E1 · Zombie

Jet black, oxblood heart

The moon guitar

An orchestra model finished jet black, with an oxblood heart burning in the centre of the top and a rosette of black abalone. It is the darkest guitar on the wall, for the darkest song in the key, and almost all of it falls away to nothing when the key light passes.

The inlay

Zombie starts on the dark chord and the four chords never let go. The board answers with the moon: thin at the 3rd fret, full at the 12th, where the fingerboard comes back to the same note an octave up.

• Fret 3a thin crescent
• Fret 5the crescent thickening
• Fret 7half
• Fret 9gibbous
• Fret 12the full moon

A crescent sits on the headstock, above the nut.

What the episode teaches

Start on vi and the same four chords turn dark — your ear hears the first chord as home.

The instrument

Body

Orchestra model

Woods

Jet-black gloss with an oxblood heart in the finish, black abalone rosette, ebony board

Hardware

Bone nut

Song

Zombie · The Cranberries, 1994

Key

E minor, the relative minor of G

Chords

Em C G D/F#

Numbers

vi IV I V

Where to watch

This episode is not posted yet. When it is, it goes up on YouTube @NumbersNotTabs