Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Songs I Love to Play in Open-D - Tequila Sunrise
I'm not an Eagles-ophile by any stretch of the imagination, but they wrote some terrific melodies and chord progressions, set to some pretty melancholy lyrics, that seemed to personify all the excesses of 1970s LA. One of my all time faves to play by them has to be Tequila Sunrise. It is a truly spectacular assemblage of chords, in any guitar tuning I suppose, but in open-D - wow!
Starting with the opening four-bar move from G to G6 (almost hinting at a Gmaj7?), which I play on the low A string (third finger, 7th fret, while barring on G) to give is a more bass-y feel, you really don't anything more than your acoustic guitar to set the feel for the whole tune.
Then for the verse, the progression moves from the G-G6 to D7, then to Am ("'cross the sky"), then back to D7 before landing back on that G-G6 pattern. The Am can be played to tremendous effect on the 7th fret position, with just the D-F#-A strings held down (A-C-E), allowing the open-D to occasionally ring (for and Am-add4).
This progression continues for another verse, before the first bridge comes in ("Every night when the sun goes down..."), which vamps on C to Em and returning on an Am-D7 and back to the verse projection. The C to Em progression can be played beautifully in the base position and both chords can also leave the high open D string ringing for effect (C add 2, and Em7 respectively).
Then comes another verse on the original progression (G-G6, etc.), and an instrumental on the same pattern (which the Eagles gave a mournful Tex-Mex treatment on guitars that might have been trumpets).
The climax of the tune comes after the instrumental, where a different bridge is introduced with the pattern of Am D Bm E Am B7 Em A ("Take another shot of courage..."), before returning to the original progression and verse ("It's another Tequila Sunrise...").
I like to vary up the second bridge part by playing the D and E chords way up high (12th and 14th fret), the B7 standard on fret 9, and then that last Em back on the bottom. The chords, melody line and lyrics all mesh amazingly throughout this section before returning home to the original progression and lyric, except at the end, "this old world still looks the same, another frame".
It's a wonderful composition (these guys were pros), but you can really give it a treatment, with just an acoustic guitar and your voice - in open-D tuning.
Starting with the opening four-bar move from G to G6 (almost hinting at a Gmaj7?), which I play on the low A string (third finger, 7th fret, while barring on G) to give is a more bass-y feel, you really don't anything more than your acoustic guitar to set the feel for the whole tune.
Then for the verse, the progression moves from the G-G6 to D7, then to Am ("'cross the sky"), then back to D7 before landing back on that G-G6 pattern. The Am can be played to tremendous effect on the 7th fret position, with just the D-F#-A strings held down (A-C-E), allowing the open-D to occasionally ring (for and Am-add4).
This progression continues for another verse, before the first bridge comes in ("Every night when the sun goes down..."), which vamps on C to Em and returning on an Am-D7 and back to the verse projection. The C to Em progression can be played beautifully in the base position and both chords can also leave the high open D string ringing for effect (C add 2, and Em7 respectively).
Then comes another verse on the original progression (G-G6, etc.), and an instrumental on the same pattern (which the Eagles gave a mournful Tex-Mex treatment on guitars that might have been trumpets).
The climax of the tune comes after the instrumental, where a different bridge is introduced with the pattern of Am D Bm E Am B7 Em A ("Take another shot of courage..."), before returning to the original progression and verse ("It's another Tequila Sunrise...").
I like to vary up the second bridge part by playing the D and E chords way up high (12th and 14th fret), the B7 standard on fret 9, and then that last Em back on the bottom. The chords, melody line and lyrics all mesh amazingly throughout this section before returning home to the original progression and lyric, except at the end, "this old world still looks the same, another frame".
It's a wonderful composition (these guys were pros), but you can really give it a treatment, with just an acoustic guitar and your voice - in open-D tuning.
