custom chord finder

[gnossie]

I've built an instrument that is basically a three-stringed mandolin: no G string.

Problem is finding a chord calculator for it. Does anybody know where I can find a chord generator that can do only three strings? There sure are some nice ones on the internet, but none of them allow you to disinclude a string.

I'm aware of that gootar one, but it's a reverse chord finder, not a chord generator.

[gnossie]

Disregard! Just found one: http://www.chorderator.com/

Not so great, though.

[JEStanek]

Look for balalaika chords too.

Jamie

[Bernie Daniel]

I've built an instrument that is basically a three-stringed mandolin: no G string....

Interesting. What was your goal in building this three course instrument?

[gnossie]

I hate the mandolin's G string! I want to learn how to play without it. It always sounds wrong, even on a quality mandolin, correctly fretted. Its dull, thudding sound seems like it belongs on another instrument, like a washtub or something.

Down with the G string!

[jaycat]

I don't think there's any chords for which the G string is indispensible (are there?) So why not just ignore it? Unless you felt like building something anyway . . .

[gnossie]

What about if I wanna do Pete Townshend-style windmill chords?

[jaycat]

You better have very short arms.

[Mark Hudson]

I'd love to see some pics of this instrument :-)

[lenf12]

I hate the mandolin's G string! I want to learn how to play without it. It always sounds wrong, even on a quality mandolin, correctly fretted. Its dull, thudding sound seems like it belongs on another instrument, like a washtub or something.

Down with the G string!

Heresy I tell you, heresy!!!!!!!

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[fxstsb]

Is GOOTAR a standalone program?
Is CHORDFINDER standalone?
I don't want to pay for something that might disappear off the net. Thanks

[mandroid]

writing on Paper is a stand alone Program.

[Relio]

Please stop using a chord generator! Learn how chords are built and find them yourself.

[belbein]

Please stop using a chord generator! Learn how chords are built and find them yourself.

Wait. Why? Someone else has already done the work. Relying on someone else's work frees everyone up to work on what's important to them. I mean, you don't insist on refining your own gasoline, just so you appreciate the chemistry of hydrocarbons, do you?

At some point in the future, when he's done with whatever his top priorities are now, he can go back and learn chord theory. But if his top priority is learning to play, why get sidetracked in bunch of useless (at this time) theory?

[Wolfmanbob]

You'd be best off just learning to understand how chords are made and do it yourself. That way, it would benefit your overall musicianship.

[jaycat]

Please stop using a chord generator! Learn how chords are built and find them yourself.

You'd be best off just learning to understand how chords are made and do it yourself. That way, it would benefit your overall musicianship.

So there's really no need for this sort of thing, is that it?
http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/chords/ch.pl

[Relio]

You need to begin learning music theory and learning to play by ear if you hope to understand your fretboard and make your own music. Once you begin this process you'll realize how much time you wasted using chord generators and tabs. Thank me later

[belbein]

See, Relio, my experience is different. I actually did that learn-all-that-theory-and-then-play-the-instrument, and I never developed an instinct for the instrument, or the music. I think this approach works for some people--obviously, it does for you. But in a sense it's like learning semiotic theory before you learn to read. Or learning grammar before you learn to speak.

I had much better success in learning to play mandolin than I ever did with any other instrument. That's because I decided that I was going to learn to play the instrument. I was going to learn the music, not music theory. And in fact, I didn't even learn chords for 2 years, because I wanted to learn the notes on the fretboard and some melodic technique (and brush up on my sight-reading). This is practical musicianship, not quite divorced from theory but certainly not theory-centric. As a result, I can now pick up the mando and within a few tries pick out a melody by ear. And I can then transcribe it. I'm curious about the theory of it, and sample it (learn what I want to know) but I've refused to let it be a roadblock. Theory is a description, not a prescription, and when we make it a prescription, we squeeze the life out of the music.

Some people never need to know theory. Did Robert Johnson know theory? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Mississippi John Hurt? Maybe they did, but the point is that people can just play, learning the theory like those of us who are native English speakers learned English grammar. Which is to say: we didn't. We learned the body and didn't have to learn the skeleton. If there's a natural way to learn, that's it ... not by cutting open the cadaver, but by appreciating the body.

Just for whatever it's worth, it's this idea that there are some modes of expression that are primary, and that others are necessarily derivative, that Jacques Derrida attacks in Of Grammatology. And if that don't make you humble, I don't know what will.

[Petrus]

Everybody has different personal learning styles. Some may benefit from something like the chord finder, others from looking at a chart in a book, others from studying theory in the abstract. I'm abstraction-oriented myself (I've studied a lot of mathematics and physics, not necessarily with full understanding mind you) and enjoyed learning music theory right off the bat, but I don't feel bad using a crutch once in a while when my neurons aren't firing the way I want them to.

Technically, a chord represents the relationship of two or more intervals, just as an interval represents the relationship of two notes. I take the more general definition of a chord as any two or more notes played simultaneously. The simplest chords, triads, are just a root note, the third, and the fifth above it. E.g., any D-triad note quite simply has a D as its root (lowest note.) On the mando, that open D string can be your root (although any D will do, that's the easiest.) Count three letters up in the alphabet (inclusive of the root) and there's your third: F. Count another three, and there's your fifth on top: A. Your D-chord triad is just a D-F-A played simultaneously, however you can best work it out on the fingering. (If it's too hard to finger, you can even switch the root around, and play a F-D-A or an A-F-D; these are called inversions, and each sounds a little different.)

Power chords, so called, are even easier: You just leave out the third, and play only two notes, the third and the fifth! (In the above example, that would be a D and an A above it.)

