The Best 12 Page Book on Music Theory Ever? Evan Burgess Reviews ‘The Chord Wheel’


An easy read!

There are a huge amount of learning resources for the guitar. This means the first thing is to work out how to cut through the deluge of information.
The Chord Wheel isn’t just for the guitar, but is really useful for a typical guitarist’s mentality. This is because the theory isn’t so complicated it is off putting. With the guitar, any hint of music theory can be hit by a reverse snobbery of “I don’t need to know that”. This is because the guitar is played as a mostly intuitive instrument.
To many intuitive instrumentalists, all talk of theory is reduced to a “square” subject. Feel and emotion are often more valued to a guitarist. But this book is very unique in the fact it simply helps you find the complimentary ingredient if you already have a nice riff or progression.
Imagine the situation, you have a verse and a chorus, but you just don’t know how to transition between them or to add something extra midway through a song. The front of this book is all you need! A plastic wheel is affixed to the cover. It has the outline of a ‘triangle’ like Tetris block. This goes over the chords organised in a circle. Everytime the silhouette is flush with a chord block, you have a key. The wheel is in a logical order based upon the circle of 5ths, which means every chord block is most similar to the ones on either side.
Just finding the root notes of your chord progression can help find which chords may also work with what you have written.
The chord wheel aligned to the key of F.
If you want a smooth transition, you can decide upon a “pivot” chord. If your song has Am, this means you can find all the Ams in the wheel, then see which chords are around it. If you had been playing Dm, Em and Am in the key of C, you could then transition into the key of F using Am to gently shift gears.
This takes none of the excitement out of the music, as you simply boost what is already there. This is very important because the chord wheel is a reference, it is not a guide! It is stated very clearly you do not need to play in a key to make good music, and in fact sometimes what makes the music sound good is it’s transitions from key to key.
There are a few descriptions that are really useful, where “modulations” and “accidentals” are explained. The concept of keys are explained in a way that opens up music, and doesn’t try and compartmentalise things into “correct” or “incorrect”. The end result is a compact and usable tool for any intermediate musician.

The Chord Wheel may be the best 12 page book on music theory you will ever find!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Win a 5 Lesson Absolute Beginner Guitar Package!

Image
The guitar is a fun and versatile instrument. It can also be very cheap to learn. If you wish to learn the guitar or know someone who does, feel free to enter this absolute beginner package! In the five lessons, you will learn how to tune a guitar, change strings, form chords and play basic melodies. As well as practical skills, theory will be covered too. Discover how scales work, what keys are and how to use them.  To win this competition simply e-mail Evan@cirencester-scene.co.uk with an answer to this question: What are all the strings of the guitar called (i.e the notes they are tuned to)? For the lessons instruments will be provided. Lessons must be in Cirencester.
Read more

Using Stabilisers on the Guitar Part One: Reducing the Neck

Image
Using Stabilisers on the Guitar Pt 1: Reducing the Neck People have a better memory than they give themselves credit for. The key is how people try to remember things. For example, if you can order things out in a logical manner, you are not relying on memory. You are actually relying on order to remember itself. Why make things harder than they have to be? Collocation and Landmarks If you know that in a shopping street, one shop comes after the other, you don’t need to remember exactly what number the shop in the street has. If you know where one note is located, you don’t have to actively remember each and every note. Rather what it’s near. If we make landmarks all over the neck, we can base everything else around them. On most guitars there are 20 frets. This means that there are four sets of five frets. If you break down the guitar into these groups, your life will become much easier. You can simply learn each group independently, or two of them really well! This will r
Read more

Lines on the Guitar: Strings and Frets Explained

Image
Lines on the Guitar: Strings and Frets Explained At the beginning the guitar is a bit like the Amazon, full of impenetrable cross thatched lines. Don’t bring out your machete yet, there are ways to navigate this jungle! Vertical lines are made by the strings, then horizontal lines made by something called frets. These are metal bars. They don’t exist on some stringed instruments like the violin, double bass or cello. The word fret itself is interesting because in most dictionaries you’d be hard pressed to find an entry regarding guitar frets. It can mean a worn or eroded place, but in the context of the guitar it is the division from one note to another. In all, this cross thatching effect can look very confusing to an untrained eye. So I will break it down into smaller parts. Horizontal Lines A closer look! Guitar diagrams are always drawn with the lowest string at the bottom. There are six strings on the guitar. From the guitarists perspective, looking dow
Read more