Hey. I'm just going to say that the smallness of this forum makes me cry inside. Okay? Okay.
Yeah, for any of you experienced musicians, I'm here to ask a bit about the technicalities (sp?) of the music theory of ska. Namely, chord progressions. I'm thinking some things, like the standard I-IV-V wouldn't quite fit, but am I wrong?
My friends and I just made a ska band. Yeah, I'm doing all that stuff to kill the fact that I haven't got much experience with the genre at all. Listening, all the time, printing out tabs, doing solo transcriptions, and listening, all the time. I haven't heard jazz for... days. (that's saying something...) My trusty little friend Limewire has gotten me Less than Jake, (early) No Doubt, Sublime (wrong way has the horn solo that got me totally into it...) Mad Caddies, The Skatalites, Reel Big Fish, The Aquabats, Streetlight Manifesto, The Specials... uh, probobly more, but that's all I can think of. I want to get all those little sub-genres, with the trad, new wave, 2nd wave, skacore, blah blah... Anything else esstential for knowing stuff?
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm sort of a theory nazi and it was painful going to a practice and not being able to know what everyone should play... So, anything for telling?

So, you play guitar?


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"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!"

Umm . . . I can't say anything except that ska rules.

I just want to say.....

So TFS may be kind of small in some regards . . . it just makes us one big happy family.

Damn straight!!


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"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!"

So what did you wanna know? Some different chord progressions?


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"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!"

I was wondering if there were any chord patterns exclusive to the genre. Does anything work if the rhythm's all cool?

best way to start writing ska is to just lay down simple bar chords on guitar, play them in a choppy rhythm, mostly upstrokes. Doesnt have to complicated, just a few chords and a definate difference between verse and chrous. then just work on everything else, horns drums e.t.c

You've downloaded some really good bands though, check out farse, antimaniax, or even my own band Drop The Pop who are more punk than ska. www.myspace.com/dropthepop listen to "Nothing can go wrong for ideas on rhythm and "the dame was loaded" is an example of skacore.


Find you're calling, find whatever makes you happy and do it twice. That's my advice.

when your guitarist is playing the chords on the upbeats 2 and 4

it sounds good to play only the top three strings of the chords, if you change your hand position to this it's a "ska chord" or sorts haha


Let's get Baked !