3-fret chord concern

**pksage** · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 890 Location: Midwest, USA

I'm more looking for opinions about this matter than actually complaining about it.

Does anyone else feel that many custom songs use far too many 3-or-more fret chords? The only song that comes to mind in GH2 with tons of 3-fret chords is Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart, and even that song's liberal use of 3-fret chords doesn't approach how many there are in the customs.

Why is this a problem?
Obviously, this is very heavily opinionated, but...songs simply don't need 3-note chords all over the place to be fun. It makes them less fun. GH2 songs on Expert follow the song exactly and still manage to be playable just for fun - they don't make hitting a basic riff complete hell by putting 3 different 3-fret chords in the middle of it (even Gemini, the song whose difficulty is based around chords, doesn't offend this much). Charts look messy and play messy, without any hint of the nice flow present in many of GH2's well-made charts.

Why do people put so many in their charts?
I have several theories.

Difficulty. The common conception is that the people playing the song want something blazingly difficult. This may be correct, but 3-fret chords aren't the way to go about it. Put in some difficult fingerings, or simply choose a harder song (see below). At the very least, if you're going to go crazy on 3-fretters, have the decency to include a Hard chart for those of us who want to enjoy playing the song.
Song choice. Many peoples' favorite song has little to variance in the guitar part, meaning the same few chords over and over again. In response, chart authors make them all 3-fret chords (Here It Goes Again, I'm looking at you!) This is a poor choice. Look at Monkey Wrench Expert. This song has very little variance in the guitar part, but manages to have a perfectly fun and playable Expert chart without any chords of more than 2 frets. Do this, or the better option: don't make a chart to a song with an uninteresting guitar part.
Because they can. This is the most true and my least favorite reason. As a long-standing member of the DDR custom song community, I've seen this crop up every time a new concept is introduced to the public. Authors put in tons of 3-fret chords simply because GH2 doesn't. There's a reason for this, guys. Following precedent in cases like this almost always leads to more entertaining and professional-feeling charts.

Why should I care? It's MY chart!
This is the best argument, and in most places it would carry more than enough weight to make my point completely worthless. However, SH seems to have a record of actually coming down on unfavorable things for the good of the community (see: the announcement in this forum). Right now, my biggest concern is Custom Hero. I really don't want to see the Custom Hero song submissions so bombarded by charts drowning in 3-fret chords that many of them make it in simply because they're the best of the worst.

I'm not saying this applies to all customs. A good example of 3-fret chords used well is Galiath25's Through The Fire And Flames. The occasional 3-fret chord is fine. Only having an occasional 2-fret chord is not!

Thoughts?

**ImaCarrot** · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 2687

I'm not really a fan of 3 fret chords either, but if the real guitar work of a song uses them all over the place, why not use them the game too?

My argument example, my current custom (Ozzy's Mr. Crowley), is mostly 3 fret chords. I did this because that's what they were in the sheet music, why should I dumb it down to a 2 fret chord when that's not what is being played? Coincidently, this song also has a couple of 4 fret chords, I left those in as well.

I agree that they shouldn't be used just for the sake of using them, but if they are in the original song, go for it.

**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

I am in full agreement with you, and I've made my position on this very clear repeatedly when I've seen this in songs.

EDIT: I'm in agreement with the OP, not Carrot. Not in the least.
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**pksage** · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 890 Location: Midwest, USA

**DMabe** · Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 34

To have a realistic chart, most of the time there will be 3 fret chords.
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DMabe's Custom Songs

**brandyn** · Joined: 27 Sep 2006 Posts: 48

While I agree almost whole heartedly, I still feel that some customs having a few 3 notes chords thrown in there belong. Trippin' was one of my favorite songs to play because of them, but if they are overused, they become less fun, fast.

My second custom, Don't Drag Me Down - which I actually based on Trippin', had a good number of three note chords thrown in the main line, just like said Trippin'. The reason for this falls under your #2, but I didn't use that many. Only one chord is three notes, yet it is repeated. It's not as bad as Here it Goes Again, which I agree is way too much. My first custom has none, and my custom for Love Rhymes has only one section with them, and they are long powerful holds, like the chorus in Strutter. I can't see myself making more customs with too many three note chords, especially since I loosely base them off of real songs. Just there for really powerful chords.

