Spacey/Psychedelic Chords

I don't exactly know the names of the chords other than they're a type of an E and A, but I love them and use them for a slow vibe-y feel in a song of mine. The positions are: E0 A7 D6 G7 B8 e0 E A12 D11 G12 B12 e12(or open) You can play them slowly and they'll sound rad if you make sure every note is ringing out, or play them fast and it'll be sorta funky/jazzy/psychedelic. There's a whole lot to do solo wise in the chords too. Enjoy.

I am not sure a harmony can inherently be psychedelic. I am not even sure a chord progression can be inherently psychedelic. But arpeggiating an extended chord (suspendeds, augmneteds, major and minor 7s etc) with an unusual and close voicing will generally sound psychedelic on guitar and keys with the right sound.

Everything in music is contextual. Change the context of the melodic and/or harmonic content of Beethoven's immortal 9th and all the sudden you will have Ludwig Van's Trance Explosion! I dare say you will figure it all out and write your own 60s psychedelic masterpiece.

first one's the purple haze chord, usually refered to as E (#9), its kind've a dominant 7th as well as a minor 7th having both a full 3rd and a flatted minor third and octave up. It was also famously used by George Harrison in the Beatle's song "Taxman" (he lifted it from the 60s Batman TV show theme he as parodying) and as a passing tone on piano by Richard Wright of Pink Floyd in "Breathe" and was commonly used that way in jazz and by some of the better tin pan alley songwrighters (Wright lifted it from a Miles Davis number, but I think he ehard the changes wrong because I have enver identified the tune he took it from and I am a big Davis fan).

Its a powerful harmonic device because of the tension of major and minor thirds clashing but its generally frowned on to lean on it as a major building block in a rock guitar part these days since it featured so prominently in 2 important songs of the 60s. It carries its own context because of the famous songs its in (hence why you think f it as psychedelic, Hendrix and Floyd?).

the 2nd chord is an A7add9, you really oughta mute the low string on this one for a tighter voicing, but if you want a note below the root on the 1st string, you can use that A or you can also do a little clever barring up top and reach down with your index finger to voice the C# that would be available with your barre finger in the C form A this is based on. That major 3rd below and directly above the root will be very helpful in the key of E major as C# is the relative minor, right?

This chord is a pretty common one in all types of music combining the flexibility of a suspended 2nd with the modality of the good ol dominant 7 from the blues. I might whip one of these out in one out of every 2 guitar lines I write, as its a harmonic idea for any occasion. It might be buried in the part as a passing tone or just blip in a complex arpeggiation where the octave root just quickly hops up to 9 before changing chords from dom7 to maybe the iv chord, but the 7add9 is one of those 'everyday playing chords' we should all know. This chord is particularly contextual. Its really an emotionally neutral arrangement of notes.

here's a simple minor I-V-IV-V progression I am fond of that has chord extensions that may suit you:

Em9 Bm11add9 Am6 Bm11

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

played like this:

Em9 (0)7577(0)

Bm11add9: 7X06X0

Am6: 5X455X or (0)045X0

Bm11: 7X067(7)

you can alt like this if you wanna arpeggiate with a plethora of ringing plain string accents:

Em9: 054000 or 024(0)30 or 024(0)33

E7sus/Bm11add9: 020230/X20230

Am6: X02012

Bm11 (abbreviated): X20202 or X20203

the parenthesis indicate notes you may wish to mute when strumming rather than arpeggiating, when key changing these positions all open notes become mutes (X) and other potential open notes may present themselves depending on the key selected... in the key of Em you will want to consider jazziness versus rockin' which is the decision between a degree of euphony (muting notes that are in parenthesis) versus polyphony (sounding parenthetical notes)... in jazz we tend to focus on euphonic rhythms even at the expense of voicing every note in a chord. A tight jazz line might be voiced almost entirely across ADGB while voicing the Es only as accents. Rather than creating dynamic accents by changing your attack you can create accents by voicing additional notes on strings that are muted through most of he line or by briefly expanding a voicing from 4 notes to 5 or even 6 even if those notes represent octaves of already voiced notes. So in the example, all 4 chords can be expressed sufficiently using only 4 notes, but you may wish to increase the dynamic by voicing one or two of the muted notes on certain beats.... the human ear is really drawn to euphony, but a euphonic line can become more interesting when it expands for a beat or two. Follow?

taking stuff you are familiar with and adding extensions can be a good way to generate the denser harmonies you need to get 'far out' without going all the way into jazz or classical ideas that may sound a little too polished for psychadelia... but you will want to find tight voicings like this rather than just plop the extensions on the plain strings with a pinky because that's not really the psychedelic sound if you listen to the classic Austin, UK and sanfran guys

I can't recall what chord this is, but I think it was somethin like Emaj7 that was modified.

