by Greg Danielak
When approaching 'Shadows In The Rain', you have two choices on how to play it:
a) The 'Zenyatta' method, which includes playing riffs from other songs you know, randomly changing the delay time, and getting as many sounds out of the instrument as possible by banging it with rubber chickens, etc. in order to emphazise the bass, drums and piano.
b) The way the Police did it live, which is almost a whole new song.
Both ways are extremely fun. I like choice A because it gives me a good excuse to break a few strings and get new
ones (haha!)
But if anyone has heard 'Shadows In The Rain' live, you'll know it offers a great realm of possibilities, like adding and taking out chords to form a whole new song. Because the song revolves around a simple Am - Dm - F - Bm7b5 - E7 pattern (those aren't THE chords, but the implied harmonies), there are many ways you can change the song.
However, playing straight chords throughout isn't going to be very fun or interesting, now is it? (Especially if you didn't hear me say that the previous patten was not THE pattern. Go ahead, be my guest - try to play those chords and see how 'safe' they sound!)
There is no one set chord pattern for this song - just building blocks that you can use to make your own 'Shadows.'
Here are the chords I like to play for each section. I have many more progressions, but this is my favorite and also is similar to what Andy played on most live renditions (although he usually lets the last chord before the E7 section feedback.) Suprisingly enough to me, my chords are mostly all relative minors to the 'real' progression of Am - Dm - F - Bm7b5 - E7.
Come up with your own progression, and then try to figure out what chords they are! Make your fingers go all over the neck and see what you find. If you play barre chords all the time, this will help you find out that there are more richer harmonies to be found on your axe than your straight major and minor chords. This is a great excersise for building your ear, neck knowledge and chordal vocabulary, but make sure you attempt to think about what you're doing! Experimentaion without thought is like driving blindfolded... or something like that.
© 1980 Gordon M. Sumner Published by Magnetic Publishing Ltd. (PRS) Represented by Blue Turtle, Administered by Almo Music Inc. (ASCAP) in the U.S. and Canada
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All Rights Reserved
Lesson By Greg Danielak - 2001
