# Best books for teaching yourself theory/songwriting techniques?



## Decon87 (Oct 1, 2014)

I'm at a really odd place in my guitar playing career. I had a teacher that really got me started with the basics and taught me a lot of technique, but really didn't explore anything beyond that. I eventually quit and decided to just teach myself because there was nothing more he could offer me, I was able to teach myself all of the new techniques I needed to.

Now I need to learn theory and songwriting techniques. It's a real crutch that I'm able to sweep and tap but it takes me a solid minute to form one of the many chords that I don't have memorized. I want to learn about modes and scales, unique chord shapes, and how I can apply that when writing a song. 

Whenever I try to write something it comes out very basic and quite frankly boring. I only have a very basic understanding of what I'm able to do with my instrument, I want to fix this.

Does anybody have some really good books, websites, or anything else that really takes a look at this and goes in depth with it? I'm talking chord shapes, arpeggios, modes, scales, everything.

I'm sick of playing covers and crappily improvised noodling.


----------



## chopeth (Oct 1, 2014)

I love Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar, both basic and advanced. The best I found so far.


----------



## Solodini (Oct 1, 2014)

My ebook is only £5 so it's worth you having a look at that, even if you decide to combine it with another book. And it comes with me here to answer any questions you have!

Adam


----------



## Repner (Oct 1, 2014)

chopeth said:


> I love Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar, both basic and advanced. The best I found so far.



Absolutely this! Guthrie is a master of explaining concepts in a very easy to understand way.


----------



## Aion (Oct 1, 2014)

Musictheory.net has some good ear training and theory tools. Most useful to you is probably the fretboard identification exercises, the ear training exercises, and maybe some of the staff identification exercises if you want to learn/become more familiar with sheet music. That can all be found musictheory.net - Exercises

Additionally, you can always look for a theory and/or composition teacher. Some even do Skype lessons. Some are even posting on this thread right... now. *shameless plug is shameless*


----------



## Decon87 (Oct 1, 2014)

chopeth said:


> I love Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar, both basic and advanced. The best I found so far.



I didn't even know Govan had a book! I'll have to get that, he's one of my biggest inspirations.



Solodini said:


> My ebook is only £5 so it's worth you having a look at that, even if you decide to combine it with another book. And it comes with me here to answer any questions you have!
> 
> Adam



I'll definitely check this out as well.



Aion said:


> Musictheory.net has some good ear training and theory tools. Most useful to you is probably the fretboard identification exercises, the ear training exercises, and maybe some of the staff identification exercises if you want to learn/become more familiar with sheet music. That can all be found musictheory.net - Exercises
> 
> Additionally, you can always look for a theory and/or composition teacher. Some even do Skype lessons. Some are even posting on this thread right... now. *shameless plug is shameless*



I'll definitely be using musictheory.net, better to get started sooner rather than later and if i order Govans books they'll have to take a bit to get here in the mail.

I actually did a music theory course a couple of semesters and I did really well but unfortunately it was a very basic level class. It didn't really apply it to your instrument, it really just went over the Circle of Fifths and how to read the staff. Obviously the Circle of Fifths would help me out a lot more if I had the fretboard memorized but at the time I wasn't taking guitar as seriously as I am now.


----------



## ncfiala (Oct 1, 2014)

I would recommend something non-guitar specific like Kostka and Payne's Tonal Harmony. That will give you the information you need to conceptualize the fretboard in a way that makes sense to you. When you just learn shapes, you are trying to learn the fretboard in a way that makes sense to someone else, but it might not make sense for you and your fingers. For instance, I like to play heptatonic scales alternating between four and three notes per string because it makes sense to me and my fingers, but I have never seen a book or internet resource lay out heptatonic scales like that.


----------



## Solodini (Oct 2, 2014)

Decon87 said:


> I didn't even know Govan had a book! I'll have to get that, he's one of my biggest inspirations.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Don't bother memorising the fretboard. Learn to see intervals. Then you can navigate any tuning.


