Chords for Aretha Franklin Chain Of Fools Guitar Lesson + Tutorial

[Eb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ [C] _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ How's it going everybody?
John McClennon here, and in today's video I'm going to teach you how to play Chain of
Fools as recorded by Aretha Franklin.
This is a super funky tune that just uses one chord, and I'm going to break down this
sort of tuned down guitar part.
It's either a guitar way tuned down, or it's a baritone guitar, which is what I have here,
this Jerry Jones baritone guitar.
And then I'm also going to talk about just playing it on a standard tuned electric guitar
and soloing on top of this one chord vamp as well.
Now before we get into the lesson, make sure to download my free book all about soloing
after you work through today's video.
If you're looking for some more information that's really going to help out your lead
playing, check out my book Melodic Expressions.
You can download it for free at the link below.
I also really appreciate you checking out my website as well that has a ton of other
great resources to help you improve your guitar playing.
Alright with that said, let's dive into today's lesson.
Let's break down Chain of Fools as recorded by Aretha Franklin.
Now this is a really cool song.
It's got a great groove to it, and it sounds to me like the guitar part at the beginning
is either a guitar tuned all the way down to C, or it's a baritone guitar.
So it's way down here, _ _ and you hear this line that's [Eb] like_
_ [C] _ _ Then you actually hear like an E major shape like this, but it's tuned all the way down to C.
_ _ _ _ Now a lot of people when they play this tune, they'll play a minor 7.
[Cm] _
_ _ And that's a good choice.
I think [C]
the sound is really that _ _ _ Jimi Hendrix kind of chord where it's [C] got the major 3rd
and then the [Cm] sharp 9.
So it's that clash.
So a good way to go about it is I'll play, I'll sort of avoid the major 3rd.
So it's like this. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ It's basically just a groove.
If you're in this tuning, it would be sort of an E minor bluesy _ [Cm] _ kind of feel where you've
got [Eb] the flat 3rd, _ [C] _ and then you've also got the dominant [Gm] 7th _ [Bb] or the minor [C] 7th there.
But at [F] the beginning you hear [Bb] _ [C] _ _ _ the major 3rd.
So it's sort of just both.
It's a blues sound. _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
[C] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ So what I'm playing there is just the flat 3rd with a little bend.
It's the 3rd fret on the low string.
_ _ And then playing open.
[Bb] Then I'm going up to this shape, which is a minor 7 shape.
It's a great funk chord and a great R&B chord.
We're going to play the 2nd finger on the 7th fret here.
And then _ _ _ _ 7th fret on the 3rd string and 8th fret on the 2nd string.
Now if you're [Cm] playing this just on a standard tuned guitar, it would be down here.
And I'm going to talk about soloing over this as well in a second, just in standard tuning.
But for this sound, _ _ you've got that chord.
And then you can add this bass line like 4 and 1, _ _ _ _ 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3. _
_ So that's a great rhythm there that _ you can [F] play.
[Gm] _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ [C] _ [Gm] 7, 7, 5, [Fm]
7 [Bb] there, and switching to the 5th string.
Starting on [G] the 6th string, then [Bb] 5th string.
[C] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ [C] _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
So if I was playing this tune on a standard tuned guitar, I would just play that same
[Cm] shape but down here.
[C] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] So instead of [E] E minor 7 like on the previous guitar, it's going to be C minor 7 down here.
So just a slight change.
You obviously can't get the low C unless you tune this down.
But most of the time I'd probably just [Cm] play this tune in [G] this position here.
[Cm] _ _ _ _ _ Now for soloing, on top of that progression, a great scale choice would be _ [C] your _ _ C minor
pentatonic, which would start on the 8th fret.
You would play [Cm] 8, [F] 11, 8, 10, [Bb] 8, 10, 8, [E] 10, [C] 8, 11, 8, 11.
So you can use the minor pentatonic.
You could also mix in the blues scale.
And so the way we get a blues scale from [Cm] there _
[G] is we add this [Eb] flat 5. _ _ _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ [Eb] So if I play that vamp with the baritone guitar and then solo on top of it, but I'm going
to think about these notes as sort of a guide for what scale tones I'm going to try and play with.
Here's what that sounds like.
_ [C] _ _ [Cm] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ [C] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ [C] _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ [Cm] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
Make sure to practice this along with the recording just so you can get the feel and
the groove of this song.
That's so important.
Before you go, don't forget to [G] download your free PDF copy of my book, Melodic Expressions,
if you're interested in improving your soloing.
This book is really going to help you out.
It's going to give you over 100 licks and exercises.
Licks over major, minor, and dominant chords.
So you would use the minor _ licks for this tune over this kind of C minor vamp.
As always, let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see in upcoming videos.
I'm always looking to the comments for future video ideas.
So get those in down below.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next lesson.
[Eb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ [C] _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
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[Eb] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _