Help on some Tabs

I've not been playing long but I'm fairly sure they are just the chord names, the chord shape is in the tab below the chords.

They are just the chord names, given to the fingering shown in the tab.
The complicated one is Bb(11)/D. It's an extended Bbmajor chord. The note, behind the slash, means that the normal bass note Bb (the root) has been changed to a "D". You're playing with a capo on the 8th fret, so the "2", shown in the tab, is, in reality, the 10th fret of the low E string, which is a "D". The "11", in brackets, shows that you have to add an 11th degree to the chord.

You may or may not have come across scale degrees, yet. They are numbers, which are used to abstract the references to scales, so that, when you say "5th degree", you know that we are talking about the 5th note, in the scale - it doesn't matter which scale, it's the 5th note in that scale (it's a little bit like musical algebra). You will sometimes see them shown as numbers, sometimes as roman numerals (this is usually reseverd for chord progressions).

You'd be right in asking how we can have an 11th degree, in a 7 note scale. The easy answer is that we just carry on right round to the beginning again, so, after the 7th, comes 8th (which is the root note again), then the 9th, which is the same note as the 2nd, followed by the 10th, which is the same as the 3rd and then the 11th, which is the same note as the 4th. So, in Bb, the "8th" is Bb, the 9th is C, the 10th is D and the 11th is Eb.

A basic chord consists of 3 notes, called a triad and is built from so-called stacked thirds. A third is an interval which contains 3 note names, so A to C is a third, as is B to D, E to G, etc. Intervals come in various "flavours" (major, minor, augmented, diminished), but that is beyond what we need for this discussion. The basic Bb major chord consists of two third intervals - Bb to D (the Bb scale is Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb), ie "Bb, C and D" and D to F, i.e. "D, Eb, F". This is the basic chord triad, which is the 1 - 3 - 5 degrees of the Bb scale (Bb-D-F).

We can extend chords, by adding more third intervals, for example. Instead of just the 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees, we can add another 3rd interval, to the stack (we already have 1-2-3-4-5, so we can simply tack -6-7 onto the end - a 3rd is 3 note names, remember, so we add 5-6-7). This would give us a Bbmaj7. However, most extended chords are based on the Dominant 7th chord, which has the 7th degree lowered by one semitone (the note name remains the same, but is a semitone lower - the A, in the Bb scale, would be lowered to Ab). This becomes, in Bb, a Bb7 chord. This is a very important note, in extended chords, because it keeps the "chain" of thirds together, beyond the end of the scale (and into numbers higher than 7). If we were to add a C, which is both the 2nd and the 9th degrees, to the Bb7 chord, we would get a Bb9 (we now have 1-3-5-7b-9, a string of 3rds). We can extend this further, to add yet another 3rd - 9-10-11 - to give us a Bb11 (1-3-5-7b-9-11). Although, at this point, you might be wondering how this is possible - there are 6 notes, here and only 6 strings, it's going to be very difficult to get ALL of them and not need 8-inch fingers! It is possible to leave notes out (especially if you can hand one or two over to other players, such as the bassist), primarily, though you can drop the 9th degree, to leave 1-3-5-7b-11.

However, if we look at the notes, that you are playing (D-F-Eb-F-Bb-Eb), you have the degrees 3-5-11-5-1-11. There is no 7th degree in there, so the chord can't be a Bb11. So what is it? Well, it looks like you've just added a note (the 11th, Eb) to the basic Bb triad, so that's what it's called Bbadd11.

So the chord is a Bbadd 11 with D as the bass note.

oh and if your playing that song you might want to, if you haven't done so already, check out this lesson by Mattguitar.

here

Looking at the actual tab, he's tabbed the chords in relation to the capo.....

If you look at the chords WITHOUT a capo, what he's playing is:

Eb - 320033 - this is an alternate voicing of the G chord, the extra D note on the B string doesn't make a lot of difference, as D is already included in a G chord.

Bb(11)/D - 200233 - This is actually a Dsus4 chord with an F# bass note - F#, again, is an essential note in the construction of the D chord....

Cm7 - again an alternative voicing, this time for Em7....

Ab(9) - this time, he's using the Cadd9 chord.....

If you look at those four chords, you'll notice they all have something in common....the Band E strings in each chord are played at the 3rd fret. Easiest way to play them is with your ring finger on the Bstring and pinky on the top E - you never have to move them! He's using those repeated notes to get a kind of droning effect - they're called pedal points, there's a lesson about them somewhere in the lessons section. Oasis used exactly the same technique on "Wonderwall", and almost the same chords - they use an A7sus4 as well, but it's capoed at the second fret.

:D :D :D

Vic