By the time you realize that if you take into account all the possible inversions, notes left out (as they often are, either to give a more open sound, or because another instrument in the group is playing it), and chords that sound sort of similar, the permutations are nearly infinite. So you're thrown back on what sounds good to you. And remember, this isn't a piano; you only have four fingers, maximum, with which to fret, and many chords require only two.

And triads aren't the only chords so you don't have to feel limited. Strum all eight strings at once, open: that's G-D-A-E, obviously, and can be thought of as an open four-note chord based on a root (G), fifth (D), ninth (A), and thirteenth (E) -- a very jazzy chord that some consider really advanced, but it's just a bunch of open strings. So you can impress your non-musician friends by strumming across the strings without fretting and casually remark, "Well, that there is a four-note chord based on a G root with a fifth, ninth, and thirteenth on top, of course."

[barney 59]

Jethro Burns used primarily 3 string chords in his playing, though of course many of those chords included the "G" string.. Get his Mel Bay instruction book there is a chord chart in the back.
Lots of people learned to play first and then began to learn theory later--probably most people that entered into music via some folk idiom or Rock and Roll. You hear a song you like and try to learn it, it's called "playing by ear". My guess is that if you polled the members of the Mandolin Cafe a great many of them did just that and a large contingency probably are still totally, or nearly so, illiterate as far as formal theory goes.

[fxstsb]

You need to begin learning music theory and learning to play by ear if you hope to understand your fretboard and make your own music. Once you begin this process you'll realize how much time you wasted using chord generators and tabs. Thank me later

Personally I see using tab music the way to go. When I learned music (took) we were taught about the staffs and cleffs. Remember FACE and EGBDF? Still today I have to sit down and figure it out. You may not. But, why look at that when I can see an improved methodology in tabs. Especially left handed.

[whistler]

I've built an instrument that is basically a three-stringed mandolin: no G string.

What you've built is essentially a Greek baglama

It's normally tuned D A D, but could easily tuned up to D A E.

Alec Finn plays a 3-course Greek bouzouki, tuned D A D - great for accompanying Irish music in D, but if you want access to a wider palette of chords, you might want to keep the high E-string.

[belbein]

[QUOTE=fxstsb;1245376]today I have to sit down and figure it out. You may not. QUOTE] Though in theory I "learned" standard notation with piano as a kid and then with classical guitar as an adult, I also had to sit down and figure it out. But when I started mandolin, I realized that being able to read standard notation--not tab--made it easier to pick up any of the music for violin or fiddle. And since I love classical music, and since most of the "roots" stuff is transcribed by ethnomusicologists or musicians in standard notation, that meant being able to access a whole boatload of other music.

So: I didn't do it as a purist, I did it for practical reasons. And it only took me a few months to get to where I could sight-read.

[whistler]

To join the hijackers: I agree that learning staff notation is invaluable - along with playing by ear. I actually think that sight-reading for mandolin and other 5th-tuned instruments (i.e. violin & mandolin families [excepting double bass/mandobass]) is particularly easy, because there is a constant correlation between the open strings and the lines/spaces of the stave: the open strings of the mandolin/violin, for example, correspond to alternate spaces in the treble clef. Once you have made that visual-spatial connection, it's straightforward.

I play several instruments (to varying degrees of incompetency) and I like to be able to transfer tunes from one instrument to another. With staff notation, I can hear the tune in my head, without touching an instrument (depending on the complexity of the tune and the number of accidentals), then transfer it to whichever instrument I choose - no need for instrument-specific notation systems. It takes a bit of practice, but it's worth it.

[ralph johansson]

Wait. Why? Someone else has already done the work. Relying on someone else's work frees everyone up to work on what's important to them. I mean, you don't insist on refining your own gasoline, just so you appreciate the chemistry of hydrocarbons, do you?

At some point in the future, when he's done with whatever his top priorities are now, he can go back and learn chord theory. But if his top priority is learning to play, why get sidetracked in bunch of useless (at this time) theory?

Don't we all wish we could learn to play without all the work that goes into it?

Really, what exactly what does it mean to learn to play, and why exactly is theory useless? To some people, I suppose, it means learning one tune
after the other, ad hoc, e.g., from a TAB bank. What, then, if, for some reason, they want to change the key of the tune - wouldn't it be helpful to know a little about keys and their scales? And what does it take to create variations on an instrumental tune, or paraphrases on a song melody - wouldn't it be helpful to know a little about the tonal environment of the song, and how different notes fit in with the underlying harmony? And how do you know how to use chords without knowing at least a little about their construction and relationships?



The exact order of learning is open to discussion, of course, but when I started playing the guitar more than 55 years ago I was greatly helped by already knowing standard notation, hence about keys, their scales, and relationships.
Theory is organized, structured, knowledge, reducing myriads of facts to a few principles. With the aid of theoretical concepts it's so much easier to understand and memorize a score, or transcribe a tune from a recording. This segment is just an arpeggio over the chord, this is a scale, here the song uses the upper intervals of a chord, here it goes outside the key, here it returns, etc., etc., etc.,

There are people who have learned all this without being able to read, e.g., Tommy Emmanuel or Martin Taylor (who later learned notation by listening and looking at a score at the same time). These people usually have exceptional ears, and started at a very early age.

Sometimes people on this forum ask "how do I play an C13b9", they're asking about the chord, not the harmony, and neglect to say anything about context, e.g., is the 13 or b9 a melody note, are you devising a chord melody or an accompaniment, what's the function of the chord, etc.? Can you really play an instrument if you can't even answer these questions?

Whether using a chord generator or not, I believe the TS will have to experiment a bit to find out which chords really work on his 3-string instrument, together with other instruments. Just taking a mandolin chord from a table and cutting off the g course you may lose some very characteristic note, e.g., a 7th. And the mandolin chord may not even have four notes in it.