter we talked about how to move chord shapes up the neck. We took the C, F and G7 chord shapes and learned how to move them up the neck to play a chord progression in different keys. https://ukuleleinthedark.com/704/ QUESTION: “What do we call the chords once we have moved them up the neck?” I’ll do my best to answer this question in this newsletter. Here goes… THE ROOT NOTE! Identifying the position of the ROOT NOTE in the …Continue Reading