Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry

[Dean Gray]

Just received my copy of Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene, and am feeling a little overwhelmed! The information in this one book will take decades, if not a lifetime,for me to absorb.

It is interesting that in the introduction Ted says words to the effect that the important thing is not to know a million chords, but to know several voicings and inversions and know how and when to use them effectively.

Of course, it seems Ted actually did know a million chords, and how to use them very effectively!

I was wondering how many of us already have this book and have studied it in depth? How did you go about absorbing and applying this information? At the moment I am just playing 3 note chords and moving the notes along the same string sets to find the 3 inversions. 4 note chords will be next....

It would be good to hear of some of your experiences with this wonderful book.

Anyway, as Ted says, a keyword is to EXPERIMENT, so i'm off to practice!

[Rob Moody]

Crazy book, takes years and years to get your head around it, you'll always insert bits and pieces of into your playing if you give it time and take it slow, and implement certain inveriosn into your daily playing. Great fun, just dont sit down and read it like a real book!

[Hucklebilly]

Chord Chemistry is amazing, intimidating, and probably will take a lifetime to work through. While you're working through it you might check out Arnie Berle's chord book:

http://www.jazzguitar.be/jazz_guitar...re_chords.html

I've found it to be the most straightforward introduction to chord voicings.

[JM in Va]

For me, the best thing to take from that book was that it isn't necessarily memorizing a million chord grips ...it's being able to assemble chords based on where you are on the neck and the type of tune you're playing.
After a while you get that from all of Ted's books...he was so beyond just grabbing a memorized pattern or shape...he could construct a chord from the 'inside' out, based on the harmony needed at the moment.
I think he later remarked on how poorly organized Chord Chemistry was, as it was really more of a brain dump where he just spit out a bunch of chord shapes in different voicings, but didn't really make it cohesive.
I still think it's a great resource, and it helped me a lot with what I mentioned above - building stuff on the fly all over the neck.

[Jeffscreamedcorn]

Originally Posted by Dean R Gray

Of course, it seems Ted actually did know a million chords, and how to use them very effectively!

It's good to know lots of chords - but it is the "how to use them" part that's most important. As Mick Goodrick says, "It's not how many chords you know, it's how many ways you know how to use the chords you know."

[klasaine]

Yeah, don't feel too bad about that. I'm on my 2nd copy. I got my first in '77 or '78. I can still open that book at any time and learn something new. It's meant to be a lifelong thing.

[Dean Gray]

Thanks for replying guys, it's good to hear of your experiences with this book.

It was interesting to read JM's comment that Ted later thought it was poorly organised....I wonder what changes he would have made if given the time?

The first line of examples in the "Essential Chords" section gives me literally hours of things to work on, when I start to move the inversions up and down the fretboard, as Ted recommends. Last night I spent nearly 2 hours on about 6 chords!!! I have been playing for 20 years, a little classical, spanish, rock, later bluegrass, country and jazz, but I realise I know very little, and understand even less!!

Hucklebilly - I did look at the Arnie Berle book, and it looks very interesting, I think working on that, alongside with Chord Chemistry is a good idea. Thanks for the tip. I have also been working on Jamey Aebersold's books/play-a-longs. Vol 1 - Introduction to Jazz, and Vol 54 Maiden Voyage have been great practice tools. While not particularly oriented to guitar - there is a lot of information presented quite simply, and the backing tracks are great - real musicians with a solid groove.

I am still very excited about Chord Chemistry, and learning more about music in general. Thanks for your replies.

[octatonic]

I have it- and I use it a bit but it isn't structured well for dipping into easily.

I'd recommend "Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar" by George Van Eps for that sort of thing.
Excellent book and a lifetime's work as well.

[Twanginator]

I bought that book back in the late Seventies. After looking at it for a while I decided I had a better chance of memorizing the Manhattan phone directory. Hats off to you guys who stuck with it.

[Leon Grizzard]

I bought my copy sometime in the '70s . It was just too daunting, although I worked in it some. (In another book of his, he asks: "You did want to be thorough, didn't you?") For me, it's real significance was the text. It was the first well articulated explanation of chord structures I encountered.

