Joined: 10 Jul 2010 United States Lessons: 4 Licks: 19 Karma: 16

Harmony Using Chords by MoshZilla1016 15 Aug 2010 Views: 26556

If you have ever listened to the intro of MIA by A7X you get a harmony that reminds me of a dream or a music box but cool as can be. This lesson is designed to get that type of harmony. It is a simple trick and requires very little knowledge of the guitar.
All that you need to know is..
1) How to make chords in more than 1 position
2) How to synchronize the picking pattern of the strings used.

Same Chord Different Inversion

For the first part of our lesson we will be using four chords..Dm..C..Bb..A7 but we will only use the 4 top or highest strings.


These are the chords that are used by guitar 1. Each chord is color coded and identified by the chord name above the fretboard (if I had to tab all of the notes this lesson would never exist so play along with me).

Guitar 2 plays these chords..

HOW TO SYNCHRONIZE PICKING STRINGS

Now to make the chords harmonize we need a picking pattern. You can use any combination you choose, open up your imagination. We will use a simple pattern for this reason, I want a BEGINNER to look at this lesson and have an understanding of what's going on and the ability to play it.
Strings are numbered as such e=1 B=2 G=3 D=4 A=5 E=6. In order to perform simple but awesome sounding harmony both guitars hold the same chord, but at different inversions, and pick the strings in a set sequence. We will use this string picking sequence. 4-3-2-3-1-2-3-2.
Guitar 1 sounds like this playing the sequence on the Dm only..


Add guitar 2 playing the inversion..


We will continue with this going through the four chords shown but first let's go over the Diminished segment. Look at the following chart..


Notice the 3 notes to the left. That is a Diminished arpeggio. Harmonizing Diminished on the same strings is easy since you don't change patterns, just ascend or descend 3 frets as marked by the lines below the fretboard. The lick we will be using is this..

                                   vibrato

e------------------------------------------

B--5-2---2-8-5---5-11-8---8-14-11----------

G------3-------6--------9---------12-------

D------------------------------------------

A------------------------------------------

E------------------------------------------

This is guitar 1..


Guitar 2 plays the same pattern but starts from fret 8 of the B string..


Now for the entire piece. Follow this..Dm..C..Bb..A7..the Diminished run.

MIA EXPLAINED

During a chat with Admiral I told how I had a lesson on chord harmony based on MIA by Avenged Sevenfold. He replied that would be good for "the good Admiral doth work on such piece". So here's to my friend!!

We are going to break this down into 4 parts showing both guitars in each visual. Guitar 1 to the left of the line below the fretboard and guitar 2 on the right. This would be long to tab and I would like for beginners to see how each chord is formed. I know the skilled players are gonna get a kick out of this but we are gonna PLAY BY COLORS. Just follow the color pattern above the fretboard and it will give you the picking pattern for each visual. I did this to show comparison of each guitar and so I did not have to explain the pattern twice. So when you are finished laughing climb back in your chair and learn to play MIA...


RED BLUE GREEN PURPLE BLUE GREEN..follow that pattern for the first set of chords


Each MP3 will play guitar 1-3x, then guitar 2-3x



Use color pattern for second set of chords





AND AGAIN





The last pair actually has two moves for each guitar. The first move follows RED BLUE GREEN while the second move follows the DOTTED RED BLUE GREEN.





Put it all together ...