I've actually picked up my acoustic for the first time in 10 years, and yes my fingers are bleeding trying to play it...

Anyway, I have a question about the playing of the song chords that you see on various internet sites (usually under the heading 'tabs' although there's no tab). I can understand the general chord names 'G' 'Bm7' etc. when I see them but some of the songs have stuff like 'G/F#' in the space of one chord. I know what 'G' and 'F#' are seperately but what does it mean when they're placed together like that with a '/' in between?

Any ideas? Any help much appreciated.

This generally refers to a bass note... In this case a G chord, but with an F# bass note. You usually see this when the bass line walks down to cover a transition from G to Em chords...amongst other things...

Hope this helps....

Yes cheers, that works. Nice one.

hey there

mike's answered the question, but as audio examples, have a listen to pretty much anything by rush as alex lifeson uses them an awful lot!

particular examples are 'spirit of radio', 'red barchetta' etc

he also does another little trick where he will keep the bass note the same and fidle around with inversions on top - like in 'tom sawyer'.

from a writing point of view, it's a really effective little tool, and takes you away from conventional chord changes.

have fun

Yes, cheers. Actually I'd been trying to play some acoustic versions of David Sylvian stuff and he seems keen on this 'technique'.

Yes, I use this trick a lot though mainly because it's difficult to frig around changing bass notes in Cubase whilst playing keys.



David
http://www.infectionmusic.co.uk

Topic moved into the new 'How do I play..?' area.