Exploring the underrated brilliance of Joni Mitchell’s guitar playing: “Chords of inquiry”
When tragedy befalls an artist — a true artist — they adjust. When Django Reinhardt lost his fingers in a fire, he developed a new playing technique. When Tony Iommi lost the tips of his fingers in a factory accident, he invented heavy metal. And Joni Mitchell is the by-product of ingenuity, passion and artistic adaptation. We are lucky to have her music, as emotion and question marks fill her playing style like adoring fans fill her crowds, which collate into one thing certain: she is one of the best.
The amount of artists whom Joni Mitchell has inspired speaks for itself. Laura Marling said, “I remember my father playing me ‘Same Situation’ when I was a nipper, and saying how nobody since has done melodies as well as Joni Mitchell. I concur.” Alana Haim is also a fan as she said one of the best things about her music is “Discovering new things,” before continuing, “I could listen to a song like ‘A Case of You’ when I was in my early twenties, and that song has taken on a whole new meaning now that I’m almost 30.”
Her other fans include Bob Dylan, Lorde, Björk, Lana Del Rey, Prince and St Vincent. But what is it about her playing that makes it so unique? It comes down to emotion, adaptation and question marks. These elements combine to give her a special ability as a songwriter, setting her apart from all other musicians.
Firstly, let’s look at the adaptation side of things. Joni Mitchell was subject to a bout of polio in her left hand when she was younger. As such, she couldn’t play the guitar in what would be considered a “conventional” sense anymore. Instead, she had to play around with different variations of tuning, experimenting with her guitar playing so that she could play effectively even with the different sensations in her left hand. In the process, she was able to develop a more in-depth understanding of scales and strings, meaning she could create an incredibly full sound.
“When I play guitar, I hear it as an orchestra,” she said, “The top three strings being horn section, the bottom three being cello, viola, and bass – the bass being indicated but not rooted.” This deeper understanding of how to build exciting melodies on top of rhythm meant that the way she could convey emotion within her music was unlike anybody else in music.
Her method left fellow guitar players in awe; as David Crosby said, she was “Like a band in the way you approach a chord and string the melody along. She was so new and fresh with how she approached it.” He continued, “It’s these odd tunings that have tripped up thousands of artists trying to figure out how to get ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ to sound like her ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.”
Conveying emotion was also very intentional; as Mitchell herself said, life isn’t full of happiness, so neither should her music be. “Anybody’s life at this time has pure majors in it, given, but there’s an element of tragedy. No matter what your disposition is, we are air breathers, and the rain forests are coming down at the rate they are…” she explained, “There’s just so much insanity afoot. We live in a dissonant world… It doesn’t make sense to make music in such a dissonant world that does not contain some dissonances.”
The next point is the question marks. You’ll be wondering what they mean, rightly so; they’ve been referenced enough. Question marks don’t mean that Mitchell asks questions within her music; she might do, but in this instance, they actually refer to how she uses sus chords.
Wayne Shorter could never understand how Mitchell was getting the tone she was getting out of her guitar until he realised the types of chords she was using. “You realise some of them are sus chords,” he said, “They create suspense. They’re suspensions. They’re unresolved. Like a major is a positive statement, a minor is a tragic chord, right? The seventh is a kind of bluesy chord. But a sus chord has a question mark in it. It lacks resolution.”
All of this plays into the versatile sound that Mitchell can create within her music. While she can play a major or minor like any other guitarist, her ability to use sus chords means that when we listen to her music, we are strung along and held in suspense. It creates a unique experience that only she can achieve.
Mitchell called these chords “Chords of inquiry,” adding, “They have a question mark in them. They’re sustained. Men don’t like them because they like resolution, just like they do in life.”
Joni Mitchell is recognised as an excellent musician, but her mastery of the guitar is often overlooked. She isn’t as in-your-face with her ability as some of her counterparts, which means many people will see a blistering solo and immediately assume that player is better, but it doesn’t work like that. Mitchell’s playing creates an atmosphere more than any other musician; she can keep us in suspense and make us feel incredibly emotional, all within a few plucks of some strings. This is what being a good instrumentalist is all about.
Give her six strings and 24 frets; in return, she will give you the secrets of the universe. That is the magic of Mitchell, no question about it.
