Whilst a full discussion on chords and chord progressions is beyond the focus of a series on modes, a brief review is given here. However, if you are entirely unfamiliar with chord construction and chord progressions, I strongly recommend that you search the internet and explore this topic further before proceeding with the rest of [...]
The Melodic Minor scale gives us a whole new range of modal possibilities.
So far we’ve learned about the basic chord types (major, minor, diminished and augmented), and taken a cursory look at each of the possible sixth, seventh, 69, and extended chords that can be developed on top of these basic triads. However guitarists only have four fingers and six strings to play with, while these chords [...]
The previous chord theory post looked at extending chords past the seventh by adding ‘tensions’. Tensions are the more ‘colourful’ notes of the chord and add interest to the basic chord’s sound. Adding tensions to triads is a way of adding more colour to triads, without needing to include the seventh.
Unlike all of the chords we have learned about so far, suspended chords are not major nor minor, and are not built in thirds.
In the previous chords post we learned about seventh chords. Today we are going to add even more notes on top to create extended chords.
This post looks at applying modes in the context of melodic construction (such as in composition or improvisation) over a predefined chord progression. Specifically we are going to learn about scale choices, and finding the most appropriate modes and scales for given chords. In fact, modes and chords are really just two different ways of [...]
In the last chord families post we looked at every possible three note combination of stacked major and minor thirds. Today we’re going to look at each of the four note combinations.
Many guitar students know a few open chords and the ‘basic’ barre chord shapes, but get discouraged from furthering their chord vocabulary due to off-putting nomenclature (Gb7#9b13 anybody?) and immense (not to mention mostly useless) chord dictionaries with ’10,000 Chords You Must Know’ – just where is the student supposed to start? And what is [...]
Ok, one last post on modal theory… then we can start getting in to the practical stuff.
