{"id":129127,"date":"2022-05-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=129127"},"modified":"2023-05-31T20:23:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T03:23:40","slug":"watch-joan-armatrading-play-love-and-affection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/watch-joan-armatrading-play-love-and-affection\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Joan Armatrading Play Her Classic Ballad \u201cLove and Affection\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cLove and Affection,\u201d Joan Armatrading\u2019s beguiling ballad from her self-titled 1976 album<\/a>, was the young singer-songwriter\u2019s first hit\u2014it reached the top ten on the UK charts\u2014and remains perhaps her best-known song. From its coy opening line, \u201cI am not in love… but I\u2019m open to persuasion,\u201d accompanied by the chime of her 12-string, the song builds into a big-hearted celebration of romance and friendship, with a string-sweetened band and an alto sax solo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Armatrading visited Acoustic Guitar<\/em>\u2019s video studio in 2015, \u201cLove and Affection\u201d was one of the songs she performed solo on her Ovation 12-string<\/a>. Check out the above performance, which stays close to the original album version and is the basis of this transcription. The ringing 12-string is central to her sound, for sure, but there\u2019s plenty in the arrangement to reward a six-string player, too, thanks to the lush, up-the-neck chord voicings she uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notation shows the song\u2019s opening arpeggios, played with a flatpick; she extends the first measure by an eighth note, hitting the open sixth string before switching to F#11 and settling into 4\/4 time. In measures 2 and 3, she strums an A6, B6, and a rich Emaj7 voicing at the 11th fret. Continuing in the song, she mixes arpeggios with strumming, then transitions into a fully strummed groove, especially on the circular E5\u2013Badd11\u2013Aadd9\u2013Badd11 progression that carries most of the second half of the song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of form, \u201cLove and Affection\u201d is tough to pin down. While the chart is divvied into six sections, nothing repeats exactly\u2014the song gradually unfolds from beginning to end. Armatrading uses 14 different chords, but a number of them employ the same fingerings. The C#m7 and E5 are the same shape, at the fourth and seventh frets, respectively, with the top two strings ringing out on both. In addition, the Badd11, Aadd9, G6, F#11, and Fmaj7#11 are the same shape moved down the fretboard from the seventh to the first fret: all use the bottom portion of a standard E barre chord and leave the top two strings open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward the end of the song, in the descending phrase G6\u2013F#11\u2013Fmaj7#11\u2013E, keep your second, third, and fourth fingers holding the E shape, so that you fret the final open E chord without<\/em> the first finger. That keeps you anchored and makes for smoother transitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLove and Affection\u201d has a few challenging fingerings, like the Aadd9\/G#, C#m\/E, and the seriously stretched-out Bbmaj7, with its fourth-finger barre four frets up from the root. You could substitute easier voicings\u2014such as (by fret numbers, bottom to top) 046650 for C#m\/E, or 6X776X for Bbmaj7. But give her shapes a shot\u2014they create nice voice leading in the progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to copyright restrictions, we are unable to post notation or tablature for this musical work here. You can find it on page 56 of the <\/em>May\/June 2022 issue of <\/em>Acoustic Guitar magazine<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\n

This article originally appeared in the May\/June 2022<\/a> issue of Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch Joan Armatrading play “Love and Affection” on her Ovation 12-string guitar, and learn some tips for playing the song with her rich chord voicings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":129616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Watch Joan Armatrading play \"Love and Affection\" on her Ovation 12-string guitar, and learn some tips for playing the song with her rich chord voicings.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1519,1653],"tags":[1388],"ppma_author":[1559],"class_list":["post-129127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acoustic-icons-videos","category-sing-and-play","tag-may-june-2022","post_format-post-format-video"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/joan-armatrading-copy-e1648059008406.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1559,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"jeffrey-pepper-rodgers","display_name":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg"},"user_url":"https:\/\/www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com\/","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, founding editor of Acoustic Guitar<\/em>, is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and author of The Complete Singer-Songwriter<\/em><\/a>, Beyond Strumming<\/em><\/a>, and other books and videos for musicians. In addition to his ongoing work with AG<\/em>, he offers live workshops for guitarists and songwriters, plus video lessons, song charts, and tab, on Patreon<\/a>.\r\n"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136992,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129127\/revisions\/136992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129127"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=129127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}