chord book

kaishakov · #1 11-20-2011, 01:29 PM

What is the best chord book for jazz guitar ? I am looking for a list of chord voicings, so not a theory book. It also should not be a book for beginners with just some easy chords i allready know, more like voicings for complicated chords (dom chords with altered and unaltered extensions together for example)

Any suggestions ?

Drumbler · #2 11-20-2011, 02:12 PM

Try this

guitarplayer007 · #3 11-21-2011, 07:18 AM

Not really that good of a chord chart, i only see 3 inversions for a Fm7 chord..can that really be all they show?

brwnhornet59 · #4 11-21-2011, 08:03 AM

Hey Kaish, go to Matt Warnock's site. His link is here. Really look around. You will go from the easiest cowboy chords to the most advanced you want. There are many free resources there.

kaishakov · #5 11-21-2011, 08:10 AM

thanks all, verry helpfull.
So it is not really necessary to buy a good chord book ?

brwnhornet59 · #6 11-21-2011, 08:12 AM

Yo can if you want. The web is full of free resources if you really look. I have never seen a better balanced site than Matt's, especially for Jazz. It is full of free lessons as well.

jmstritt · #7 11-21-2011, 10:20 AM

Matt's site is great.

Also look for Modern Chord Progressions by Ted Greene.

Ted lays out about a million different ways to play through common chord progessions. So you will see a page of I vi ii Vs, a page of III VI II Vs, iii VI ii Vs, etc. From there he adds different tensions and all the progressions have really nice voice leading.

I like this book, because you learn a ton of new chords, but also the voice leading as well. To me, this is more useful than a dictionary of chords.

If you are looking for just a list of a billion chords, Ted Greene has another book called Chord Chemistry that is pretty exhaustive.

That ought to be enough to keep you busy for a couple lifetimes ;-)

jayv999 · #8 11-21-2011, 11:03 AM

Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene is the bible for chords. Use it as a reference book.
You should be able to find a PDF file online.

jmstritt · #9 11-21-2011, 12:47 PM

Chord Chemistry is a great book to an extent. Like I said, it is exhaustive, and it has probably a million chords in it. However, if you are like most guitar players you are not going to sit down and say, "For my practice session today I am going to work on learning Maj7#5add9 chords. If you try to do that, more than likely you will find a couple voicings that work for you and by the next day you will have forgotten them already.

If you use the approach in Modern Chord Progressions, you can say, "Today I want to learn a dom13b9 chord." So you flip through and see a ii V I that uses that chord and you learn the progression. Not only do you learn the chord, but you learn how to lead up to and how to resolve it all with nice voice leading in a way that you can immediately use in a tune. For most people it is easier to remember something if you have an application for it right away.