----------



## Aion (Oct 2, 2014)

Solodini said:


> Don't bother memorising the fretboard. Learn to see intervals. Then you can navigate any tuning.



Memorizing the fretboard is somewhat useful if you're going to read sheet music, and knowing it helps communicating with non-guitarists. But it shouldn't be a huge focus. If you keep it as a small aside you're likely to get it down pretty easily. But yeah, seeing intervals and knowing how they feel in your hands is generally more useful as a player.


----------



## Solodini (Oct 3, 2014)

Even with reading sheet music, I still just place the notes by intervallic reference to the tuning.


----------



## Drew (Oct 3, 2014)

Solodini said:


> Even with reading sheet music, I still just place the notes by intervallic reference to the tuning.



Yeah, but knowing where the root is helps.  

Both are totally worth doing, of course - in fact, both are more useful WITH the other than they are alone.


----------



## jsl2h90 (Oct 3, 2014)

If you are just starting out I would highly recommend Barrett Tagliarino's Fretboard Workbook. If you're anything like me, I learn best from having information presented to me and then being tested on it with simple written exercises after I've assimilated the information. A tad more advanced would be Tom Kolb's Music Theory which is also pretty much a workbook. It's always helpful for me to work in this format and then check my answers in the back of the book. 

A highly neglected area of learning music theory basics is ear training, so I would suggest getting a solid grasp of intervals on musictheory.net. I'm currently an AIM student so I'm just telling you from experience when I got there on day 1 and I'm like... "what's an interval?"


----------



## Explorer (Oct 3, 2014)

How did you get better at sweeping and noodling? By working on that stuff, right?

How do you improve in constructing an excellent backbone upon which to build your compositions? By working it. 

I highly recommend "The Songwriting Sourcebook: How to Turn Chords into Great Songs," by Rikky Rooksby. 

No matter whet style you play, this book will help you internalize how chords work together, and how to build the different sections of a song. It will allow you to build that skeleton which will support everything else.

There are all kinds of great books about writing lyrics and melodies. However, once you lay out a basic skeleton, you can find out where it logically leads, and even decide to change it to make it more exciting if melody or lyrics suggest a change. 

If you want to write melodies which are solid, as opposed to just "This is how this pattern sound!," I'm going to recommend the excellent "Melody in Songwriting" by Jack Perricone. 

These two books are worth the price. 

A lot of people think of songs as just noodling over a chord progression. Work your way through each, and you'll not only generate great underlying structure, but awesome melodies... and then add the shredding on top of it. 

Happy learning!


----------



## Drew (Oct 6, 2014)

You know, another thing worth trying... 

I'm going to assume you have a basic working knowledge of chord theory - you understand how triads are built, how extended chords are built, and if you needed to, even if you had to sit down and work it out pen on paper or note by note or whatever, you could harmonize a scale into, say, minor 9th chords. Essentially, that you probably have a good chord vocabulary anyway, but if someone tells you to play a G7b6, you could at least tell what notes should be in that chord. 

Go out and buy a good fake book - probably one of the "The Real Book" series, which you can find tucked partially out of site or under a shelf or something at your local music shop. Then, sit down and pick through the chords of songs you either recgnize by name, or choose at random. 

Jazz isn't for everyone, but if you're bored with your songwriting, sitting down and really analyzing the chord changes of a few jazz standards can be an awesome learning experience. Look at how chords an go "outside" a key center and resolve back in, how one chord resolves into the next, etc. This kind of stuff is definitely common in jazz but can still be applied, with awesome results, in a pop, rock, or even metal song, if you're bored with how you string chords together. 

It's really interesting stuff.


----------



## TaP (Oct 6, 2014)

Drew said:


> You know, another thing worth trying...
> 
> I'm going to assume you have a basic working knowledge of chord theory - you understand how triads are built, how extended chords are built, and if you needed to, even if you had to sit down and work it out pen on paper or note by note or whatever, you could harmonize a scale into, say, minor 9th chords. Essentially, that you probably have a good chord vocabulary anyway, but if someone tells you to play a G7b6, you could at least tell what notes should be in that chord.
> 
> ...



