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  • Dm chord in Hotel California

    Posted by petelanger on March 15, 2026 at 5:55 pm

    Dm has become my worst stumbling block in this song, relative to the other 6 chords. It’s kind of a positive thing, what it means is I have improved those 6 chords to the extent that my transition into the Dm is now the slowest. I am watching in amazement as I left hand awkwardly places my ring, middle and index (in that order) into their positions in Super SLOMO, causing a big hesitation before I can strum.

    As I type this and experiment, I am seeing that the shape is actually similar to the Am chord, I just need to slide everything down a string and move my ring onto the third fret

    petelanger replied 1 week, 3 days ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • gmhendersonme-com

    Member
    March 15, 2026 at 7:36 pm

    Same…and we seem to use it a lot lately.

    • petelanger

      Member
      March 15, 2026 at 8:01 pm

      It is prevalent in this benchmark, and it’s in the occasional other TAC song so I’ve seen it plenty and it’s been in my repertoire for over 2 years. Only now it’s sticking out like a sore thumb because I’ve improved transitioning to many other chords but not Dm. Got to give it special attention now!

  • jorgemac

    Member
    March 16, 2026 at 1:15 pm

    In H.C. you are going from and C chord to the Dm

    C , for me is index , middle and ring fingers with the pinky just hanging out and doing nothing, but ready to make a C7 chord by . Switching to Dm from C –

    Drop the pinky onto the B/3 D note, middle finger drops down 1 string to the G/2 while the index finger drops down 1 string to cover both the E and B Strings on the 1st fret, especially the E/1 F note.

    Because the ring finger is available it can also fret G/3, the Bb note in a C7 chord, or fret the D/3 F note in a Dm chord as an accent note or a fuller sounding Dm chord.

    • petelanger

      Member
      March 16, 2026 at 5:02 pm

      Once I’ve walked all the way to the A/4 with my ring, my pinky wants to come off of B/3. Without the transition, this could work and I’ll experiment with it.

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