Chord Identification/voicing help

Oh, and if you need to hear the song, go to http://www.songza.com and type in "j. geils band give it to me " and it should be there.

By the way, http://www.songza.com rocks the house!

First off, that chord as tabbed is Bb with a G bass - the notes are G-Bb-F-Bb-D... so my first thought was the tab you're working from is in an altered tuning tuning (F standard, or capo at first fret). I assume you're going to do it in standard tuning.

When you want to simplify a chord, you can drop a doubled note, which makes it a much more comfortable 3x333x.

If you really want G/B, then it would be 3x444x.

But then I look at the Eb you're showing. The notes are E, G#, B, F#, and G. There's no Eb, so it's labeled wrong. The four lower notes are Eadd9, but that G is out of whack - if the chord is Eadd9, it can't be G (you've already got a G#), it can't be Fx (you've already got F#), and there aren't any other letter names left for that note. You'd have to respell it into something fairly ridiculous, like E-Ab-B-F#-G... which would be Emadd9(b11).

On top of that, the chord as tabbed isn't playable. If you try to fret the lowest note with the thumb (the only possible way to approach it as written), your elbow will probably end up three feet to your right.

And on top of THAT, there's no way to refinger those notes to get the same pitches somewhere else on the neck. So that chord is dead wrong. I guarantee it's not the way Geils plays it.

If the chord name is right, try x6534x or xx5343. Or an A-shape barre chord, x68886.

On the slim chance that the notes as tabbed are right, I'd redistribute them and play the G and B notes as open strings. Then you could do something like x74004.

edit: Noteboat beat me to it - of course :-)

A few quick thoughts:

1. Are you really sure it is a B/G and not a G/B? (haven't listened to it)

2. The fingering you suggest is definitely a Bb/G (at least without the open E - if that is meant to be included it will be something like B/G+11 or something(?)) Let's assume it is a Bb/G then:

3. I'd say it is possible to finger it almost like is usually do the cm9 shape:
m on 6th string, i on the 5th, r&p on the rest. But I agree, it is somewhat tricky.

4. If you do have a bass player - just forget about the G - mute the 6th string

5. Bb D F and G are the same notes as gm7 - 353333 will work

6. Eb: What chord finder are you using?? x68886 / xx6343 / 111313121111

Good luck

Just had a listen - It's G/B not B/G

The Eb is correct - but, again, the fingering is completely wrong unless, as NoteBoat suggested, the tuning is non-standard. Even then it's not a fingering I'd like to use in any tuning. Keep to standard, play any normal Eb fingering and it'll sound fine.

Eb is used sometimes in the key of G as a substitute for Cm, so you will sometimes see it in songs (Worm by Yes is one that comes to mind). You might want to go with the typical A-shaped barre - x6888x. If you want to go with something more along the lines of a C shape, then you can either do a barre at the third fret (x65343) or even use the open G string to cheat - either x6504x or add your pinky to the first string and play x65046.

Hope this helps.

Peace

What can I say other then you all comprise the greatest guitar reference on the planet. Awesome replies and well understood even by my addled brain.

I suspected that B/G was wrong since I couldn't even play part of the chord and have it sound close. When it didn't show up on Chordfind.com I thought something was wrong. Thanks for affirming that.

And the fingering of Eb didn't look right either.

That's the problem with internet surfed tabulature. Often written by a 10 year old that has about as much clue as I do. They do speed up the discovery process however.

Thanks again, you all rock.

Oh, one last thing. G/B (on chordfind.com) is shown as: 7 10 9 7 8 7. It's doable but I wonder if there is a cheater's version somewhere? Given that there is an almost ska feeling to this song, I am figuring I could cheat and do just the high 4 strings and speed up the learning curve. But if that's a bad idea for some reason I fail to see now, please let me know.

That Eb (aka the REAL Eb) is cake to transition to/from.

Thanks again all.

Oh, one last thing. G/B (on chordfind.com) is shown as: 7 10 9 7 8 7. It's doable but I wonder if there is a cheater's version somewhere?
You can play G/B very simply as X20003 - and it's definitely not cheating. It's as correct and valid as any G/B

Schwing! Danka!

I've typed up that song a few months ago and have not gotten to it in awhile. I've had way too much beer tonight to even comtemplate thish thread or anything. I LOVE the song. Hope to see it tomorrow...

Oh, one last thing. G/B (on chordfind.com) is shown as: 7 10 9 7 8 7. It's doable but I wonder if there is a cheater's version somewhere?
If you ever want to find your own voicings for a particular chord, you can view all the notes for that chord on the fretboard on my site linked in my sig... Here's G: ChordsAndScales.co.uk/viewer/b7/cs1. :wink:

It's G/B but in any case, the bass player is probably playing the B.

So the guitarist plays G-G-C-D (most common chord progression ever), while the bass player plays G-B-C-D.

See, everyone's happy and not a difficult-to-finger chord in sight.