Complicated chords vs "regular" chords

dainbramage

dainbramage

New member
Call me lazy, but....

I'm in this project where we are going to play 20-25 songs just once in front of an audience. Now, this is definitely not the kind of music I'm usually listening to or have ever played before or even enjoy listening to, really, but it's good stage practice.

Some of the songs have (to me) really complicated chord progressions. The sheet music is written by the pianist who's a professional musician.

So my question is this:

Say there was a progression like this:

E - A(add9) - C#m7 - B(add4) - E - B(add4) - E/G#

Would it mess anything up if I just played regular chords like:

E - A - C#m7 - B - E - B - E

?

I know I should just learn the chords, but.. yeah. The show is really soon.
 
miroslav said:
It all depends how it sounds to you and the band...and what type of music and audience it is. :)
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..but would it sound dissonant in any way?

It's mostly slow religious praise music, and I'm playing along with the pianist who uses the complicated versions.
 
If you're adding notes like the 7th, add-9, add-4, etc, as long as those oddball notes get covered by an instrument, it won't make much difference if you leave them out. If you were doing a Suspended or Diminished chord where you are moving notes around, then you want to play that chord as written. Otherwise, you would be a half step off.
 
Chili said:
If you're adding notes like the 7th, add-9, add-4, etc, as long as those oddball notes get covered by an instrument, it won't make much difference if you leave them out. If you were doing a Suspended or Diminished chord where you are moving notes around, then you want to play that chord as written. Otherwise, you would be a half step off.
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Great. So I only need to play it if it's Suspended or Diminished, and regular chords are fine for everything else?
 
You should at least look at the fingering of those 'complicated' chords, because they are often not that hard to play. For example. playing an A(add 9) is easier than playing a straight A.
 
You should ask the director before you go rewriting his chord chart. But really, just learn them. They're variations of shapes you already know. You've probably even played them before without knowing it. It's cool to have those color chords under your fingers. It opens you up to new sounds.
 
gecko zzed said:
You should at least look at the fingering of those 'complicated' chords, because they are often not that hard to play. For example. playing an A(add 9) is easier than playing a straight A.
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I suspect you're thinking Asus2. Open position Aadd9 is not particularly easy.

But I was going to say something similar. When the chords are transcribed from guitar, these complicated looking chords are often actually not all that difficult, and in fact often born out of laziness or ease of changing from one chord to another rather than any deliberate fanciness.

That, or it's a matter of voice leading and if you just pick some random way of fingering each chord you might end up with the added notes in the wrong place to actually play the melody it's meant to play, but if you already have a keyboardist doing it for you, you may not need to.
 
Chili said:
If you're adding notes like the 7th, add-9, add-4, etc, as long as those oddball notes get covered by an instrument, it won't make much difference if you leave them out. If you were doing a Suspended or Diminished chord where you are moving notes around, then you want to play that chord as written. Otherwise, you would be a half step off.
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Completely agree.
 
You could probably get away with just using the basic chords but like others have said, the variations listed like B(add 4) and A(add 9) are not very complicated if you can play the basic chords well. Look up the chord charts and you might find you really like the chords.
 
Just learn them. Aadd9 is simple if you can barre the normal A in root position with a bendy index finger without blocking off high E - it's one of my favourite chords - just add the 9 with your middle finger, 4th fret G string.

Badd4 is simple enough if you can play a barre B with 4 fingers, just lift your "bird" finger, and for E/G# just shuffle a D chord 2 frets up, use your thumb on the 4th fret for the G# and put your little finger on an extra G# on 6th fret, D string, depending if you're strumming or picking.

Now you could get away with the E/G# if the bass just happened to play G# at that point, and if some other instrument did the add9 and add4s in the same chord, but then, what have you learnt? It'll sound better if everyone's playing the correct chords and you're not regarded as the typical guitarist pussy who can't get beyond power chords.:D

It's not a Steely Dan tribute show, is it? :laughings:
 
I played in a band last year to promote a folk/pop album where all the songs had be written by the lead singer who's main job was as a classical composer - she was doing the folk/pop thing as a little personal project.

Was fun and interesting to learn all the weird chords and strange meandering chord sequences.

You might get away with simplifying a few chords but if the composer/director is worth their salt they'll spot it immediately.. also, you'll find it interesting and you'll learn something.
 
I think you're getting confused over the purpose of the chords. Those 'extra' notes often just add colour to a chord. Sometimes that colour that sounds good on a piano sounds odd when the exact chord is played on a guitar with the 'extra' notes in the wrong octave. On the piano keyboard, with ten digits, very often a composer will create the sound, then look at the fingers and try to find a chord name that is correct. That chord when played on a guitar might normally be played in a very different inversion - perhaps with octaves present that are not in the piano version. It doesn't mean they work for the song.

My band is a tribute band, we play one collection of music, but at a recent gig, we agreed to playing of all things (for a Beach Boys band) and Ed Shearan song, because the person paying for the event asked us to do it, which we agreed to. It's a guitar song, and sounds dreadful on keys, so I played the guitar, our guitarist did the solo on top of my guitar, and the keys player added just the bass. Listening to the original made it very obvious that there is emphasis on the F sharp on the lowest string - when the chord is D, played in the usual position, so it's necessary to use your thumb to fret the low F sharp. That Major 3rd in the bass is crucial to the chord sounding correct for the song. To play this song on the keyboard, by chord names would have needed it to have been shown as D/F# when on the guitar, this F# is going to be there anyway.

In your example, the A(add9) is really easy to play, you already are fretting three strings on the second fret, simply add the finger to the open A - adding the 9th (a B). You lose the A of course - but you still have a higher one present. If you play the B as a barre chord, you are already playing the 5th, so release that one and it becomes your added 4th instead. Far, far easier to play than the chord name suggests. Adding the G# to the E is a similar process.

If the song needs it, do it - it's very little work really. You can always just play the base chords if you want to, but that's pretty feeble if you could, but can't be bothered.
 
Just make sure the piano player and you play the same chords. If you are plannig on playing E - A - C#m7 - B - E - B - E, just make sure the piano player is playing the same. Your band is going to be much tighter if both of you guies played the same chords. Or better yet learn the chords the piano player asked you to.
 
dainbramage said:
E - A(add9) - C#m7 - B(add4) - E - B(add4) - E/G#

Would it mess anything up if I just played regular chords like:

E - A - C#m7 - B - E - B - E
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Like Rob pointed out all those added notes are color tones. I'd say they're important, so someone in the band has to play them or the song won't sound the same. Ask the composer if he wants you to add the color or if another instrument is going to do it.

Another thing is, if you play an A chord instead of an A add9, you're going to be playing an extra A note that doesn't really belong in that octave (e.g. the note on the 3rd string, 2nd fret). The music doesn't call for that note it calls for a B in that octave. It might even clash against the interval if/when another instrument plays the proper B (i.e. you'd have an A against a B interval, which could sound good or bad depending, but the composer clearly didn't want it). So that's going to be a problem that I didn't see anyone mention.
 
And maybe you don't actually need to be playing all six strings at the same time?

Have the pianist (lol) play the thing and maybe have somebody sing over it. See if you can hear the melody within the chord progression the way he fingers (lol) it. See if you can hear a coherent baseline in there. I guarantee that one or both of those things will explain the color tones and strange shapes.

Then you decide how important it is for you to reinforce any of that. In most cases arbitrarily dropping those notes in wherever you can reach them will not help.
 
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