Sweet info . I'm gonna get on my jazzy shit til these strings are dead. But uh... I've been going hard on the theory lately and actually can do what you named except... the G7b6? G7 as in GMaj7? I thought 7th chords were 1,3,5,7, no 6?


----------



## Solodini (Oct 7, 2014)

G7 is G dominant 7: G major with a minor 7th. It's the 7th chord built off of the 5th degree of a major scale. The notes of C Major are CDEFGABC. The 5th is G. The 7 chord built on that is GBDF, where F is a minor 7th above G. As the 5th of a scale is known as the dominant, this chord is known as a Dominant 7th, written just as G7. 

b6 indicates that a 6th has been added, but it's a minor 6th. There's no point writing addb6, b6 gives all the necessary info.


----------



## Drew (Oct 7, 2014)

Solodini said:


> G7 is G dominant 7: G major with a minor 7th. It's the 7th chord built off of the 5th degree of a major scale. The notes of C Major are CDEFGABC. The 5th is G. The 7 chord built on that is GBDF, where F is a minor 7th above G. As the 5th of a scale is known as the dominant, this chord is known as a Dominant 7th, written just as G7.
> 
> b6 indicates that a 6th has been added, but it's a minor 6th. There's no point writing addb6, b6 gives all the necessary info.



All of this. Also, by convention, you build chords ascending in 3rds within the tonic's scale. So, if you're playing a G chord in the key of C (making it the V chord to the tonic), if you build a G triad, you've got a G (the root), a B (a third above G in the key of C, a major 3rd), and a D (a third above B in the key of C, a minor 3rd). 

If you go up another 3rd from D, that gets you to F (a distance of a minor 3rd, and the minor 7th relative to G), for a G7 or G dominant chord. 

If you go up the next third, staying in key would bring you to A, which is the 9th relative to G, and would give you a G9. 

One third higher from the 9th would give you a C, the 11th, and you'd notate this as a G11. Do it again and you have the 13th, or E. Since this is the same as the 6th degree just up an octave, it's more commonly notated as a G6, though actually as I'mwriting this I can't remember if you're supposed to use G6 to indicate a 7th chord that also has a 6th degree and a 13 to indicate the presence of all of the extensions, or not. I'm a little rusty, maybe someone who isn't can chime in.

Either way, that's the thing to remember, when playing jazz standards - when you see something like a G13, absent any other alteration, it's assumed that you're talking about a chord comprised of the root, M3, 5, m7, 9, 11, and 13th, and you as the musician are expected to know that. The 13th is a little extreme, but a G9 is indicated to show a 7th chord with the 9th added in as well, which is a lot more common. 

The problem here is playing a full 13th is pretty easy on a piano, but with 7 notes, very tricky on a 7th string and impossible on a 6. So a lot of jazz comping is based on figuring out which of the notes are "important" to the tonality of the chord, and which aren't. Surprisingly, the root is dropped fairly frequently (if you're playing in a group with someone else covering the low end, you can usually assume SOMEONE is playing the root), and the 5th goes by the wayside a lot too, unless it's raised or lowered in the chord. And, if you're playing a 13th, you may decide that the 11th isn't as important, and the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 13th get the point across well. Who knows. The point is, when playing a jazz score, the thing you'll be doing is saying, "Ok, this calls for a G9. I know what notes are in this chord, I know where they are on the fretboard, so I'll grab a bunch of them that give me some good color, and play those." 

Another cool and totally unrelated point is that since extended chords are really just series of stacked triads, you can do some really cool stuff with arpeggios over them. Take a G9 - root, M3, 5, m7, 9, or G, B, D, F, A. You can break that down into a bunch of other arpeggios - the top three notes are a Dm, for example, or the middle three are a B major. So, over a G in the bass, playing a B major arpeggio will imply a G7, while playing a D minor arpeggio will imply a G9. 

Really, I need to play more of this stuff, because it's really cool and I never do it in my own music.


