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Dark Guitar Chords To Spook Your Listeners!

Music, like language, can be used to convey a wide range of emotions. Darkness and tension in music is just as important as light and
uplifting sounds, as the two complement each other in a kind of "yin and yang" way.

Creating a feeling of uneasiness or foreboding in your listeners (and yourself) might seem a bit sadistic, but it can actually be cathartic and
make the move into lightness all the more profound and satisfying. Tension and release has been used in music for hundreds of years to
stir up complex emotions and take the listener on a journey.

Exploring the darker sounds of your guitar will help to tune your ear to this difference in emotional response. A good place to start is with
chords. The chord chart in this lesson is unlike others, as it focuses specifically on chords that take you to the darker side of musical
expression!

Watch the video below to play along with the chords featured. You can then find the diagrams further down if you need them. Plus, I invite
you to share your own dark chords and show you how...

Dark Guitar Chords - 50 Shapes to Spook Your Listeners

The Theory Behind Musical Darkness

When notes are played together, they can create both harmony (which translates to a relaxed and light feeling) and dissonance (which
translates to tension, heaviness and darkness).

What the chords in this lesson do is combine harmony with a touch of dissonance (e.g. just one dissonant note in the chord). The
combination of these two elements creates a feeling of discord, or that something "isn't quite right" - the comfort of harmony being
"upset" by the discomfort of dissonance.

Dissonance doesn't quite have the same effect when ALL the notes clash. It's when we mix harmony with dissonance that things really start
to sound devilishly dark.

So, for example, throw a minor second (♭2 or ♭9) interval in to a major chord (i.e. moving the octave root up by a semitone) and suddenly
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that bright and warm major sound gets an injection of tension and darkness.

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Similarly, add a major sixth (6 or 13) or major seventh (7) to a minor chord for a colder, more tragic minor sound.

The listener hears a conflict between the sweetness of harmony and the bitterness of dissonance, which translates to uneasiness and
perhaps a feeling of wanting resolution. You can either give them that release (e.g. by going back to a more harmonious, stable chord), or
you can prolong the tension... depending on the response you want.

While there are no "rules" as such, there's a general concept - an awareness of what creates musical tension and relaxation.

As you play through the chords, see if you can pick out the notes that give the chord its dark sound. Try changing that note by moving it up
or down a fret (or two) and listen to how it changes the colour of the chord. You might find that, without the "tension note", the chord is
just a regular major, minor or 7th chord.

The purpose of this exercise is to tune your ear to what creates the dissonance, so when you hear it in music, you'll have a better idea of
what's going on. Down the line, this could, for example, translate to targeting these tension notes in a solo piece.

Dark Chord Chart

You'll notice we have many voicing options when we use open (unfretted) strings. There's a lesson in this alone - open strings can help you
create chord voicings that would otherwise be unachievable (i.e. physically impossible for us four-fingered humans). So experiment with
shapes up and down the neck keeping strings open. That's how I discovered the chords below.

Of course, alternate tunings can help to create voicings that would be unattainable in standard tuning, and I encourage experimentation
with these. But I've stuck with standard tuning here as this is the most common tuning and gives you the broadest base of voicings that
can work with more familiar shapes.

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How To Use These Chords

Just on their own, these chords are provocative enough and would suit music that aims to evoke a feeling of apprehension, doom,
foreboding etc. However, you may want to experiment with the following...

• Try replacing regular major or minor chords in progressions with a dark chord, especially when you want to create tension. In most
cases, you won't want to over-do it, so keep it special!

• If you can pick out the dissonant or "darkening" tone in the chord, try moving to it from a fret down or up. For example, if you raise
the 3rd string (G) in the open C major shape to the 1st fret, you get that light-dark transition I mentioned earlier. If you move the 3rd
string in E major up two frets, you get a similar interplay between tension and relaxation.

• Move from major to minor on the same root (e.g. A major to A minor), using a minor voicing from the chart above, for an especially
dramatic darkening effect. It will take some experimentation to find the right chord for this, but once you hear it, you'll know!

• If you're playing with another instrument, and the chord is a straight major or minor (i.e. just the three note triad), you can use the
more complex voicings from the chart to colour that basic major/minor sound. One of the great things about one instrument keeping
the chords simple is that the other(s) can build on it quite freely with extensions (extra notes). This is a common dynamic in jazz
music.

• If you're a more advanced player and want a real challenge, see if you can identify the tension note in the chord and then adjust the
scale you would usually play to accommodate that note. This could involve raising or lowering a note in the scale from its "natural"
position. I'll cover this in a separate lesson.

