I am looking for a book that I can work through to improve my chordwork. I have been playing for 20 years, and I have the basic open chords and bar chords down pat, no problem.

I would like some suggestions on what I can work through -- playing progressions to improve knowledge of chords. For me, staring at a page of 40 or 50 chords based off A does little good. Yes, I could play A, Amaj7, A7, A6, A9, Asus, A11, A13 and dozens of other chords based in A all over the neck, but I can't see myself practicing by taking an hour to play 50 possible voicings of A chords, then repeating in other keys. While there is a wealth of information in Chord Chemistry, I haven't been able to use it in a way that improves my playing -- or keeps me interested in practicing.

So I am looking for some type of book that has progressions that take me through new and unusual chord voicings. Ted Greene followed up Chord Chemistry with a book of progressions, but I didn't find that too helpful either. With pages and pages of chord diagrams, I didn't know how to work through them and internalize them so I expanded my chord vocabulary when I play.

So I am looking for suggestions of books that show progressions (like some I would actually play) with various chord voicings and substitions -- and at least some explanatory information.

Thanks for your help.

bump!








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P.S. - Calli is an A-hole. But I can't help but love her.

hmm, i don't know any books but what you should look into is learning how each of those extensions work and how they apply in music. once you get that, it GREATLY improves your outlook on how to voice chords

all of those different voicings allow you to jazz up a piece of music and are worth knowing but totally worthless unless you have a project to which they can be applied.

so ........

using the chord progression C Am F G7 - find 3 different replacement chords for each one and then vamp them out using the old fashioned gypsy jazz strum pattern of 4/4 | // // | // // | instead of 4/4 | / / / / | / / / / | which gives a kind of triplet feel to the beat intead of the bog standard 1 2 3 4 type .

then arpeggiate them and try to allow the bassline to walk towards or back to the next chord in the progression .

then try a bar of strum and a bar of arpeggiated chord and have a bit of fun with that .

after that try pinching other peoples musical progressions and changing them by using the replacement chords you will become familiar with .

general rule of thumb:

a standard major chord can be replaced with major 7th , 6th , 9th , 11th or its relative minor 7th or 6th .
minor are usually changed to a minor 7th . 6th , 9th , 11th 13th
dominant chords are replaced with their own relative minor chords which are 5 steps away ei : G7 is replaced by Dmin7th , 6th or whatever ( GabcD ). Or they are embellished in order to exaggerate them a little by turnig them into 13ths , 9ths , 7#9ths , 13b5 etc depending upon the type of suspense you want to create .

but as i said its a general rule of thumb and nothing in the case of chord embellishment or replacement should be written in stone , because after all , its your music and you can do what the hell you like to it