----------



## TaP (Oct 7, 2014)

Thanks Great Solidini with the constantly solid advice . And Drewski for the reply.
However now that I'm back home from work I'm applying this theory and... confused as to things like:

When I mess around and put my fingers places, then find the notes and see what they make... what do I call them? I just tried to make a BbMin9 chord, and it was a STRETCH. Didn't use any open strings, and I'm in standard. But damn... then I tried to do the same with an EMin9 and found myself trying to be Mr. Fantastic again. I'm sure there are easier fingerings? Probably some I've used but never named the notes to.
Anyhow this is fun, but when I quit with EMin9 I made an EMin7, and then removed the E and was left with *BDG*, and then raised that G to A (7th fret) just for kicks and liked both sounds. Anyways I was wondering what you call chords like that? That BDG has no 5th so do I still call it Bminor? 
And when I do things like... EBC#, what is that?


----------



## Solodini (Oct 8, 2014)

Use your ear to tell you what the root is. BDG can be reordered as GBD, GMajor, but if it sounds like B is the root then that gives you a hint. It has the 3rd: D is a minor 3rd. G is the minor 6th. Gmin6/Gmin add6.

Use your ear to tell you which note is the root then work out the tonality of the other intervals in relation to the root. You may be missing things to make the full triad but if the root is there and the tonality of the other intervals is too, then the implication is probably right.

EBC#: If E sounds like the root then it's probably E6, as B is the 5th and C# is a major 6th. If C# is the root then E is the minor 3rd and B is the minor 7th. C#min7. If B is the root, C# is a major 2nd, E is the 4th. You could say that's B11, Bsus4add9, Bsus2add11.


----------



## TaP (Oct 8, 2014)

Solodini said:


> Use your ear to tell you what the root is. BDG can be reordered as GBD, GMajor, but if it sounds like B is the root then that gives you a hint. It has the 3rd: D is a minor 3rd. G is the minor 6th. Gmin6/Gmin add6.
> 
> Use your ear to tell you which note is the root then work out the tonality of the other intervals in relation to the root. You may be missing things to make the full triad but if the root is there and the tonality of the other intervals is too, then the implication is probably right.
> 
> EBC#: If E sounds like the root then it's probably E6, as B is the 5th and C# is a major 6th. If C# is the root then E is the minor 3rd and B is the minor 7th. C#min7. If B is the root, C# is a major 2nd, E is the 4th. You could say that's B11, Bsus4add9, Bsus2add11.



BAD ASS! I understood that! Lmao! You don't know how good it feels to actually be able to map that in my brain. Okay for sure, thanks for the reply! I'll refer to this post.


----------



## Drew (Oct 8, 2014)

TaP said:


> When I mess around and put my fingers places, then find the notes and see what they make... what do I call them? I just tried to make a BbMin9 chord, and it was a STRETCH. Didn't use any open strings, and I'm in standard. But damn... then I tried to do the same with an EMin9 and found myself trying to be Mr. Fantastic again. I'm sure there are easier fingerings? Probably some I've used but never named the notes to.



Soldini hit the first part of that pretty well - the same handful of notes can be a whole bunch of different chords depending on what they're doing. 

To your second, well... it's a Bb minor 7th triad with an added 9th, so you need to get some/all of the root, m3, 5, m7, and 9 together. Staying in one position and just making up a couple voicings (without a guitar) any of these would probably work and wouldn't be TOO hard to fret: 


```
|-8-------8---4---6--|
|-6-------6---6---6--|
|-6---5---6---5---6--|
|-6---6---8---8---10-|
|--------------------|
|-6---6--------------|
```

The second one is by far the simplest, with just the root, m7, and 9. In a dense mix or orchestration though, that might just do th trick. 

