Ladies Of The Canyon  -  Joni Mitchell
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From the album 'Ladies of the Canyon'

Transcribed by Howard Wright
hakwright (at) gmail (dot) com



First things first - the tuning.

From low to high the strings are : C G D F C E    
Or in Joni notation:  C 7 7 3 7 4

(The numbers tell you which frets to use when comparing the tuning of 2 strings)

Now put a capo on the 2nd fret and you're ready to go (so the tuning ends up in 
the key of D).

You could achieve the correct tuning by tuning all the strings one tone note 
higher (D A E G D F#) and then not using a capo, but this will strain the 
guitar a little more, so the capo option is probably safer.


I'm just going to give you the shapes - there aren't a lot of different
chords to worry about, and the basic picking style is fairly simple to pick
up from the record.


Chord Shapes used:
-------------------

Note, the fret numbers in the chord shapes are *relative* to the capo position.
In other words, with a capo at the 2nd fret, a zero in the chord shape corresponds 
to the "open string" (which is stopped at the 2nd fret). 



 DAEGDF#    DAEGDF#    DAEGDF#   DAEGDF#   DAEGDF#  DAEGDF#
 002200     002000     033000    030000    022000   020000

   D         Dadd4     D7add4    D9add4    D6add4   D6add9add4


 DAEGDF#      D  A  E  G  D  F#    DAEGDF#   DAEGDF#
 x22222       x  0  10 9  10 x     x0767x    x0545x

 B6/7sus4         Amadd4            Aadd9     A9(no3rd-no5th)



Weird names... but that's what you get if you use strange tunings !


Use the last three shapes for the little introduction bit, then change to 
D alternating with Dadd4 and you go into the verse.


She tends to use the chords in pairs, alternating between them.

  So use    (D and Dadd4)      as a pair.

            (D7add4 and D9add4)  as a pair

   and      (D6add4 and D6add9add4) as a pair.

In other words, you add or remove remove the finger from the G/E string to change 
between the two chords of the pair.

The verse just uses these 3 pairs of chords, plus the B6/7sus4 chord.


Play around with these and you should pick it up pretty easily.

A final point - she tends to hit a few open strings between chord changes, and
sometimes hammers on to a new chord shape after strumming a few open strings.


Enjoy !