Put a nickel in the graveyard machine

C(#9/#11)

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This chord is from Bottle of Blues, off Beck’s album Mutations. Beck plays the song in an alternate tuning that makes this chord a snap, but I’ve never been a fan of alternate tunings. Unless you really commit to them (or you’re in a studio cutting one of the great alternative albums of the 90s), they’re a hassle. So I arranged Bottle of Blues in standard tuning. To replicate the jarring initial riff, I play a regular C chord, muting the E note on the 4^th string

C

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Then I hammer the #9^th on the 2^nd string with my little finger and the #11^th on the first string with my middle finger at the same time. This chord is played for the first half of a beat of each measure in the verse. A note on the name: if I were to name this chord (to be clear, I mean C(#9/#11), not C) with no context at all, I would call it a D11(♭9 no root) or an A-13(♭5 no root). Yuck. Those are the best tertian descriptions I can come up with for this chord. However, in this context it's clear that we're just adding bluesy color notes to a C major chord. We're not changing the tonality of the passage to minor, despite swapping out a major third for a minor third, or #9.

When Beck moves to the chorus, there’s another jarring section, only this time it’s in the chord progression itself, i.e. the juxtaposition of chords and their function in the key, rather than within a single chord:

              D9                       A♭

I get higher then lower

              D9                       A♭

I get higher then lower

D9

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A♭

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This is a well voice-led passage; it has one whole-step jump in the bass, one fixed note (though it does jump a string—C) and the rest moving only a half-step, one up and two down. It will take your ear some getting used to, but the notes are very close to each other.