...and, actually, come to think of it, if you shift that whole thing up a fret to the 7th string, and then let the high E and B ring out, that's a voicing I actually used in the chorus of one of my songs, in a decisively NON jazz context, haha. The added E and B would make it (in the context of an A major harmony with the root squarely on the B) a form of a Bm11, since you have the m7 and both the 9th and 11th going on, and from there it resolves back to either an E or an Eadd9 over the 3rd... It's actually a progression I was kind of proud of, lots of cool little suspended chords, and then a really tense/partially chromatic resolution back to end the section. One I release the damned thing, I should do a lesson on what's going on harmonically in that section cause it was kind of fun.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 8, 2014)

Aack, nevermind.


----------



## TaP (Oct 8, 2014)

K my whole post was ....ed. I'm pretty pissed. D G Bb D A. Just made that and I like it. Is it a Dsus4 with an added sixth? Idc if I'm wrong just tell me why I am wrong in dummy words, and explain how to come to the correct answer.

Thanks for all other posts, very informative. I'm not the fastest learner, at all.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 8, 2014)

It's Gm(add2). The thing that makes a sus chord sound like a sus chord is that it doesn't have any thirds. Here's Dsus4:

D G A

Between D and G, there's a perfect fourth (P4). Between G and A, there's a major second (M2). No thirds to be found. As soon as you put that B&#9837; in there, there are thirds all over the place.

D G B&#9837; D A

Let's lose the extra D.

G B&#9837; D A

Between G and B&#9837;, there's a minor third (m3). Between B&#9837; and D, there's a major third (M3). That's going to make it sound really tertian, i.e. not sussy. The A is an added tone, because there is no seventh in this chord. However, if you had an F or an F#, the A easily becomes an extension.

G B&#9837; D F# A

G B&#9837; = m3
B&#9837; D = M3
D F# = M3
F# A = m3

Third, third, third, third. Definitely a tertian sonority. Even a single third in your chord can redefine the root. To me, the concept of a sixth chord is something built on a shaky foundation, because they are so easily interpreted as tertian chords. Chords with added sixths do exist, but are special cases.


----------



## TaP (Oct 8, 2014)

Mr. Big Noodles said:


> It's Gm(add2). The thing that makes a sus chord sound like a sus chord is that it doesn't have any thirds. Here' Dsus4:
> 
> D G A
> 
> ...



OKAY so ANYtime there is a 3rd present no matter where it's found, that's where I determine the M/m and basically the rest of the chord. Makes sense... A lot to think about consciously though. People say theory will help with improv... I mean I know shapes, but thinking about all this on the spot would mean I come up like 12 bars later in the middle of a session. This is really good for song creation though. Thanks!


----------



## Spacestationfive (Oct 8, 2014)

The most often used "color tones" when you're playing (your third and 7th) will usually land on either the D and G string (simultaneously) or the G and B string (simultaneously). The reason for that is because those notes are at max 3 steps away from each other and at closest 2 steps away. Close notes (within 2 to 3 steps) in that general range (on the D G and B strings from open to 12th fret) sound the least jarring compare to lower strings and less shrill than higher strings and ranges. 

If you play your 7th and 3rd on two of those three strings when you are making a chord that will open up the possibility of adding a bass note below (on the E or A strings) or an additional color tone on the higher strings, piano style (11s, 13s and 9s)

Of course you can start your chords from these color tones as well and end with the 7th or 3rd but the most accessible, quickly playable chords fall along the lines of establishing the 7th, 3rd on the next highest string, then color tones on the next highest above that.


EDIT: To keep this in the spirit of the original post requesting books, PM me with theory questions and I'd probably be able to spout you a book length of responses, tried to keep the idea brief here -_-


----------



## Solodini (Oct 9, 2014)

TaP said:


> OKAY so ANYtime there is a 3rd present no matter where it's found, that's where I determine the M/m and basically the rest of the chord. Makes sense... A lot to think about consciously though. People say theory will help with improv... I mean I know shapes, but thinking about all this on the spot would mean I come up like 12 bars later in the middle of a session. This is really good for song creation though. Thanks!


 
Stick with it, being conscious while you play. I've been working with a bass student on building bass lines by playing chord tones on 1 and 3, pushes, forcing him to play in certain positions so he starts to see the connectedness of the neck. He's progressing really quickly and we're adding bits of flair in between, nice runs to and from the chord tones, familiar phrases developing and so on. 

