Ska Chords? Options

[mgcornea]

I have a good friend who played guitar a couple of years ago, and he used to only ever play ska and punk riffs. He was telling me once that there are some basic ska chord shapes that are used; it's not like normal open chords or regular barre chords. Does anyone know what he was talking about? Are there some essential chords used in ska? (He's in Europe right now so I can't really ask him to show me.)

Ska bands I have in mind are Reel Big Fish and Catch 22, they have some very distinct chords that have repeated use.

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey there I don't remember ever using any particular chord shapes, but the actual thing is in the syncopated rhythm technique used in ska. It may seem easy, but it's not that easy anyway, in ska, out of what I can figure out, you can use 4 note chord positions, muting the open strings with your left hand and playing the groove as tight as possible with your right hand.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

In ska there are usually quite standard mostly major and minor voicings, sometimes with added 7th. Possibly some bands can introduce voicings with added 9th, 11th, 13th note, but that will sound more jazzy, so it depends what vibe you want to achieve you know?

Like Cosmin said, you can use voicings limited only on 4 top strings, strum in 8th note upbeat pattern, where you mute the downbeats, and play staccato the upstrums. You can use full barre chords too if you're the only guitar in the band, if there are two guitars, make sure you play different positions so you have fuller sound.

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