Recommend me books on Chord progressions

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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looking for easy to read books on chord progressions and structures,

nothing over the top on theory behind it all, so long as it sounds nice, im in

i can read music so it doesnt have to have a diagram of a keyboard on every page,

for soulful stlyes, jazzy stuff

thanks L
L P B

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I would recommend "Writing Music for Hit Songs" by Jai Josephs or "How to Write Songs on Guitar" or "The Songwriting Sourcebook" both by Rikky Rooksby. You can find these on Amazon.

You also might check out the website Moneychords.com. He has almost an encyclopedia of chord progressions there and explains how they can be used. :)

- Ken

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excellent, ill read some reviews on these books, great stuff

many thanks for the speedy reply !
L P B

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Not a book but lots of progressions... http://www.torvund.net/guitar/index.php ... ogressions
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Now with improved MIDI jitter!

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All kinds of pages in books can be summarized to this one chart.

As long as you understand the roman numerals, you can write lots of interesting progressions using this chart.

http://mugglinw.ipower.com/chordmaps/genmap.htm

-Scott

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Sorry, I misspelled his name. It is Jai Josefs as the author of "Writing Music for Hit Songs"

- Ken

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I have used bits from this book myself when teaching beginner guitar player's, but it is equally suited to guitarist's of any level:
'Chords And Scales For Guitarists' by David Mead, published by SMT

available from: www.musicsales.com

ISBN: 1-86074-432-X (ISBN 13: 978-1-86074-432-7)

More Information & Biography concerning the author:

www.davidmead.net

info@davidmead.net

Nekro :)

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Here's another...
The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook

Just words and chords.

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many thanks sorry i should have said its for keyboard and not guitar,

i realise there are similarities, ill take a look at the links here also,

im not sure i understand the roman numerals exactly yet, my teacher hasnt got on to this yet, is it just inversions ?? or is that too obvious and its much more complex ?
L P B

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If you are living in england then my local independent music store of treasures carry a huge amount of books which would be right up your street.

They are very helpful and here is a link to their website:

www.soundsgreatmusic.co.uk

Dean

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http://mugglinw.ipower.com/chordmaps/chordC.htm

this website is very useful indeed, is there any website that has the chord progression chart that a little more basic for new students to music ?

also the chords in the link in the key of c would you be able to just transpose these into different keys rather than needing to see each chord in each key ?

thanks leigh
L P B

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leighbeynon wrote:http://mugglinw.ipower.com/chordmaps/chordC.htm

this website is very useful indeed, is there any website that has the chord progression chart that a little more basic for new students to music ?

also the chords in the link in the key of c would you be able to just transpose these into different keys rather than needing to see each chord in each key ?

thanks leigh
Yes transpose works... Hence why often the roman numerals are used for chords.. I is the root, II is the second chord etc.. so C and Dm in scale of C respectively.

Also it can be useful to realise that a lot of the flat5, flat9 , 9th etc are colourings of the 3 basic 7th chords, (major, minor and dominant).. For instance .. if you see Am9 / / / D9b5/G# / / / Gmaj7 .. really it's just a fancy way of saying Am7/Dm7/Gmaj7 or II/V/I in G, and once you start spotting these 2 5 1 pattern everywhere things will get somewhat simpler.

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ok ive just read all the articles on the ipower website made things fairly simple, plus ive learnt a little from from piano teacher anyway,

2,5,1 patterns ?? not sure about that,

also with the roman numerals
ive seen the chart supplied on the website, i under stand I is major and ii is minor but this doesnt explain if a chord is a 7th, 9th etc

as i do understand 7th,9th are basically taken from the keys scale to make up the chord

leigh
L P B

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leighbeynon wrote:ok ive just read all the articles on the ipower website made things fairly simple, plus ive learnt a little from from piano teacher anyway,

2,5,1 patterns ?? not sure about that,

also with the roman numerals
ive seen the chart supplied on the website, i under stand I is major and ii is minor but this doesnt explain if a chord is a 7th, 9th etc

as i do understand 7th,9th are basically taken from the keys scale to make up the chord

leigh
Unless it has been annotated, the chord is the scale chord.

Whether it is 7th or not depends, sometimes you'll get a 7th after the numeral , as in II7 .. or sometimes (virtually all jazz lit.) it is just assumed to be a 7th.. so you have in C

I = Cmaj7
II = Dmin7
III = Emin7
IV = Fmaj7
V = G7 (dominant)
VI = Amin7
VII = Bdim7

But whether you actually play the 7th, or add a 9th, is down to voicings and the style of music, more than the underlying chord structure.

The 2 5 1 pattern is just the 2nd, 5th and 1st (root) chord in that order.. Its just an extremely common pattern of resolving chords, as the V to the I is so strong. What I was trying to say is that once you see this, and see past the various ways to decorate it, a lot more chord patterns will make sense.. (did for me anyway.. I got hung up for a while on all the 9th, b5, b9 etc chords.. till I noticed how often it was a 251 with bells on)

Sometimes you see some wierd chords, and it looks like something really strange is happening.. but it's either some colouring notes, or harmonising a note from the melody.. and (imho) it would probably be easier to have just notated the basic pattern and left that to the musician :) nice simple fake books are most useful..

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arrhhh ok i see what your saying,

so the roman numerals are just for the different chords,ok think ive got this,
and the pattern your telling me about is a common progression that works well ?

im just going to concentrate on learning maj scales as i can build chords from this and understand how they are contructed, doesnt the circle of 5ths give you a good guide as to what chords work best with one another ?

i like the large progression chart but at the moment it takes me a long time to read and understand it, ill have to memorise the roman numeral chart also eh?
L P B

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