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Author Topic: Right-hand chords for B/C box  (Read 3977 times)

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Stiamh

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Right-hand chords for B/C box
« on: February 20, 2018, 01:54:31 PM »

From another thread:

This is the B/C box guy again. I'm interested in using the left hand basses and chords on my Hohner "modern Bass" layout. Most of what I am playing is Irish tunes in D or G. I've only been playing since last September and I have 10 tunes down. So any help with using my Basses/Chords would be helpful. My layout has C,D,G,E on the push and A,D,G,F on the pull.

Hi Bryan. You've given me an idea for a video tutorial. It might take me a while to get round to it, so in the meantime the attached might help. Might, mind you... it shows you what notes make up what chords - all major and minor chords of the chromatic scale (for G# also read Ab, and so on) and what chords can be played on the right-hand of a B/C box.

Learning the notes that comprise chords (for starters, at least the chords that are available on your left hand), may help you understand what chords are possible (or likely) at any point in a tune. And knowing where these notes are on your right hand can help you find the right chord.

The attached diagram would be more helpful if it used a button layout as in Lester's book. (If someone wants to produce one from the attached, please go ahead!   :|glug)

Obviously learning how to use basses is a big subject, theory-wise, and it is totally possible to become a decent user of the basses, by ear, without any theory at all. But a wee bit of theory can take you that bit further and demystify matters. I'll try to get around to making that video - but I might do C#/D first.  (:)

Edited to post a corrected version of chart
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 01:57:09 PM by Stiamh »
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2018, 03:56:28 PM »

The attached diagram would be more helpful if it used a button layout as in Lester's book. (If someone wants to produce one from the attached, please go ahead!

I've been writing a small python program to automate generating available chords for my DG instrument as I have different accidentals. I'm thinking of making it be able to generate imagemagick output to generate the charts for me, using Lester's design as a template. It should work for other layouts, too, so, I guess I'll keep working on it!

I mean I imagine someone maybe already did this but should be a nice pet project for the week.
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Clawhammer

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2018, 06:18:37 PM »

Hi Steve: 

Might you have such a chord file for C#/D???

Ever needy but ever appreciative (of your tutorial tune movies), Bill
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MandoC

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2018, 06:58:04 PM »

I think I asked about this subject some time ago.This is chart is very useful as the left hand chords are so limited for accompaniment. Thanks for posting this.  Charlie
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Stiamh

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2018, 07:56:13 PM »

Hi Steve:  Might you have such a chord file for C#/D???

Attached, Bill, thanks. I just spotted a mistake in the version I posted just now and had to delete the post. There could be more.  ;)

Clawhammer

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2018, 10:39:30 PM »

Thanks very much!
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Bryan Field

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2018, 11:20:27 AM »

Thanks for all the helpful responses. By the number of downloads of the chart I'd say my question hit a chord! :||:
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Barlow

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2018, 12:54:08 PM »

And thanks from me too Stiamh. I will work through chart. Helpful stuff.

(Not wanting to sound grumpy but I have to say, the thread is titled Right-hand chords for B/C box, but it has soon drifted of into D/G stuff)  (:)
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Stiamh

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2018, 02:05:18 PM »

So who spotted the errant # attached to the E in the C# minor chord (BC chart)? Fixed, new chart attached to original post. There may well be more little oversights, to be fixed as I notice them.

Barlow, Greg's post may be a little off the mark because it assumes that the chords are all major (if they are, Bryan, get that fixed pronto ;) ) which makes the recommendations for Em 7 etc. irrelevant, and because he necessarily has a D/G world view, but he meant well. Hardly major thread drift. You'll be complaining that we've wandered into C#/D territory  next...  :|glug

Stiamh

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2018, 02:07:37 PM »

I've been writing a small python program to automate generating available chords for my DG instrument as I have different accidentals. I'm thinking of making it be able to generate imagemagick output to generate the charts for me, using Lester's design as a template. It should work for other layouts, too, so, I guess I'll keep working on it!

Please do Gena, and let us know if ever it is fit to be unleashed. (:)

Barlow

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2018, 02:19:33 PM »

You'll be complaining that we've wandered into C#/D territory  next...  :|glug

I hope I know better than to do that. It's all CBA!

Could I quickly relate another lesson I once learned. I was with a load of bikers in the pub when a young fella who had a scooter turned up and started chatting. "But he rides a scooter" I said to one of the main guys. "It's all two mate, it's all two wheels" he replied.

