Ode to Joy struggle or typo error?

[tonicm]

Hi there.
I joined a few days ago and started the exercises and I am lost with the Ode to Joy tablature.
On bars 5 and 6 there are two chord that I don’t recognize, on bar 6 it is marked as a “C” chord but the tablature is marking not only the first string on the third fret, but also the fourth string in the second fret.
I do not find that chord in any chord chart, is that a typo mistake? In theory those two strings should be plucked at the same time shouldn’t they?
As I said this is driving me nuts as I do not know how to proceed. Any help will be appreciated.
I include the tablature with red marks to clarify what I am referring to.

Thanks in advance

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by tonicm.

[Andrew]

Hi Toni, so the melody notes in bar 5 center around the harmony of an F chord. Likewise, bar 6 centers around a C chord.

The chord melody embellishes the chords with a couple color notes to fill out the sound. I did not notate the voicings you circled with a chord graph. But you are correct, the 2 notes should be plucked together.

[tonicm]

Hi Andrew.
Thanks a lot for your help, but what I do not understand is that we are doing an A minor chord at the same time that we do a C chord. Is that a chord with a specific name?

[misterbones]

@tonicm Unfortunately I’m not able to see your attachment, but if you’re referring to the 2xx3 in bar 5 and 6 of Ode to Joy, that’s neither a C chord nor an A minor chord, it’s an F chord. The full chord would be 2013, which is just another very common voicing of F major, in addition to the well knwon 2010. Since the middle two strings are not played, it’s shown as 2xx3 in the chord diagram, but if you wanted to play the full chord instead, it would be 2013, which is just stock F major, same as 2010.
The three notes of F major are F – A – C. When you play 2010, you play A – C – F – A. When you play 2013, you play A – C – F – C. The same three notes, just doubling the C instead of the A.
As the underlying harmony is F major, but the melody note is a C, the 2013 (or 2xx3) is the F major voicing of choice here.
All of this will be a lot clearer when you go through the music theory course.

I’m not sure though if I would call the 0xx1 in the same bars F. To me that looks and sounds more like a C7. At least when I hum the melody and strum the full chords, a C7 works perfectly fine there.
Also the different parts in the tabulature are indicated as melodies A – B – C – D, while it really sounds and looks more like A – A – B – A to me.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by misterbones.

[Andrew]

@misterbones is correct! It’s easier to see the harmony when looked at as a lead sheet, like in the “Ode To Joy” lesson from our reading course.

So Toni was asking about bar 5 and 6 from the excerpt of OTJ from this lesson.

Which correlates to bar 1 and 2. Traditionally, this 2nd bar’s harmony is over a C chord. So I went ahead and updated/simplified our chord melody version of “Ode To Joy” to reflect this. I’d call it C6 for 2XX3 in bar 2.

As to your second question, Toni. Chord shapes can look like shapes we recognize, but their function can be different depending on the key and progression of the piece. I’d recommend jumping into the introductory theory lessons here as it’s a great starting place for studying harmony.

[tonicm]

Thanks a lot to both of you, now it is more clear to me.

[Author]

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