Drone Tricks for Strummers

Drone notes produce a very unique sound, and it varies from key to key what that sounds like, but today we’re looking at drone tricks you can use in the key of E major.

The two notes that will drone across everything are B and E, on the 2nd and 1st strings, respectively. Those two notes are special in this key, because E is the tonic, and B is the fifth, which is a perfect harmony. The fact that it is “perfect” means that it does not color the sound in anyway, it doesn’t pull towards major or minor, it just sounds GOOD!

The basic idea is to take bar chords that you’d use in the key of E major, and instead of barring them, just fret the lower four strings, or three strings if your root note is on the 5th string. If you’re playing a root 5 chord (like C# minor) then you probably want to mute the low E string… but then again, you can experiment with that because it IS the tonic after all and depending on the context, it may sound great.


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