E - x A - 7 D - 6 G - 8 B - 0 e - 0

I got this chord from a Death Cab sog, and found a variation of it which was basically a E5 on the D string with the octave being instead a D# rather than E, and the high e string open and played as well. Just been playing around with that and inversion chords like an Am with an open B and e string.

What kind of music are you listening to?

Also, I just want to point that having a good arsenal of chords is great, but just be sure that even te simpler chords still work great. Breathe Pink Floyd is just an Em - A progression with an added suspension on the A. It's all about how you utilise them that matters. But, again, a good arsenal of complex chords is also great.

What's with people in flying whales all of a sudden? I keep seeing them everywhere, and it's quite odd.

Anyways, most of it is swells, and stuff. I'd listen more but I have to go to work. Piece out that arpeggio. Listen carefully, one note at a time. Jim or Boom or someone might help later.

I listened a good bit but didn't hear any chords. Most of what they were doing was jazz, just arranged a little differently.

necropost, but I got bored and decided tos ee what I missed last year

what the fuck are you talking about, Boom? jazz is fulla chords even if in some jazz idioms no single instrument is responsible for the full voicing in a given arrangement, the chart in jazz denotes all of the changes above the other score elements and there's room for creative license, but man do I love when guys with no jazz background say things like 'jazz chords' or 'its just jazz noodling'

just wtf? some of the thing people say?

look, there's no such thing as a chord anyway, chords don't exist and they are not part of a song musically or even legally speaking.... they are an academic construct of potential harmonic movement around melodic and contrapuntnal bass elements...if pop/rock/electronic/whatever musicians would disabuse themselves of some of these rockist notions about harmony then music would be so much more interesting again

I talk about chords as a convenient phenome for disseminating harmonic ideas to instrumentalists... this is not pure music, its convenience once the pure music is coming into existence

That whale song does not have chords, multiple strings being strung together to make a more full sound, within it. They are all single notes being sustained and bent around the fret-board.

By chords, I'm pretty certain he meant what the rest of us think of as chords. Like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTg6rZJCu4

we all love Rumble, man.... and link wray is strumming chords.... but to say a song with a lot of interweaving 1 line stuff is devoid of chords is just inaccurate, any combination of notes containing more than a diatonic harmony is technically a chord.... though, in a sense chords don't exist and NO SONGS CONTAIN CHORDS.... and certainly music does not rely on them

I had the day off yesterday and got drunk posting so sorry for being a tool.... but I just noticed this while Lu was napping and was like "WTF"

like, what do most guitar/bass/synth people think about music? because most of the people on this site make zero sense to me... there's a point of view most of the members here espouse that is shockingly limiting, music is a complex set of ratios and confining the viewpoint fro which you try to understand its intricacies seems weird.... by all means write a pop lead sheet to rehearse a song with new people, but .... like.... ummm.... I think I need to do more drinking today to explain myself

ya can't just shoehorn everything into a working musician's box based on what the players are voicing on their instrument on a given recording, a song is bigger than that and I am always trying to put that out there to these younger guys who are really untrained... so I drunk posted when reading your reply 6 months late I was like "but wait!"

I will say, the OP psoted the song 'without chords' and clearly he was thinking about the larger contextual music that arrived at the finished arrangement/recording you are focusing on so hard... I suck at explaining music in words, its frustrating

It's OK James.

We learn by asking questions. Some learn quicker than others. I play what appeals to me, without knowledge of theory or the ability to document what I do.

When I ask questions therefore, it must be impossibly frustrating to people who speak the language.

Personally though, I ask questions to get some kind of answer. Does not matter if I understand or not, I can use the information to search deeper and deeper on my own , where nobody can see me struggle, until I find a way that makes sense. then I can rebuild everything I have been told, back to the point where the OP has been answered.

So when I ask, and people answer, when YOU answer, it means a lot. I may not respond straight away in a way that makes sense... but I have taken the information and gone away to a quiet place to digest it.

I get the post above. My nonsensical answer (that makes sense to how I think and construct music), is that there are no spacey/ psychedelic chords. Those terms are styles of playing. What they play has little true impact. It is the technique.. the gentle, low attack arpeggiating of fingers in positions that complement others to add to the overriding theme of the way you are assembling arrangements of notes.... and does not rely on chords or rigid formations. They are a building of a soundscape that can be minimal or of understated complexity, delivered in a way that suggests relaxation and surrendering to the sound.

Using that description, I would be able to piece notes together to create a spacey or psychedelic feel.

everyone stop reading anything I posted this week, I had a little too much free time and felt kinda belligerent about music and started posting all this craziness.... I mean, what I was getting at makes perfect sense, but it was whacky to go necroposting and goading boom

sorry Boom, I had a mental health moment there for a little

I don't know... I usually don't like to delete stuff no matter how insane it sounds.

I've been home A LOT, barely left my house since Friday and I think I got stir crazy... and all I've done that wasn't kid related was make music and putter on the web

I'm a crazy person and if I don't interact with other people, just toddlers and machines? I forget how to act and starting talking and typing out loud....