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!

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