All About Chords

Subject: Music
Level: Secondary
Age Group: 11 - 14
Order Number: 11012

All About Chords is a unique and original resource for Lower School, GCSE and A-level Music. The book explains chords, chord changes and harmony descending bass lines, middle 8s and jazz sequences. Each chapter contains explanations for beginners and advanced musicians and includes sets of 8-bar chord sequences which illustrate the chapter headings. These sets build up into an unrivalled collection of 375 chord sequences, listed in the keys of C major and A minor. These include chord inversions, diminished and augmented chords, sixths, sevenths, ninths, elevenths and thirteenths.

Teachers can use the photocopiable book to provide their students with chord sequences over which they can improvise and write melodies. The sequences can be used as starting points for compositions, especially at GCSE where the exam requires students to describe their stimuli. The book can also be used to aid the teaching of harmony, particularly the modulations contained in the middle 8s chapter, and the harmonic movements in the cycles of fifths sequences. Teachers can also use the book to help them learn vamping techniques.

Pianists and guitarists can use the book to practice chord changes and to learn to read 'chord charts'. Advanced instrumentalists can attempt the exercise of transposing the sequences at sight. The sequences can also be used as starting points for improvisations and compositions.

Composition based around a chord sequence is often an easy way of producing effective work quickly, especially if improvisation skills are good. This book helps discover new ways of moving from the tonic to the dominant, new ways of relating chords to each other and perhaps even finding new chords!