Focus on playing chord tones then once that is fluid, just add bits in between, little by little and it'll bloom from there.


----------



## Drew (Oct 10, 2014)

TaP said:


> K my whole post was ....ed. I'm pretty pissed. D G Bb D A. Just made that and I like it. Is it a Dsus4 with an added sixth? Idc if I'm wrong just tell me why I am wrong in dummy words, and explain how to come to the correct answer.
> 
> Thanks for all other posts, very informative. I'm not the fastest learner, at all.



Not to disagree with Mr. Big Noodles - that's certainly one answer - it depends what you consider the root and what's going on in the rest of the harmony. 

With G, Bb, D, and A, you could certainly call that a Gmadd9, since it's a G minor triad with an added 9th. If you're playing in the key of G minor and this is the chord you resolve to, then that's totally accurate. 

However, if in the chord progression it's functioning more as some sort of a Bb chord... Then, with Bb, D, G, and A, you could also fairly call that a Bbmaj7b6 - you have a Bb as the root, a D as the major 3rd, an A as the major 7th, and a G as a flatted 6. 

You could treat the A as the root as well, but this would be pretty dissonant - you have an A (root), D (4th), G (minor 7th), and Bb (flat 9), so I guess you could call that an A7sus4b9. 

You could even go total wildcard here, and if that was a cluster you were playing against, oh, an E in the bass, if that E was the root then G, Bb, A, and D would respectively be your m3, b5, 4th, and m7th. You could call that a half-diminished E with an added 4th. That'd be dissonant as hell, but kind of cool. 

Really, point here is that any note of a chord could be considered the root, so if you grab four or five notes at random, how you "name" them depends a lot more on what that chord is doing in the song, than anything arbitrary about the notes. 

You say "anytime there's a 3rd present, that determines the m/M and the rest of the chord." Ok, given A, F, G, and B, which one's the 3rd? See the problem?


----------



## tedtan (Oct 10, 2014)

Reading Mr. Big Noodle's response, I think he meant that any time there is an interval of a third in the chord's construction, the chord will sound tertian (e.g., built on thirds) as opposed to sounding like a chord not built on thirds. He used the sus4 as an example, which consists of a perfect fourth from the root to the fourth and a major second from the fourth to the fifth. Note that there is no interval of a major or minor third in the chord's construction (this was kind of a confusing example because a sus chord has no third (the third of the chord) as well as no intervals of a third in its construction, but I think that's what he meant).


----------



## Drew (Oct 10, 2014)

tedtan said:


> Reading Mr. Big Noodle's response, I think he meant that any time there is an interval of a third in the chord's construction, the chord will sound tertian (e.g., built on thirds) as opposed to sounding like a chord not built on thirds. He used the sus4 as an example, which consists of a perfect fourth from the root to the fourth and a major second from the fourth to the fifth. Note that there is no interval of a major or minor third in the chord's construction (this was kind of a confusing example because a sus chord has no third (the third of the chord) as well as no intervals of a third in its construction, but I think that's what he meant).



OH, no, I'm not disagreeing with anything he said (well, mostly, I guess), so much as telling TaP that there's a lot more to it than looking for a 3rd. 

I mean, take something like a simple triad - E - G# - B. E major, right? Now, play a D# chord, a C# chord, and then arpeggiate those thee notes E - B - G#. What does your ear hear? 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is there's nothing "absolute" about harmony. It's all relative to a reference pitch. Play a simple G#-D#-C#-G# chord progression and then blow through an E major arpeggio while your bassist plays a G#, and your ear is going to "hear" that in a very different way than if you did the same exercise with E-B-A-E and a sustained E note.


----------



## tedtan (Oct 11, 2014)

^ Definitely, Drew; I wasn't arguing against that.

I just intended to point out that what Mr. Big Noodle was saying is an extra layer on top of what you are saying, so to speak. E.g., even if you have a given point of reference, the intervallic spelling of the chord/arpeggio will still inform how we perceive those notes' relationship with one another, and therefore which one we perceive as the root.