Share Your Own Dark Guitar Chords!

Have a favourite dark chord from a song you know, or simply from noodling around? Please share...

1. Go to Oolimo's Chord Analyzer

Oolimo is, in my opinion, one of the best chord tools on the web, and it's free!

Head to the Chord Analyzer here and enter your chord shape on to the virtual fretboard, string by string...

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You can choose either to display notes or intervals (right hand menu), depending on your preference.

2. Save Your Chord Diagram

If you're on a laptop/PC, right click just below the chord diagram (see red square below), where the fret numbers are and select "save
image"...

Alternatively, if you know how, take a screen grab and crop the image so it includes only the chord diagram.

Either way, you should end up with something like this...

3. Share Your Diagram

Use the comments form at the bottom of this lesson to upload the image. Click on "start/join the discussion" and select the image upload
icon in the bottom left of the comments box (see red square below)...

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Once the image has uploaded, a small thumbnail and image link will appear to confirm. Add a comment if you like (e.g. tell us how you
discovered this chord) and you can then post your diagram/comment for all to see!

Thanks for sharing!

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10 Comments 
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 1 Share Best Newest Oldest

Junior − ⚑
7 years ago edited

Bmaj7(13,#11,no3)

If you want the nicer sounding version, change the F to an F# (perfect 5th).

4 0 Reply Share ›

Sweet But Psycho Leftinx − ⚑

a year ago

The Theory Behind Musical Darkness

Creating a feeling of uneasiness or foreboding in your listeners (and yourself) might seem a bit sadistic, but it can actually be cathartic and make
the move into lightness all the more profound and satisfying.

2 0 Reply Share ›

Jim − ⚑
6 years ago

Am(b6)

1 0 Reply Share ›

Enzo Capun − ⚑
7 years ago

see more

1 0 Reply Share ›

Mike Beatham Mod > Enzo Capun

− ⚑
7 years ago

That's really beautiful, Enzo. Thank you!

0 0 Reply Share ›

chusss - The Visitor − ⚑ Top

7 years ago

Great and inspiring as usual. Thank you Mike

10 of 11 6/14/2024, 12:30 PM
Dark Guitar Chords - Spooky Shapes For Your Music https://www.fretjam.com/dark-guitar-chords.html

Great and inspiring as usual. Thank you Mike

0 0 Reply Share ›

Ανδρέας Βαινάς − ⚑
7 years ago

Excellent!!!!!!!!

0 0 Reply Share ›

gtrdoc911 − ⚑
7 years ago

Great lesson Mike! In "numbering" chords what determines if you call a chord e.g. a 6 or a 13. I thought you use the latter if the 7 and 9 and 11 (or
due to �nger limitations, some of these) are also in the chord i.e. the "13" implies this. Thus the �rst chord on your list might be called E5 #4 cos
there's no 7 or 9 etc.

0 0 Reply Share ›

Mike Beatham Mod > gtrdoc911

− ⚑
7 years ago edited

From my understanding, if we add a sharp or �at tone to a chord, it is represented by its position above or below the root octave. So #11
tells us the #4 is above the octave (which is pretty much always the case for the 4 for reasons I won't bore you with now!).

The "rules" are different for natural extensions. If you see E13, for example, that indeed does imply the presence of at least a 7 above the
triad, maybe a 9 and (rarely) an 11.

But with sharps and �ats, such as b13, they do not imply the existence of a 7th or any other extensions. For this reason, we usually put
them in brackets. It's similar to using "add"...

This raises another point of potential confusion. An added 9 chord (e.g. Eadd9) implies a major triad with a 9 (1 3 5 9). But if it's a b9, we
leave out the "add". So sharps and �ats are not theoretically considered "added", rather "altered", hence the brackets - E (b9) would be 1 3 5
b9.

Chord naming is such an inconsistent form of communication. I'm sure if you used #4 instead of #11 it would be pretty clear what's going
on (it would to me anyway). In fact, for the sake of consistency, perhaps we should just stick to numbers from 1 to 7 rather than 1 to 13!

But just as the English language's little foibles have stubbornly remained, so too does the naming of chords. Fortunately what we name
chords is far, far less important than how we identify their sound. In this respect, ear training is the truly universal means of understanding
chord form. Chords signify a particular response in the brain and it's compartmentalising that response that matters.

0 0 Reply Share ›

gtrdoc911 > Mike Beatham

− ⚑
7 years ago

Thanks for your thorough explanation.

0 0 Reply Share ›

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