Evan's chord voicings are so interesting, as an enjoyer of open chords myself it's cool to see another musician who has arrived at a lot of the same conclusions I did D/F# = 200232 Here Evan plays the low F# with his thumb, exactly as God intended. Most guitar teachers hate this, and you'll probably have wrist problems when you're 80, but it's such a freeing technique, and if it's good enough for John Mayer, it's good enough for me (and clearly for Evan) G = 320033 This is pretty standard, not much to say other than that he probably plays a different voicing for this chord depending on the song Cadd9/G = 332030 This is where it gets really funky IMO, this is a fingering that is so awkward to play at first, which shows that Evan doesn't just form habits/choose voicings based on what's easiest to play, but purely on the harmony of the voicing itself. Pinegrove's catalogue is filled with many such awkward fingerings that suit the song. I should note that this voicing isn't *that* hard to play, but it was something I had to get used to when learning this song. I'll give some of my usual voicings for this kind of C chord: Cadd9/E = 032033 This one is significantly easier to play IMO, but obviously doesn't fit this particular song very well, as you can't play that post-chorus riff with it, and it doesn't have that colourful 9th + 10th dissonance, which is a big tonal center of the song, and is also the launchpad for the main riff. Also the 3rd in the bass probably wouldn't sound as good here. Also, you can thumb the low G with this voicing and get Cadd9/E, like 332033, but that's neither here nor there. Cadd2/G = 330010 This is usually my go to voicing for a C with a D in it, and to its credit, you can play the main riff of this song really easily with it, but an octave down from how they play it. If I was doubling the guitars on a recording I'd definitely wanna use both. With the verse chords being D, G, C, and with the voicings Evan is playing, he has to move his fingers a lot, like, between those 3 chords, there is only 1 common fingering between them, and that's the ring finger on the 3rd fret of the B string in both the thumbed D/F# and the standard G voicings. This makes it trickier to play, but ease of playing is clearly not the priority, the priority for Evan when choosing chord voicings is clearly the harmonic utility. I'm not saying this makes Evan or Evan's music better than someone/'s who uses easier voicings, I just found it interesting to note since Pinegrove's music sounds so simple, especially harmonically, and feels like it would be very strictly bound by the physicality of the guitar. You could get similar sounds with incredibly easy voicings, but it seems that when Evan wants a specific note, he is willing to wiggle his fingers the extra centimetre to get it, so to speak. If anyone actually ends up reading all this, how was your day?