----------



## Drew (Oct 15, 2014)

In isolation, yes. In music? Play a E, G, and B. E minor, right? Now, have your bassist buddy start playing a C and play that same triad. That's the point I'm trying to make (and probably failing ), that it really depends on what's going on around a chord and that harmonic context and harmonic _function_ of a chord needs to be taken into account when trying to "name" it. Because, really, what we call a chord is totally a function of what it's doing in a piece of music.


----------



## tedtan (Oct 15, 2014)

Your point came through, Drew; we've been agreeing with it. 

Keep two things in mind.

First, the original question Mr. Big Noodle answered was: 

TaP said:


> D G Bb D A. Just made that and I like it. Is it a Dsus4 with an added sixth?


Note that the chord mentioned consists of the notes G Bb D and A all inclusive, not G Bb D and A against some other note(s). So in the specific question asked, Gm(add2) is the correct answer. Yes, it could be interpreted differently if we add an additional note(s) to those four, and that's a valid and interesting area for discussion, but that wasn't the original question asked.

Second, to your point, if you add additional notes through the bass line, keys, or wherever, those new notes will have to be taken into account in determining what the chord is because all of the notes we hear comprise the chord, not just the ones played on the guitar. Sometimes those added notes will change the chord, sometimes they'll just be passing tones to avoid jumps in the melody of the bass line and won't affect the harmony, and so forth. This isn't at odds with what Mr. Big Noodle wrote. In fact, his input is consistent with your point, he just didn't create more examples with added tones for analysis because that was beyond the scope of TaP's question. But I'm sure he's be happy to if you'd like to explore the topic further - he's very good about explaining these things in as much detail as people ask for.


----------



## TaP (Oct 15, 2014)

Dude... you guys lost me. It was like having a lunchables and talking about how to put my cracker sandwich together, then you guys (eating subway) started talking about various crackers and condiments to add to my cracker sandwich.

HOWEVER! I did take it all in lol. I see what you guys are saying. It all depends on how I'm using it, what it's for in context... to determine my name for it, sometimes... Or something like that. I get the gist. Much appreciated!


----------



## Drew (Oct 16, 2014)

tedtan said:


> Second, to your point, if you add additional notes through the bass line, keys, or wherever, those new notes will have to be taken into account in determining what the chord is because all of the notes we hear comprise the chord, not just the ones played on the guitar.



But I love beating dead horses.  

But what I'm getting at though is sometimes those notes don't NEED to be there to impact the harmony. If there's a strong enough resolution down to C, you can imply a Cmaj7 using just an E minor triad. Heck, the bassist could be doing some convoluted walking bassline or a complicated fill rather than pedaling on the C, but if the harmony has been established strongly enough you can get away with playing just that triad. 

A lot of jazz chording is the art of simplification and knowing what notes you can get away with leaving out. I'd probably drop the G before the C myself, but the Em triad does fall under your fingers quite nicely, you know?


----------



## tedtan (Oct 17, 2014)

Drew said:


> But I love beating dead horses.
> 
> But what I'm getting at though is sometimes those notes don't NEED to be there to impact the harmony. If there's a strong enough resolution down to C, you can imply a Cmaj7 using just an E minor triad. Heck, the bassist could be doing some convoluted walking bassline or a complicated fill rather than pedaling on the C, but if the harmony has been established strongly enough you can get away with playing just that triad.
> 
> A lot of jazz chording is the art of simplification and knowing what notes you can get away with leaving out. I'd probably drop the G before the C myself, but the Em triad does fall under your fingers quite nicely, you know?



I agree, Drew. But keep in mind, too, that for purposes of analysis on "paper" that we still need to list the C as being part of the chord because even if the implied C is obvious in listening to the music, it isn't something we can hear on paper. On paper, we're left with just E-G-B, which is an Em chord. So you would typically see something like (C)-E-G-B to indicate that the C is an implied part of the harmony even though it isn't being played.


----------

