Chord Of The Week 11/3/17 - An Fmaj9#11(no3rd) from "To Begin Again" by Walter Trout

bigjon

After last week's "Take an open chord (G 320003) and slide it up two frets with a picky arpeggio (Aadd4 540xxx)" from Bryan Adams' Run To You we have the three fret version this week!

"To Begin Again" by Walter Trout starts with A(m)add9 x02200 played as a picked arpeggio for two bars with the picking pattern of strings 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4 repeated. He then simply shifts the fretted notes up three frets and plays xx5500 with the same picking pattern; except he stays silent where he was picking the 5th string on the first beat of the bar, while the band play a low F which would be at 1xxxxx.
I can play the whole chord 1x5500 on my short-scale guitar if I'm sitting down with the neck raised to ear-level, so that's the version I'll notate - 

Fmaj9#11(no3rd): (1)x5500

The notes are:
a root note F 1xxxxx
a 9th G xx5xxx
a 5th C xxx5xx
a #11th B xxxx0x
a maj7th E xxxxx0

As with last week's chord, "sliding an open chord up and picking an arpeggio" creates an ear-catching semitone clash between the notes on adjacent strings. However, whereas last week's chord 540xxx had an ascending semitone clash between strings 5 and 4, in this week's chord the semitone clash is descending, between the C at xxx5xx and the B at xxxx0x.
So while the picking pattern ascends up the strings (= travels physically downwards towards the floor! :-0 ) the individual notes descend by a semitone down the scale! 8-)

You can see the chord played at 0:14 in this video - 

bigjon

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