Lesson learned.
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2018, 06:17:20 PM »

So, this is where I'm at right now:

Layout:

Chords:



(They are all the same width, thumbnails may make it look different)

I'm afraid it rather blindly searches for results and doesn't attempt to find the notes that are the closest together or anything, but I think it's a pretty good starting point? Grey indicated notes are ones that are in the chord but there is not another complete copy of it to go with them, so, sometimes you'll see a grey note you should clearly be using instead of a lower copy of the note that it has found and included in the chord. (Example: E Major)

This is all programatically generated, so, should work for any layout, including 3 row, extra buttons and other odd balls - I tested it with DG against the existing chord chart and just fed it a BC layout to get these results. I have no experience at all with BC or really Right Hand chording in general to know what would be good/bad so, I'm just solving the situation of 'do these sets of notes exist in a single direction?'

While there is no real musical understanding, it's still a work in progress: combined with Stiamh's write up & other posts I imagine that still covers a lot of bases (and replaces a lot of basses, har de har).
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Stiamh

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2018, 06:35:36 PM »

Wow, Gena, very cool!

One thing that strikes me is the grouping into three notes of the same colour (or four, in the case of a 7 chord). It seems the programme grabs the lowest note that is part of the chord and then adds on the next two (or three), so in many cases you get inversions instead of starting with the root note. That being so, is there any point in having the colour codings? I mean, ask a B/C player to play a Dm triad and I don't think she/he would think of playing ADF rather than DFA. So you might as well make them all pink... or blue. :-)

Second thing - actually more important: you show I & V partial chords, e.g. D5, but what about I & III ( e.g. F major / minor, G major) or III & V (e.g. G major/minor) ?  Often these are all you can get and are useful when the full triad or I & V are not available.

george garside

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2018, 10:25:52 PM »

 if you are thinking in terms of  playing right hand chords within a melody or tune  the limiting factor as to what can  be played at any particular part of a particular tune is down to  which if any 'spare'  fingers are available at any moment and also of course to the bellows direction for a particular note  in the tune

if on the other hand you are thinking in terms of playing right hand chords only ( with no melody) then  as per the diagrams there are plenty of options - but again these are likely to be restricted  by bellows direction  is also using the bass chords (and or notes)

Personally I don't think in terms of named treble chords  but over the years have  programmed autopilot to  use  a spare finger (or two) to  bring in another note (partial chord) simply to thicken the soup!

george
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2018, 01:50:26 AM »

Wow, Gena, very cool!
(feedback)

Yeah absolutely, at the moment I'm cribbing the design from the chords list available on the home page of the web site - the design there is a layout without low notes - the low notes of the BC layout are mostly responsible for really changing the inversions and throwing things off at the moment. I'll have a think and see if I can think up reasonable rules for 'which chord is better' and implement that or something, because right now it, as you say, just starts from the bottom and works up. Inversions really want to be selected a) for their playability and b) for their sound, so, I have some thinking to do.

I can also definitely do all the I + III, III + V combinations etc; as those would take up a lot of space and that it's more common to have useful 3 note chords on a fourth apart box, I didn't initially see reason to add them, but I can see they're important for semitone boxes - I was a bit wary of just creating lots of 'noise' information. I'll see if I can improve the way it picks out chord note combinations, add the 2 button combinations that are more useful (because you find them in your commonly played keys unlike many complete triads), see if I can add useful arpeggios, as well as figure out why E 5 is in there twice...

After that I'll post what I have and probably then go and I guess make a thread about this since clearly I don't want to drift your thread here away. I'll at some point be putting the code up on my github but that it's using python and imagemagick might be a bit of a barrier to entry. Plus, I've kind of just hacked it together so it isn't especially glamorous.
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Rog

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #15 on: February 22, 2018, 08:15:38 AM »

Well done Gena. Excellent!!!

Chris Ryall

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #16 on: March 10, 2018, 12:37:01 PM »

https://chrisryall.net/chords/ has offered this online for some time. Default box is DG but just press the [BC] button to get a rebuilt and type in any chord you like.  Chord component notes on left end, or even in (3rds out) left end chords  also light up.  (:)

You can also type in your own special layout
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Barlow

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Re: Right-hand chords for B/C box
« Reply #17 on: December 20, 2018, 12:48:49 PM »

Oh, and the 'Ryanair' button is rather interesting.
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