Favorite OM Chord Shapes

[Killian King]

Greetings. I purchased John McGann's book on playing OM and bouzouki and it seems like it will be very helpful (I will certainly be working through it), however, in the meantime, I was wondering if any of you more seasoned players would care to share what you find to be your favorite chord shapes when playing OM?

I tune GDAE.

Love the sound of the open G (0-0-2-3) and C (0-2-3-0) and seem to have good results with the shapes D (2-4-5-X) as well as A (2-2-4-5). Last night I also discovered G (4-5-5-3 or X).

Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

Killian

[Mandobart]

Here are some cut n' pastes from posts I've made on similar threads. I was too lazy to edit out any repetition between them:

A good set of barres for the I, IV, V of almost any key that works is as follows, example key of D on mandolin or OM:
I D 2452 Instead of playing the 2nd frets on the G and E with 2 separate fingers, lay your index finger across the neck on the 2nd fret.
IV G 4523
V A 2245

Don't know of a written source, but these are shapes I use frequently, especially on the OM and mandocello where these shapes help on the longer scale, and barres are easier to do on the wider fingerboard. I do them a little different by using the barre with my index finger laying flat; every 4 fret is the index finger. The 6 fret is my ring finger and 7th is the pinkie. Where used, the 5th fret is played with the middle finger. So E is 4-6-7-4, A is 6-7-4-5 and B is 4-4-6-7. These are very versatile shapes. In these chord shapes, the pinky is always the root. A 7th chord can be played in any of these shapes by lifting the pinky and placing the middle finger down two frets below. Similarly, the minor form is done by lifting the ring finger (which is the 3rd of the chord triad) and placing the middle finger 1 fret below (this flats the 3rd, making the major chord into a minor chord). You'll notice that in this example it sounds fine on the Bm chord (4-4-5-7), but on the E and A (if you want to play all 4 courses) you need to make some changes. One way is to flatten the pinky across the higher string 7th fret. So Em is 4-5-7-7. I play Am in this shape as 5-7-7-8 and move the index barre up from the 4th to 5th fret. Keeping with the original shape and not moving the left hand up nor down though, I would omit the E string and play it as 5-7-7-x.

Another useful moveable shape is a Bb in the first position 3-3-1-1, C as 5-5-3-3, etc. A couple neat things about this shape are: The root is the lowest note played, like typical guitar chords. It consists of two pairs of notes, spaced an octave apart, the 1st and the 5th of the triad; that is the C example is actually played C-G-C-G. Cool droning sound. Lastly, because the 3rd of the triad is not played, this becomes a power chord, and can be used as a major or minor depending on the musical context. A form of this many of us play without realizing it is A as 2-2-0-0.

Another good movable shape is E played as 4-2-2-4, noted B-E-B-G#. This has all three notes of the triad, and is an easy switch between the chord described above as Bb. So in the key of E, the I is played 4-2-2-4, the IV (A) is 1-1-4-5 and the V (B) is 4-4-2-2. I, IV, V all without moving the index finger off the 2nd fret. Like the first example this one also works all the way up the neck.

If it doesn't have to be barre chords...
E - 422O
B - 4422 or 4467
C#m - X144, 664O or 6644 (the first B chord listed, just moved up 2 frets. These "power chords" are cool as they can soud major or minor, depending on sonic context)
A - 2245 or just 22OO sounds good
F# - X446
F#m - X445

If you really need the barre chords:
E - 4674 (could finger index, ring, pinkie middle)
B - 4465 (this is the E shape above, just move the ring and pinkie to the next higher string respectively and flatten the index to cover the D string)
C#m - 1241 or 124O or 1244
A - 2245 (I play as a barre anyway)
F# - 6896 (the E shape above, moved up 2 frets)
F#m - 6796 or 6799 (the 1244 C#m above moved up 5 frets) or 457O

[Killian King]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

[Martin Jonas]

Like Mandobart, I also find myself using moveable chord shapes a lot, particularly on OM and tenor guitar in GDAE. Two moveable three-finger chord shapes get you every major and minor chord: if you use 224X for A major and 223X for A minor, you can move this shape to any other note on the bottom two strings to make any major/minor chord, with the added bonus of having the root in the bass. It's my fallback position for whenever I don't know a better and/or easier shape for a particular chord and am busking a backing track.

Martin

[Lord of the Badgers]

These to me sound interesting in GDAE or GDAD on my zouk or tenor:
0/9/10/0
9/11/0/0
0/4/5/0

try moving this shape around too (sounds great arpeggiated in GDAD esp)
4/0/4/0
3/0/3/0

of course the other trick is to move, the modal A around the fretboard... 2/2/0/0. Great in GDAD.

I like open strings

[Killian King]

I like open strings

Me too. They really sound spectacular on the OM.