You weren't conscious of him using chord shapes at all: his fingers just seemed to run around with complete freedom on the fretboard.
The following shows how chord shapes can be varied considerably to give a more fruitful harmonic language.
The fifths tuning also makes for easy moveable chord shapes.
The chord shapes are very important, as they give the visual reference to each scale fingering and make the job a lot easier.
Slide the chord shape up or down the fretboard into various keys and the scale goes with it, so to speak.
For this assignment the need for our five associated chord shapes became very clear.
Drop D also allows fingerpickers to play chord shapes higher up the neck while maintaining an alternating bass.
He often uses complex chord shapes in picking and strumming for all of the bands he plays with.
Many new chord shapes and sounds are available with open D tuning.
Using the free fingers opens up the possibility of playing chord shapes other than the straight line given by the slide.