[00:05] Blackbird by Paul McCartney is one of the most loved and recognized songs of different videos talking about the lyrics and the melody and the message behind the song. But for me, the genius of this song really lies in the chord
[00:18] of this song really lies in the chord sequence. interesting or more complex chords to spice up our songwriting. But there's a
[00:30] type of chord that is one of the most beautiful sounds in music. And it uses only two notes. So in this video, I want to show you these beautiful simple twoot through the lens of Blackbird, which is primarily constructed of these two note
[00:45] chords. And after that, I'll demonstrate some really practical ways you can use these chords in your own songwriting. [Music]
[01:03] in Blackbird. [Music]
[01:39] So that's a really simplified breakdown of the chords that Paul McCartney is using in Blackbird. just so you can clearly hear each of those chord shapes as I move around. And one of the real features of this song is the movement of
[01:53] quite quickly and it creates this beautiful sense of momentum throughout the whole song. And Paul McCartney actually demonstrates the bark piece that inspired that little intro in
[02:06] Blackbird. He talks about it in several interviews and and it's a really great reminder that one of the most beautiful songs of all time actually came from a traditional classical piece that was heard by the composer and then changed,
[02:20] altered. We have to remind ourselves that even the best songwriters listen to other songs and take elements of them and modify them and make it their own. been and continues to be. But what I really want to talk about is Paul
[02:34] McCartney's choice of inversion, the way he's choosing to lay these chords out on guitar, and talk about some of the reasons he might have done that. So talk about the way most of us learn chords. Most of us learn chords as
[02:50] triads, which is a basic chord form using the one, the three or the five for a major chord, or the one flat three, five for a minor chord. And whilst these chords have three notes in them, a lot of the forms that we learn early on and
[03:04] start writing our first songs with have double ups of these notes. So for example, this C chord here has the one, the three, the five,
[03:16] the one, and the three. If we take this G chord, which is a very common chord to learn early on, we can see that all six strings are being activated, but there's still only three notes in this chord. We have the
[03:31] one, the three, the five, the one, the five, and another one. So, some of these notes get doubled up in these chord voicings. And these voicings provide a rich, full sound, which is often very appealing when we're writing songs and
[03:47] strumming our chords. What Paul McCartney is doing with his voicings in Blackbird is something entirely different. He's going the other way. He's using these small, intimate twoote voicings. And a two note
[04:01] voicing is really the smallest possible number of notes you can have in a chord. I mean, it's technically not even a chord for some people. A two note interval. An interval is the distance between two notes. We generally think of
[04:15] chords as needing to have a third note added to create that triad. But what Paul McCartney is doing is implying chords with these two notes. He's outlining the chords with these two notes. And so we hear them as cordal
[04:30] about triads is when we're trying to differentiate between major and minor chords, it is really only the third note that matters. So the three really is whether or not this chord is to be heard as major or minor. And that goes for
[04:46] other chords as well, like the dominant and diminished chords. A dominant chord minor 3. That information becomes important when we start breaking down further. But for now, let's just go back and look at these two note voicings and
[05:00] look at what makes them special. So, if we go back to those first four
[05:14] chords, the first one has a G root note and an open B string. Now, G major note and an open B string. Now, G major triad is constructed G B D 1 35. So the triad is constructed G B D 1 35. So the B note, the third and the root note are
[05:26] the only notes really in this chord. But importantly, the B note, the third is not being played in the same octave as the G note. It's not being played like this. It's being played like
[05:41] this. That third is being played up a full octave. And so instead of calling it a third, we call it a tenth. If we go to the next
[05:55] chord, we have the A bass note and the C note on top. That is also a distance of note on top. That is also a distance of a 10th. Here we have A C E where the C is a flat three in relation to A, which creates the A minor triad, but it is
[06:07] creates the A minor triad, but it is again separated by that octave. If we go again separated by that octave. If we go to the third minor where we have the B in the bass and the D on top as the minor third up
[06:22] and the D on top as the minor third up an octave or it could also imply a G chord being played off the B note. Either way, we have again that interval Either way, we have again that interval of a 10th or a minor 10th. And
[06:36] of a 10th or a minor 10th. And [Music] [Music] finally, this time we're way up the neck playing a G note in the bass. and a B note on top. So you can see that if
[06:50] we're looking at the architecture of Blackbird, it really is constructed of a Blackbird, it really is constructed of a series of these 10th intervals played either as a major 10th or a minor 10th. And I've created a free PDF showing
[07:02] these two note voicings laid out across the guitar in different keys and across different strings. So if you're interested, you'll find the link below. But the question is why? Why did Paul McCartney use these small, intimate
[07:15] twoot note voicings instead of the fuller, richer options that we hear in most songs? Well, as you can hear, these two note voicings are very uncluttered. You get a lot of clarity because we can hear each of the two notes ringing out
[07:27] very clearly. And this clarity and lack of clutter has some huge advantages in which we can get our fingers into position to play these chords makes them very movable. Secondly, the openness of the sound and the lack of clutter leaves
[07:42] a lot of space for other musical elements. So, if you're creating a chord sequence using these two note voicings, there's a lot of room left for rhythmic elements, lyrical and melodic elements, or any other kind of arrangement that
[07:56] you want to create because the space hasn't been filled entirely with all of look at the second set of chords in Blackbird, you can really see the advantage of these small voicings. I'm talking about this section
[08:13] here. What Paul McCartney is doing there is implying a sequence of chromatic is implying a sequence of chromatic chords. That sequence is C major, C sharp diminished, D
[08:27] major, D sharp diminished, and then E minor. Now, if those chords were played as full voicings, it would sound like voicings, it would sound like [Music]
[08:48] if we play it a little [Music] faster, it's quite difficult to get the hand around. But also, there's something that just feels too busy, too cluttered. There's too many notes. There's too much
[09:04] There's too many notes. There's too much [Music] information that's so clean and elegant and leaves so much space. So, now that you've seen and heard these two note voicings in action, the question is, as
[09:17] a songwriter, how can you integrate them into your own songwriting process? Well, to begin with, let's just pick a key and look at the chords in that key. We'll start with the key of G. So the chords in the key of G are G major, A minor, B
[09:30] in the key of G are G major, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F minor, C major, D major, E minor, F sharp diminished, and back to G. If we now replace all of those full chord inversions with these two note
[09:43] voicings, we'll see a pattern being laid out. So we'll start with the G and play it this way. There we've got the G note and the B note being played here instead of the open second
[09:58] open second string. If we then go to the A string. If we then go to the A minor, we get this shape, the B minor up to the C major. Now, at this point, we can keep
[10:12] D major, E major, E minor, F sharp diminished, and back to G major all the way up there. Now, that's getting pretty high.
