chord question

[oldsouth]

I've been playing guitar for about 15 years, and have been meaning to ask someone about this for almost that long. I know a few hundred chords - barre, dead string, inverted, augments, diminished - but there is on category that confuses me. I looked at an arrangement of "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter" today and saw something I've seen many times in many songs, but never knew how to play:

What is a chord with a / in it? I think this was C/G, Cdim/G, Dm7/G, etc.

None of my teachers ever showed me those chords - are they just, for instance Dm7 with a G note added on the bass string?

Any help would be appreciated.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

You got it -- the notation is just indicating a chord together with a bass note, and the bass note may or may not be one of the chord notes. For example, you could play Dmin7/G as 3x3535.

Much less commonly, it could indicate polychords -- two chords played at the same time. For example a piano player could play BMaj/Cmaj by playing C-E-G with his left hand and B-D#-F# with his right -- is that the "Round Midnight" chord?

[oldsouth]

Many thanks for the quick reply!

[oldsouth]

I'm playing the chords, using my thumb on the low E string - it is nice to have big hands - It looks like I am strangling my guitar! My guitar teachers would have admonished me on technique, but this sounds really good!

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Using the thumb for bass notes has a fine guitar tradition. For that DMin7/G you can probably drop the A and get away with it: 3x353x

Sometimes, you even have to reach around *under* the guitar neck and fret treble strings with the thumb:

CMaj7#11: x35452

[oldsouth]

Dang - never thought of that! I'll have to try it. Being from NC, Tal Farlow is a major hero of mine. Tal used his thumbs, so I never saw any problem with it.

[shoome]

Tal didn't have the nickname Octopus for no reason ;-) I really do love his stuffe... especially the swinging guitar album and the one with lenny breau

[Shadow of the Sun]

Tuck Andress does all kinds of weird stuff when it comes to fretting- the 'thumb under for treble' thing, for one.

Tuck's hands are huge. Mine are not- I can't even fret with my thumb over the neck on my guitar, so I have to use sneaky tricks.

[Archangel-Canada]

Hi Old South,
Allow me to throw in my two cents worth. I am a drummer, bassist and pianist when I'm not playing guitar. The split chord runs you refer to (ie: E/G#) are more so important for the bassist to follow in a band setting as the bassist usually follows the left hand of the pianist and improvises around that structure. The guitar player has the opportunity and flexibility to play or not to the bass note indicated on the right of the split. I have a few friends that struggle to reach the bass note. Personally I prefer to achieve the full chord expecially if playing alone or a duo. Certain chord progressions sound dissident if you don't.

[oldsouth]

Tal was amazing - I never got to see him live, but few did. There was a great boxed set of the complete Verve Sessions released a few years ago. It is now out of print and very hard to find. I'm not advocating it, but if you search 4Shared, you might find it....

[yevetz]

That note after "/" symbol calls "root" if we talking about chord with a bass under it. And about thumb, maybe it's really a good technique, but when you play 7 and 8 string guitars it's actually impossible to use it