Ska Chords

I have questions about everyone's favorite genre: Ska!
I know most of the easy "ska chords", but I was wondering if anyone knew any other "ska chords". Messages or replies would be nice.
(:

I don't there there are ska chords.....you just play chords.

country may use more open chords, and jazz may use domintate 7, 9 and 11 chords. these don't make these chords jazz or country chords.

I usually just play the top 3 or 4 strings of a barre chord. That way it's easy to release the pressure in your fingers to mute the strings to give the chords a choppy feel. Don't just use E and A shaped barres, D shaped are also good.

Welcome to the site by the way.

I'm trying to learn a song by 311, who is ska-ish (they seem to have reggae/rock influences). Most of the song is just major and minor chords.

I like to do what BHS said, playing the top strings. I usually do upstrokes when I strum. I find that barre chord shapes sound better, but open chords could work as well. Also, if you are in 4/4 time (4 beats per measure), put emphasis on the 2nd and 4th beats of the measure.

So, a simple rhythm could look like:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

r---s---r---s-----|

e---t---e---t-----|

s---r---s---r-----|

t---u---t---u-----|

----m-------m-----|

------------------|

ska is mostly the rhythm you use.

Brody's right, but it's not mostly rhythm, their rhythm is what makes Ska. Doesn't really matter what chords you use. Trumpet is pretty famous in Ska, they "banned" sax from playing in the genre. Not a clue why.

You should check out "Less Than Jake".

Saw them live 8 nights straight, THAT was suicide. During the winter. So we're all sweating inside and wearing nothing but T-shirts, then when we go outside it's freezing cold and we're soaking. I got so sick after that. haha, good times.

Ska, well mostly power and/or major chords played on the treble strings with little opens.
You strum on the 'ands' and rest on '1,2,3,4' of a regualer 4/4-beat..so my mate who plays in three real nice ska bands.

But yeah Ska is the rhythem mostly (kind of like reggea is more rhythem led) then what chords you are using, though it uses more bright cheery chords.

LOL Less Than Jake was one of my favorites in high school... Another one to check out is Reel Big Fish.

For playing ska, the key is emphasizing the upstrokes, using downstrokes for bass, and throw in palm mutes and rests to give it a choppy sound.

A good song to learn is Sublime's Santeria

I know practically everything there is to know about playing ska. Offbeats, upstrokes, skank pits, rudeboys/girls, etc. I know all of the main chords used for ska. I was just wondering if there were any other more complicated chords I could use. Less Than Jake owns face, but I think The O.C. Supertones define ska. But that's my opinion. (:

And thank you, BHS, for the welcome. I'm down for midget punchin' fun!

Oh ok.

My favorite chords are 9ths and 7#9s. They're kind of funky chords, try to look them up. You may like them! :)

I really only do acoustic stuff now, for the fans. ;)
But when I get a chance to go to Guitar Center, I sorta lose control and play some real loud punk rock style music!

So far it's been pretty good. I haven't been told to like turn it down or anything. I'm investing in a Les Paul. I really don't care what kind, but I would like a 1980's Black Classic, like Ethan Luck generally uses.

If you play a lot of ska then you might want to have a guitar with singlecoils, like a strat or a tele, rather than humbuckers.

As for some awesome third wave bands to listen to. There's Reel Big Fish (I don't think anyone's meantioned them yet), Sublime, Goldfinger (often overlooked - check out the album "Hang Ups"), RX Bandits and Streetlight Manifesto. If you like dub as well then Augustus Pablo and King Tubby are probably the best two people to check out for that.

It's also worth looking into getting wah, delay and reverb pedals, or a multi fx pedal (they all feature delay and reverb as standard). Alternatively, you could buy an amp with delay and reverb settings, although pedals give you far more choice with delay volume, length, feedback, etc. than amps do.

If you put your first finger on the e of the sixth fret, and then just mess around around there with your 2nd and 3rd fingers (5-8 frets) you can find some chords. Look at bands like Bedouin Soundclash, they use a lot of neat chords, basically higher variations of other the more well known A, E, D etc.

Also, if you capo the 5th or sixth frets, you can play whatever simple chords you feel like, and it gives it the ska sound.

Hope that was at least a little helpful.

the rhythm is really important. and almost any chord sounds ska-ish if you upstroke it. Maj7 chords work for that.

e/ 2
b/ 3
g/ 4
d/ 5

something like that.