[10:26] So, instead of running out of room, what we want to do is switch across to chords played off the fifth string at some point during that progression. So, start point during that progression. So, start again on G to an A minor.
[10:40] again on G to an A minor. Now we can go to a B minor here or we can go to a B minor here. Let's say we
[10:58] minor, F sharp diminished. And what we see here is a pattern. The major 10th interval when playing off the six string is that shape. It's a little slant shape. The minor
[11:15] shape. The minor 10 is a straight line between the two fingers. So a major and a minor. When we move across to playing these shapes off the fifth string, we have to accommodate the B string being tuned slightly
[11:29] differently to the others. So instead of the major shape looking like this, the major 10 interval looking like this, it now looks like this. So that would be the the C [Music]
[11:44] 10. The minors then appear as as diminished and back to major. So once we've got the chords in the key laid out, we then want to play around with
[11:59] shapes. We want to look at changing up the order so it doesn't sound like we're just running a scale. We want to find some interesting chord sequences. And whilst we're doing this, something we should talk about is the way we're
[12:12] hand. So far, I've been avoiding using any kind of rhythmic picking pattern because I'm trying to represent these 10th intervals as clearly as possible. But now that we're starting to look at them in the context of songwriting, we
[12:27] And because these intervals are actually stretching across strings that aren't being used, strumming them doesn't really work. It kind of defeats the purpose. What we want is a lovely clear sound, an uncomplicated sound. If we
[12:42] start strumming and playing all of those other strings, it really gets muddy very quickly. So this G chord for example, if I'm just pinching it with these two fingers, we get that lovely clear sound. If I strum
[12:57] it, we get all of those other strings resonating and it becomes a mess. So the technique we're really employing with these kinds of chords is this pinch kind these kinds of chords is this pinch kind of method with the right hand.
[13:15] of just pinching them, we can start alternating them. Rather than playing them at the same time, we can start going thumb, finger, thumb, finger. And going thumb, finger, thumb, finger. And we get this kind of sound.
[13:42] it's very simple. It's just thumb and finger alternating, but it keeps everything clean and open and clear. this technique. That's the advantage of using these two note voicings. And once
[13:56] can really start moving it around into different keys. But moving it to different keys changes the position of these chords. And that sometimes leads to different kinds of progressions. For example, if we pick the key of D, the D
[14:11] chord is up pretty high on the sixth string. We could start here on the fifth string, but let's just say we start on the six string because
[14:23] there's not much room to move up the neck. This lends itself nicely to a neck. This lends itself nicely to a descending kind of chord sequence. descending kind of chord sequence. [Music]
[14:52] And that's just sticking on the six string. We could of course switch over string. We could of course switch over to the fifth string at any point.
[15:21] there are dietonic, as in they're all in the same key. In Blackbird, we heard Paul McCartney using some noniatonic chords, chords from outside of the key. That one. That
[15:35] one. That [Music] [Music] one. That
[15:56] chords that are inside the key, you can the key. So if we go back to the key of G and introduce a little chromatic run G and introduce a little chromatic run between the second and the third
[16:15] the four chord and make it minor. And it's so easy to do with these little forms because all we have to do is change the shape of it from this to this. [Music]
[16:35] [Laughter] Finally, some keys will lend themselves to the open strings being activated around this little twoot note shell. And this is exactly what Paul McCartney was doing with Blackbird. The way I was
[16:50] demonstrating the chords before wasn't doing the song justice because I wasn't that Paul McCartney incorporates. When he's playing it, he's not doing a full strum, but he's also not just pinching the notes. He's actually flicking the
[17:05] strings with the back of his fingers and activating some of the strings, the open strings around those little twoot note shells. So, we can take this idea and start trying open strings around these two note shapes. And in some keys, this
[17:19] example, if we go to the key of [Music] E, what I'm going to do is activate the B and the E strings, the two top
[17:32] strings, and let them ring around that chord shape because both the E and the B chord shape because both the E and the B belong to the key that we're in. belong to the key that we're in. [Music]
[18:01] And you'll find as you do this more and more, it fundamentally changes the way you look at your guitar as a songwriting instrument. It changes the way you think about chords on guitar because all of a sudden the fingers are in different
[18:14] positions and moving in a more linear fashion up and down the strings, not so much across in these block chord forms. It also gets us thinking about chords in a different way whereby we're creating the shell of a chord and then choosing
[18:27] when we can put other notes around that shell. And sometimes we're in a position to drop certain fingers down into position and create a really beautiful set of chords. [Music]
[19:01] So, it really is true that sometimes less is more. And in the case of these two note voicings, less notes means more clarity, more maneuverability, and more options for us as songwriters. Happy songwriting. Bye.