I Am Mark Schultz Chords

The Actual Chords for "I Am Mark Schultz" by The Shins

The original recording sits around standard tuning, though James Mercer sometimes uses capos in live settings. The studio version is essentially in the key of A, but the voicings are what make this song annoying to play cleanly if you aren't used to extended jazz-adjacent shapes on guitar. Here is the progression as it appears on the record, which is also what you will want to learn for any cover attempt that sounds even remotely correct. Verse: Amaj7 – F#m7b5 – D#m – G#m (x2) Pre-Chorus: D#7 – G#m – C#m7 – F#m7b5

Chorus: D#m – G#m – D#7 – G#m Bridge: D/F# – G#m – C#m7 – F#m7b5 – B7 – E That F#m7b5 is the chord that trips most people up. It's not a standard minor shape, and if you just barre a regular minor, it will sound wrong next to the Amaj7 opening. The voicing Mercer uses is basically a half-diminished quality that sits between the major Seventh and the minor one in a way that creates that specific melancholy tension the song is built on.

Here is where I ran into an actual problem when first trying to arrange this for a small live set. I had a guitarist who insisted on simplifying the F#m7b5 to a regular F#m because it was faster to switch to. The problem is that in context, that substitution completely flattens the harmonic movement. The F#m7b5 is doing real work — it's functioning as a ii chord leading into B7, which then pulls to E. When you swap it for F#m, the whole pre-chorus loses its forward motion and sounds static. The workaround was to teach him the simpler two-finger version: X-4-4-4-4-X, which is essentially an Fhalf-diminished shape that only requires two fingers on the middle three strings. It is not identical to the full voicing, but it preserves the function and gets you through the section without derailing the harmony. Another thing people consistently mess up is the chorus voicing. The D#m to G#m movement is straightforward enough, but the D#7 that follows needs to be voiced correctly. A plain D#7 with a flat five will clash with the G#m that comes after. You want the natural 9th and the 13th — D– F– A– C– B#. That resolves cleanly into G#m and keeps the melody line intact. If you use a regular dominant seven shape, the melody note on the high string will be off by a half step and you will hear it immediately, even if you cannot explain why it sounds wrong. For the bridge, the D/Fis a bass movement trick. The Fin the bass against the D major chord creates that descending line that feeds into the G#m. It is easy to just strum a D chord and miss the effect entirely. The bass note needs to actually ring and transition smoothly, which means either picking the Fstring separately or using a fingerpicked pattern rather than full strums during that section.

If you are looking for a downloadable chart, the nearest thing to an official chart would be a User Generated chord sheet on sites like Songsterr or Ultimate Guitar, but those are almost always one or two frets off on the more chromatic passages. The Shins publish sheet music occasionally but it is usually piano/vocal arrangements that do not translate directly to guitar. Your best bet is to transpose the chord names above into whichever capo position suits your voice, or drop the whole thing down a half step if you prefer the darker tonality that closer matches the recording. One practical note on tempo and strumming. The track sits at roughly 108 beats per minute with a fairly straight feel, but the chord changes happen quickly in the verse. If you are playing this live and trying to match the energy of the recording, a full downstroke on every beat is going to sound too busy and muddy the extended harmonics. A simple down-down-up-up-down-up pattern at about 60% strum density keeps the chords clear while still moving. Anything more aggressive and the F#m7b5 to D#m transition becomes a rhythmic stumble instead of a smooth harmonic shift. The song runs about three minutes and forty seconds, and the chord cycle repeats with minimal variation through most of the structure. The only real departure is the bridge, which modulates briefly before landing back on the A-tonic feel for the final chorus. There is no key change at the end, which is somewhat unusual for a pop song of this era and a deliberate choice that keeps the emotional register consistent rather than building to a climactic lift.

If you want something simpler to play and do not mind losing some of the color, you can reduce the entire song to Amaj7 – F#m – D – G (with a D/Fin the bridge), but it will sound like a different song. The specific voicings are not decorative — they are structural. That is the tradeoff with this material. It sounds beautiful because of those extensions, and it is fiddly to play because of them.