October 23rd.

One week from Halloween.

And Mark Knopfler has completely taken over.

It started with Brothers In Arms last week and somehow expanded into his solo catalog – Golden Heart, Get Lucky, Privateering, Sailing to Philadelphia. The more I listen the more I realize there is no shortage of fabulous tunes and fabulous guitar playing in his work.

This week I finished a lesson on Sailing to Philadelphia. And it brought up something I want to spend some real time on today – the C family of chords.

GUITAR LESSON ON SAILING TO PHILADELPHIA

Sailing to Philadelphia – A Warning And A Solution

Let me be honest about this lesson upfront.

Sailing to Philadelphia is going to be genuinely difficult for most people who try to play it. The fingerpicking speed alone is challenging. But the bigger issue is the chords – Knopfler frequently plays with his thumb wrapped around the neck playing the F sharp in the bass. For a lot of guitar players that’s a deal breaker.

So I found a solution.

F sharp minor 11 – not that hard to play compared to the thumb wrap – gets you most of what you need. And there’s also a straightforward version using just the six primary chords in the key of A: D, A, E, F sharp minor, B minor, C sharp minor. You can strum the song and sing it with those basic shapes.

But the lesson also goes into the colorful chords Knopfler actually uses – the A add 9, the D’s in the C family – because understanding those is where the magic lives.

GUITAR LESSON ON BROTHERS IN ARMS

The C Family of Chords – What They Are And Why They Matter

Most guitar players know the E family and the A family of movable chord shapes. Fewer spend time with the C family. But there are specific situations where nothing else works quite as well.

Here’s the key difference:

When you play a C chord in the C family, you get the root, third, fifth, and octave of the chord on four consecutive strings: C – E – G – C.

That’s the complete chord spread across just one octave. Think of it like a piano player playing all four notes of a chord with one hand.

The E and A families don’t give you that. The D family doesn’t either.

How to build it:

Start by playing a C chord with your second, third, and fourth fingers – leaving your first finger free. That’s the foundation. Now move that shape up the neck and bar the first and third strings with your first finger at whatever fret you need.

For a D chord out of the C family – move up to the second fret. You can bar just the first and third strings rather than a full bar across all six strings.

Why it matters for Sailing to Philadelphia:

Knopfler uses D chords out of the C family throughout the song. The reason is voicing – he needs the root, third, fifth, and octave available simultaneously to get that particular sound. The standard D chord shape simply doesn’t give you that in the same way.

The E chord sections of the song are actually easier in the C family – because when you move the shape up to the fourth fret you can use the open low E string as your bass note.

Over The Rainbow – An Unexpected Detour

While talking about the C family I found myself playing Over The Rainbow – an arrangement I worked out back in the early 90s.

Here’s why Over The Rainbow needs the C family:

The song opens with an octave leap in the melody. That means the first note and the second note of the melody are the same pitch one octave apart. In the key of D – which is where I arranged it – I need a D in the bass AND a D at the top of the chord simultaneously.

If I play a standard D chord, I only have the A in the middle. The chord sounds incomplete. I’m missing the F sharp that should sit between the low D and the high D.

The C family D chord solves this perfectly. It gives me the low D in the bass, the F sharp in the middle, and the high D in the melody – all in one voicing.

That’s the kind of specific situation where the C family becomes not just useful but essential.

The chord progression in Over The Rainbow is worth its own analysis – lots of secondary dominant chords, a bunch of sevens, the kind of harmonic language that was standard in the 1930s when it was written for The Wizard of Oz. We’ll save that for another day.

Mark Knopfler Documentaries Worth Watching

One more thing worth mentioning – there’s a five-part documentary series on Mark Knopfler’s YouTube channel. Each part is about ten minutes. Really worth watching if you want to go deeper into his playing and his approach to music.

I found it genuinely inspiring this week.

Coming up next week – not entirely sure yet. But between Brothers In Arms, Sailing to Philadelphia, and the C family chord work, there’s plenty to dig into.

See you next week.

— Neil