I have an audition to gain admission into the music school at my university coming up pretty soon. Part of the audition is to demonstrate my ability to facilitate with chords, but I am kind of at a loss for what song to perform. I was wondering if any of you have suggestions about what I could play. What songs do you think have the most impressive chord changes? Anything jazzy would be nice, but anything goes... so what do you think?
Thanks
play them some metalcore like killswitch engage :D the ability to play intergrated leadwork while keeping a 'chug-a-chug' palmmute pattern is very cool :D
not the most mainstream music though :lol:
If you're looking for something jazzy, I'd look at some chord melody stuff - you're using the range of the fretboard, and multiple voicings of the same chords. You might want to look at Joe Pass' version of "Nuages" (a Django classic)... or even Pass' original "Pasta Blues"
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
A good way to demonstrate mastery of chords might be to start with a relatively standard and even mundane chord progression and work through it a number of times using chord substitutions to create harmonically interesting variations on your original chord-based "theme." Then you might demonstrate a couple different and effect ways to modulate the key through chord changes.
-=tension & release=-
To me, chord mastery isn't doing something fancy 'cause that's what's written. It's taking a chart that has 4 bars of F major, and making it really jump out as a key harmonic moment of the song through tasteful substitutions and re-harmonizing.
Listen to Larry Coryell's version of "Autumn Leaves" or Ron Eschete's "Someone In Love" or Ted Greene's "Danny Boy" as good examples of taking simple chord changes and really making them jump through clever inversions and substitutions.
That said, anything by Django will (a) be impressively hard to play and (b) be impressive sounding. After you struggle with some of his chord voicings, marvel at the fact that he managed to play those dang things with only 2 working fingers on his fretting hand!
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
To me, chord mastery isn't doing something fancy 'cause that's what's written. It's taking a chart that has 4 bars of F major, and making it really jump out as a key harmonic moment of the song through tasteful substitutions and re-harmonizing.
looks as if we agree
-=tension & release=-
I have an audition to gain admission into the music school at my university coming up pretty soon. Part of the audition is to demonstrate my ability to facilitate with chords, but I am kind of at a loss for what song to perform. I was wondering if any of you have suggestions about what I could play. What songs do you think have the most impressive chord changes? Anything jazzy would be nice, but anything goes... so what do you think?
Thanks
I guess it depends on what 'facilitate with chords' means. It seems a bit ambiguous to me, but when you say you're looking for impressive chord changes I get the impression it's more about composition than performance. If you're playing someone else's song, you're demonstrating your ability to play the piece, but their ability to compose. If you play your own, you're demonstrating your ability in both areas. Depending on the answer to the first question, maybe taking a simple song that everybody knows and rearranging it into a very differently-styled piece might be the way to go.
hmm... very interesting, all of you, thanks for the advice
I like the idea of using a django song, i think some sort of tune like 'nuages' would be more than acceptable. What a song, how beautiful...
I am amazed at how he can play this with only two fingers. He is more than human.
How about Angel, Little Wing or Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix?
