Guitar 2, Week 1 Recap

Welcome to friends old and new, it's a brand new session of Guitar 2! (poetry is hard)

We hit the ground running with some new chords. First off is Dm7, which requires you to execute the rather daring maneuver of playing two strings with one finger! Cover the first AND second strings at the first fret with the outside edge of your index finger. It's easier to use that part of your finger because it's harder. If you try to do it with the pad, it's just too squishy to get a faithful sound. Complete the chord with your second finger on the 3rd string, second fret. You only strum the bottom 4 strings, and there you have it. If you're having trouble getting enough pressure for those bottom 2 strings, try adjusting your wrist and thumb position by bringing them down. Moving in and out of that chord will require a sort of deflating-reflating action with your whole hand position. A little muscle pain inside your hand is normal as you build the tone there, but anything shooting down your wrist is wrong, so if that's happening, let go right away and shake it out and start again.

Gershwin's Summertime and Slade's Cum on Feel the Noize are both good tunes for practicing that chord--though the latter is not good for practicing spelling! I mentioned that there are some admirable outfits in Slade's video oeuvre, so I hope this piques your interest and you look up some more of them. Wow. That's all I can say. We're doing the tune in a different key because, though the gravel in his voice is as manly as it gets, this dude sings HIGH and I can't get up there!

Summertime also requires an Fmaj7 chord, which I said was sort of like a compressed C chord. You'll put your first finger on the 2nd string at the first fret, your second finger at the 3rd string second fret, and your third finger at the 4th string third fret. Three strings in a row, three frets in a row, three fingers in a row! You only strum the bottom four on that one too, and it should sound kinda dreamy and cool.

(The video version of Summertime I posted is in a different key and is of course a totally different arrangement from what we're doing, but hey, it's JANIS!)

Both of these new chords are setting us up for the big news of next week--THE F CHORD! Keep on strumming, because we've got work to do.