Ska Chords?

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.

Introducing Myself!

Hey everyone,

I'm Mike, studying physics and electrical engineering at University of Washington. I've been in the Northwest US almost my entire life, and I don't plan on having that change (except maybe to spend some time in Canada). Part of the reason I want to study EE is so that in the future I'll be able to make my own guitar gear

I've been playing guitar for a little under a year. I played piano for about 10 years before that, until I was in my last year of highschool. Things got busy and I eventually dropped music for a little while. One day I decided to go to the music store, and I left with a guitar. I found a guitar instructor here in Seattle who was *amazing* (Mark, if you're reading this, if you come back to Seattle the first round's on me), his teaching method just really worked with me. He left to LA to work with some band (KC and the Sunshine Glam, if I recall correctly) and he offered me to transfer to a live guitarist for Queensryche. As cool as that would be to brag to all my friends "Yeah, my teacher is in Queensryche," I decided that the price was way too high. I joined GMC about 2 months ago to learn on my own -- youtube videos are sub par -- and I've definitely learned more in terms of technique and scales than I ever would have purely on my own.

Like I said, I've been playing for less than a year, so my gear is pretty noobish. I've got a Hondo Professional II, an '80s made Japanese guitar that I got used for under $200, and I also bought a "build your own guitar kit" to learn the more intricate workings of a guitar (SG model, finished white). The Hondo is set up in C Standard, my favorite tuning, while the SG is standard tuning. I've got a small Charvel amp which has old-school spring reverb, which I got for for about $50 at that same guitar store I got the Hondo at.

I listen to all kinds of music -- literally all kinds, I have a computer set up with 7TB dedicated to my music. I tend to gravitate towards metal and rock, ranging from classic rock to extreme death metal. My favorite genre for the past 6 months has been stoner rock (The Sword, Kyuss, Acid King, Red Fang). My musical goals for the future are: 1) learn to sweep pick, 2) learn the bass, 3) learn the drums, 4) write my own stoner rock EP, something that would even make Sleep be proud of me.

I haven't spent too much time on the forums, but I suppose I should start