Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 03:19:03 -0800 From: "Michael Bolton" Subject: Pontiac and drones LONG mesasge ahead; guitar players take note. Non-guitar players: please forgive me and move to the next message. > MY TOP TEN DESIRED FRED SONGS > 10. Pontiac The key to doing Pontiac well lies with something I've just really begun to comprehend this year (why did no one tell me about this for the previous 22 years I've been playing guitar?): the drones. Truly competent guitarists will roll up their eyes and say "of course!". Those who are still on the way will really get a lot out of this if I explain it properly and you read carefully. Bear with me. (Oh, and when I use "Do" and "So" just below, I use them in the Do-a-deer-a-female-deer sense.) The fundamental notes of most chords that we hear commonly are the 1 (the root of the chord, or Do, or C if you're playing a C Major chord), and 5 (the fifth, or So, which is G in that same C Major Chord). The thing that makes the chord major is the 3 (third, Mi, E); a minor chord uses a flat 3 (minor third, E-flat). The real oomph of the chord comes from the 1 and the 5, though. Bagpipes and uillean pipes (I think) have one pipe with finger holes, and other pipes supply the drones -- tuned to the 1 and the 5, which gives those instruments a distinctive, beefy sound. When a song is in the key of C, most any note on the scale and any chord in the song sounds pretty much OK in combination with the 1 and the 5. Even chords that don't have a C or a G in them sound good when played against the root and the fifth, especially if you maintain those two notes throughout. Some chords sound a little suspenseful, discordant, or downright strange againts the drones, but the most important ones work pretty well and sound quite rich. (In the key of C, those chords include C, F, G, Am, Dm, and Em. Other chords that you run into somewhat less often in C -- D (major), E (major), A (major) -- sound stranger against the drones, but if you're on your way to another chord quickly, it sounds kinda cool. Try it: play a standard three-chord song in C. Keep the B string fretted on the first fret (making it a C) always, and leave the G string open always. Play the rest of the notes in the chord as you would normally. This may take a moment or two to practice, but it's fairly easy to master. It adds a little fullness and suspense, don't you think? Easier still are songs in the key of G. To get the drone effect in G, fret the highest-pitched E string (the one on the closest to the ground) at the third fret with your pinky, and the B string also at the third fret with your ring finger). Use your other two fingers to play the normal fingerings for the rest of the strings. Using this system, the most commonly heard chords in G look like this: G major C major D major Em Am Bm OO x O xxO Ox O xO O x OO ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== - ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ X X X X X X - ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ X XX X XX XX XX XX XX - ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ Technically, the D major there is a D major with a G in it and the F# missing, but our minds seem almost to stuff the F# in for us. This makes the chord a Dsus4 (meaning that we're hanging on to or "suspending" the 4th note from the root), and true to its name, it sounds a little suspenseful. However, a lot of the time the song will take you from that suspended chord to the G, where everything feels comfy and balanced again. And technically, the C is not a true C major, but a C with an extra D jammed into it, making it a Csus2, which again is a little suspensful, but resolved by the G. The same sorts of principles apply to the minor chords depicted above. The cool thing is that by keeping your pinky and your ring finger stationary, you can get these interesting overtones against the normal notes in the chord, and it makes for a richer, ringing kind of sound to the tune overall. Now: we get to Pontiac. Pontiac is... well, Pontiac is neither in C (in which it isn't too hard to play drones) nor in G (in which it's actually easy to play drones). Pontiac is in E, in which it's utterly freakin' simple to play drones -- the easiest key of all. In E, the B and E strings -- the two closest to the floor -- are left open always, leaving four fingers to work with the four strings closest to the ceiling. The two chords that you hear through most of Pontiac are E and C#m. E is normal: E O OO ====== X - ------ XX - ------ - ------ C#m is like a normal C#m bar chord (hard for beginners) without having to do the bar part (making it much simpler for beginners). It looks like this: C#m x OO ====== - ------ - ------ - ------ X - ------ - ------ XX - ------ (Usually when you're doing the drone thang, you don't play that string closest to the ceiling; just the higher-pitched five strings. However, Pontiac tolerates leaving that lowest-pitched E open, so you can whack it if you feel like it). Master those two chords. Count the song in four, playing the E for four beats, and C#m for four beats, and you've got everything up to the bridge of the song ("There was an incident last night..."). At which point, we introduce an A, which is dead easy: A xO OO ====== XX - ------ - ------ Play that for a four count, and the C#m for a four count, and you've got it made for the bridge. Congratulations: you've got mostly the whole song. G#m, which sneaks in every now and again, is the toughest one. Fret that low E string (ceiling) with your thumb on the fourth fret; the ring finger on the A string, sixth fret; the pinky on the D string, sixth fret; and use your index finger on the G string, fourth fret. G#m OO ====== - ------ - ------ - ------ X X - ------ - ------ XX - ------ F#m (which doesn't really appear in Pontiac) is exactly the same shape as G#m, but the fingers slide two frets towards the tuning pegs (so I won't bother to diagram it). Add a B to the mix and you can play most any three-, four-, five-, or six-chord song in the key of E with drones: B OO ====== - ------ X - ------ - ------ XX - ------ Now: take your favourite pop, country, rock, folk, or bluegrass tune, and play it in the key of E, replacing the normal chords with the drone versions. The song sounds a little different, but interesting, don't you think? And listen for drones in all kinds of places -- Dave Matthews' "Crash", the Indigo Girls' "Galileo", Suzanne Vega's "Luka",... the list goes on and on and on. Sorry to go on for so long, but I would have appreciated this if someone had pointed it out to me earlier. I hope you find it useful. All this I learned in the last year or so thanks to the fabulous Mark Haines, who should be well-known to Ontario and East Coast Fred Heads. If you've never seen or heard Mark, watch for him. - ---Michael B.