The DGB strings as the MIDDLE KINGDOM” (?? ) of the Guitar

**Navdeep_Singh** · 10-25-2025, 01:16 PM

Music is a Lifetime Process. The “MIDDLE KINGDOM” (?? ) of the guitar-the DGB strings (strings 4–3-2 on a regular string guitar). Given that tonal music is largely variations of V7-I, secondary V7-Is and so forth, I have found that there are 6 key grips on the DGB strings you have know, hands down, stone cold, without thinking.

(1) Three Shell voicings of the dominant chord: in sequence, from L to R on the DGB strings, the intervals are: R-3-b7; b7-R-3; the 3-b7-R. N.B. the P5-R-b7 is impossible to play on three consecutive strings-even for Ben Monder!, so we throw that out.

(2) Three diminished shapes, with intervals : R-b5-M6; R-b3-M6; R-b3-b5.

Once you can get this down, you can add notes above (soprano) and/or below (bass).

As always, this is for solo, “piano-style” guitar purposes. The main purpose of my life, going forward.

Quick hack: learn the three diminished grips. Once you know them stone cold, all you have to do is go down a half step from each note of the diminished grip to get one of the dominant chord shell voicings. (Db° down a half step leads you to a C7 shell voicing.). If you treat this dominant shell vocing as a kind of V7, you can easiy voice lead to the resolution chord C7 shell voicing to some kind of F major or F minor).

Historical note: MIDDLE KINGDOM” (?? ) was not just a geographic location, but the cultural center of the universe. We can treat the DGB strings as possessing the same musical gravitational weight.

**pamosmusic** · 10-25-2025, 01:17 PM

Middle Earth?

**Navdeep_Singh** · 10-25-2025, 01:24 PM

Hmm.. I tried to copy the Chinese characters for “Middle Kingdom” but it came out as question marks.

Let’s use a specific guitar term, famous in Spain for “Middle Kingdom”. “Por medio”

**Mick-7** · 10-27-2025, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by pamosmusic

Middle Earth?

Frodo lives?

I wouldn't call b7-R-3 an essential voicing, there are not many notes you can play above or below it that will sound good.

**Christian Miller** · 10-27-2025, 05:32 AM

Aka the good sounding strings

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**Navdeep_Singh** · 10-27-2025, 08:52 AM

Here’s a basic diagram. You can create perpetual movement up and down the neck on the D-G-B strings by going from diminished shape to another diminished shape, just by finding the common tone, which allows you to transition from grip to another grip, seamlessly.

You can break out of the diminished shape by moving any note of the three down a half step, to the dominant 7 shel voicing (shell voicing only contains the R, 3, b7). The R of the resultant dominant 7th chord is indicated in red. You can treat this dominant 7th shell voicing as a V7 type of function and resolve however you want.

It seems pretty seamless, offering all kinds of movement, using easy to learn grips.

**paulkogut** · 10-27-2025, 10:49 AM

Someone once asked Mick Goodrick if he ever considered P4 tuning. His reply "I dug the symmetry, but there was just too much meat on that triad..."

**Navdeep_Singh** · 10-28-2025, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by paulkogut

Someone once asked Mick Goodrick if he ever considered P4 tuning. His reply "I dug the symmetry, but there was just too much meat on that triad..."

regarding triads and three note voicings: I’ve now reached a point where I have 10 different three note groupings I can play every minor 3rd up and down the fretboard, on the DGB strings. This, in addition to all the triads, drop 2s, drop 3s, drop 2 and 3s, dyads of every kind from 2nds to 13ths. What I took from Barry Harris is to divide my fretboard into 4 symmetrical areas, going up every three frets, kind of corresponding to his diminished chord going up minor 3rds. Each of the diminished chords (eg, C-Eb-Gb-A are notes that name one diminished chord family, and so on correspond to a four key centers (E,g C-Eb—Gb-A) Each of these key centers works with distances going up three frets (or minor thirds), with the DGB strings as one way to group them. Eg., the keys of C-Eb-Gb-A correspond to fret 0 (open strings); fret 3, fret 6, fret 9 and fret 12 (basically fret 0 an octave up). Thus, if I want to play in C, Eb-Gb, or A, I can do various things on fret 0, fret 3, fret 6, fret 9, or fret 12.

**Navdeep_Singh** · 10-28-2025, 09:17 PM

Continuing the above thought:

the 4 key centers named for the 2nd diminished chord (Db-E-G-Bb) are Db-E-G-Bb and correspond with frets 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 (13 basically repeats fret 1, one octave up).

The 4 key centers named for the 3rd diminished chord (D-F-Ab-B) are D, F-Ab, and B. And these correspond with frets 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 (14 basically repeats fret 2, one octave up).

it’s very symmetrical, and gives me lots of things to play at every fret, every position, in any key signature organized as above.