At 06:56 PM 8/13/01 +0000, you wrote:
What is the system in "Mr. Goodchord's Almanac of Guitar Voice-
Leading"? Or are we talking about another variant of the Guitar
Grimoire?
Mick has worked out an exhaustive system of voice leading chords. By exhaustive, I mean for 3, 4, quatral and 9th voicings of chords in all possible possibilities without doubling voices. He has worked out a huge listing of chords based on given formulae and presented the chords written only in note names (no tab, no notation, no particular key). Each chord group progresses in 2nds, or 3rds, or 4ths, etc with a minimum of movement in the voices. Sometimes only one note will change in the progression but the effect of the sound is profound.
The bottom line is you get to think of the movements of chords in terms of families and familiarity with this system allows you to seamlessly move any harmonic interval with full awareness of all four voices. The sounds are unreal. He plays things that I've NEVER heard come out of a guitar. And they're beautiful and he plays entire choruses this way. First it's diatonic, then he runs through the whole thing again with harmonic minor, then again with melodic minor . In the end, you'll never think of harmony the same way (root position, drop 2 or anyway like that) but with a comfortable working awareness of the movements of individual voices and their sounds.
A word of warning. He writes a brief explanation and a warning within the first half dozen pages and the entire rest of the book, which is heavier than a manhattan phone book, is chord voicings methodically presented and each page is a project of study in itself to get to know intimately. After the first 10 pages, you start to see the patterns, after the first 20 or so I started to see patterns in everything I played and the harmonies in my playing got more coherant. After the first chapter I looked back on the way I had seen chord choices and they seemed totally random and undiciplined.
I still play the way I did when that's the sound I want but the book has opened up a hundred ways out of the rut I would too often find myself in.
Did you check out the website?
Do ask more questions, it's hard for me to explain this in a few words.
David