My point is, while we shouldn't have every song packed with three note chords, some of them aren't hurting anyone. Some people find them fun, but there is a line to draw, and Here it Goes Again is and anything similiar is too many.

On the devil's advocate, though, X-Stream uses a lot of 3-note chords, as does Freya, Them Bones, and, to a certain extent, Who Was in My Room. (at least in my opinion)

Or maybe I just haven't seen all the cutoms with way too many three note chords.

**Krash** · Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 96

I wouldn't be too concerned about these showing up on Custom Hero.
I worked my way through the whole custom song list, checking out anything with a video. Other than my own, I found only half a dozen tracks that were tempo-matched to the music, which will be a requirement for listing on Custom Hero.

Regarding my own tracks - Joker & The Thief has some tricky 3 fret chords in bridge_a on Expert, but they don't go through the whole song. On hard, those are only 2 fret chords (the same as those in bridge_b, transposed down a note).

In principle, I agree with you. My bigger concern for the custom songs coming out at the moment is not how hard they are or how many stupid chords are in there, but the synching and tempo matching. People put in oodles of effort on synching their mids, but if you spend a little bit of time properly matching tempo changes, the synching is done for you. It's really not that hard.

**pksage** · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 890 Location: Midwest, USA

I also should add that my experience with custom charts is far from encyclopedic. This thread was almost entirely a response to recently playing the Hotel California custom (can't recall the author off the top of my head), which just seemed ridiculously 3-fretted to me.

**saxev2005** · Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:57 am Post subject:

**pksage** · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 890 Location: Midwest, USA

**skywilliam** · Joined: 28 Oct 2006 Posts: 526

I belive in consistantsy sp*. For example, in my Blood Red Summer custom there are two fret two string power chords for the entire intro section. But when it comes to the verse and chorus of the rythem section, there are two fret three string chords. I could have just dropped the extra string and continued with power chords, but it would have looked "less realistic" for one and "lazy and messy" on my part. And in my opinion, not as fun to play. I had already designated the two fret chords for one type of chords, I couldn't do the same for the extra strings as well.

So, I compromised. I made the three string chords a differant chord in the note chart. I don't like to use the same note chord in a note chart, unless there are enough chords to suggest it.

**CaptLtrl** · Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 355 Location: South Jersey

**captive** · Joined: 16 Feb 2007 Posts: 5

hey, first post.

i'm just starting out and here's my 2 cents. on a real guitar with 6 strings, most power chords are 3 notes. on guitar hero, with only 5 buttons, it's perfectly realistic to have a power chord played on only 2 buttons. save the 3 and 4 note chords for the tricky chords (i.e. green day chords vs. radiohead chords).

**bmcle2** · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 724 Location: Taylorville, IL

Yeah, I think they trimmed the chords down one note for that reason. Also (

WARNING: PERSONAL OPINION

), if Freebird doesn't get a four-note chord, not even for that last note, I don't think any song deserves it. Maybe in a couple more games, but right now it seems kind of cheap. Same goes for GYO Chords, they just look and feel cheap. (

END OF PERSONAL OPINION

)

**blackmamba** · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 175

I think it really all depends on the style of the music. For example, I'm thinking about doin an Opeth song, maybe Drapery Falls. If you listen to that song (if anyone is an Opeth fan, i know ive heard them mentioned around here once or twice), theres so many dense layering of chords that it would be inappropriate to limit myself to 2-fret chords with an occasional 3-fret thrown in. It seems more fitting to the song to have 3-freters pretty much throughout, and probobly with a few 4-fret notes also. Yes thats right, 4-FRET CHORDS.

I know everyone is gonna disagree with me because the SH community has definitly frowned on 4-fret chords, but I just think for some music it might be appropriate. Its a different kind of difficulty than all the Dragonforce/Malmsteen songs with the really fast scales and such. Reading complex patters of 3-4 note chords will take a lot of eye-hand coordination and concentration, I think. Some may think it makes the note chart look messy and unreadable, and I can see their point, i just think it would be an interesting and different way to make a song difficult.