by quadrivium381 on Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:48 pm
I have also become obsessed with this song ever since I first heard it. Jason writes such hauntingly beautiful music, and I've been considering trying to transcribe some of it. You've given me a great jumping off point to start from here. I just saw him perform live, and noticed when he's playing he utilizes lots of creative inversions in his chord voices, and seems to occasionally use the 3rd in the bass instead of the root at times, ditto for the 5th and even the 7th to create that haunted sound to his songs.
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(additional info posted a month later) I've been playing around with this song a lot lately, and I've come to a few conclusions -
I think rather than playing Am to Am7, it's actually Am to Am/G (Am with G in the bass) or you could play it Am to Am7/G (Am7 with a G in the bass). They both work
Instead of F#dim, I think it's a B7/A (B7 with an A in the bass)
The Em is played Em/G (Em with G in the bass)
The E chord is played E7/G# (E7 with a G# in the bass)
Some of these chords show my idea about Jason using 3rd's, 5th's, and 7th's in the bass instead of the root chord note. It adds a unique classical sounding voicing to the chord structures. Hope this helps someone struggling with this tune to understand it better. You can apply to concept to many of his other compositions as well