Customer Reviews

Mel Bay presents Modern Chords: Advanced Harmony for Guitar

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First off, knowing how to play the basic triads for the the 4 primary scales, major, harmonic major, harmonic minor and melodic minor in 4 string groups is a helpful instigator of original ideas. The inversions that skip strings sound even better. I like the inversions using the two forms on the first 5 strings, Vic prefers strings 6,4 and 3. Then you are given moveable roots to go along with these triad inversions that give mini alteration flavor. Next up are traditional 4 note chords and their inversions of which you must learn the most common alterations. Vic then goes into areas of stacked triad and modal harmony which give the book it's 'advanced' rating, Fascinating stuff for sure. To come up with these ideas and relationships on your own would be very tuff unless you were an unrelenting genius with resources. He concludes with chord charts of various voicings that include open strings . There is tab but it's only used to clarify suggested fingerings. To get the most out of this book you would need to be a student of music but there's nothing stuffy or drawn out about the presentation. He points out useful scalic relationships for the modal chord forms and many musical examples of the concepts presented. It seems more essential theory than White Elephant Theory . I'd take this one with me to a desert island because many musical questions are answered pragmatically and unselfishlessly. With this and the Slonimsky interval bible, you could create brand new forms of music to entertain the crabs.