[Atom Gram]

For the average guy, I strongly recommend Jim Ferguson's 'All Blues for Jazz Guitar'. It is a compendium of jazz chord vocabulary delivered through a vehicle that we all know. The 12 bar blues. It transformed my playing in a year and I am only about a third of the way through it so far. He has a bunch of great material available. Check him out.

[OutlawSteph1975]

Originally Posted by Atom Gram

For the average guy, I strongly recommend Jim Ferguson's 'All Blues for Jazz Guitar'. It is a compendium of jazz chord vocabulary delivered through a vehicle that we all know. The 12 bar blues. It transformed my playing in a year and I am only about a third of the way through it so far. He has a bunch of great material available. Check him out.

I agree. That book is very accessible.

So is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Gu.../dp/0634001442

I've also had fun learning the songs that Charlie Christian played with the Benny Goodman Sextet because you can work on your chord theory and fretboard knowledge first of all before going deep into jazz theory.

[keiths]

Have you been to his memorial site? It is very nice! I would recommend Modern Chord Progressions as well. I love that book!!!

http://www.tedgreene.com/default.asp

[Telarkaster]

I'm reviving this thread because I just got "Chord Chemistry" and "Single Note Soloing Vol 1" from Amazon.

I knew it would be dense and hard going at first, and a "lifelong journey", but wow! This stuff is wild. I figure if I learn 0.01% of the info in these books then it will be worth it. I have no illusions of mastering them cover to cover.

I'd also like to eventually get "Modern Chord Progressions" and "Single Note Soloing Vol II", but I have more than enough to get started on now.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions for other books, and the Ted Greene site is really cool. I'm watching a Ted Greene video lesson on Lenny Breau's playing as I type...

[Telarkaster]

Originally Posted by OutlawSteph1975

I agree. That book is very accessible.

So is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Gu.../dp/0634001442

That's the one I'm going through! I love it, touches a bit on everything and I learned a lot from that book. It really helped me and was easy to go through.

Since we are suggesting other books here, I'm having fun with Lenny Breau's Fingerstyle Jazz. The harmonics don't interest me as much as how he builds on the two string chord accompaniment to a blues solo. The exercises are graded and by the end he's flying. Cool to hear him talk and play on the CD that comes with the book too.

http://www.amazon.com/Mel-Lenny-Brea...8533520&sr=1-1

[klasaine]

Of the TG 'collection', "Modern Chord Progressions" is definitely the more concise text.
(All of his books were designed to be used with a qualified teacher - even if they don't say that inside, he would have wanted them to. Publisher issue). You can usually find it cheap ... http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chord-P...8539851&sr=8-1

[Budda]

Another cool approach, is the Scott Henderson Chord Book. His approach is to use a few Voicings, in different ways.

Might be a good Yin to the Chord Chemistry Yang.

[IggyT]

I had some apprehensions about this approach to chords and theory..and believe Vernon Reid said what a huge influence this book was on his playing so I looked into it..that was early 90s and I was looking for "weird" outside sounds at the time..
now I am back to simple blues and country standards..but almost never play a simple barre chord anymore..!
iggy

[strat a various]

Saw Ted's book when it first came out, it's very interesting. Ted had a very analytical mind and wanted to address every perspective of chords. I'll respectfully suggest that he was somewhat obsessive-compulsive ... in a good way. Many scholars and professors have that "must describe and quantify everything" mindset. Is that the "right brain"? Or the "left brain"?
I read the whole thing, borrowing it, returned it to it's owner, a great Jazz player himself. He made use of it, but I think there's an easier way to approach chords. I don't want to highjack the thread for a manifesto on a competing viewpoint, but I'll say this, if you look at chords as arpeggios that contain every possible "right" note for the placement in the harmonic structure, and then pick just the notes you need, you can explain the "name" of the chord, it's formulaic shorthand, later.
Still, Ted was a theory giant and a great player. His book is a "must see" for any prospective Jazz teachers.

[warmingtone]

"Chord Chemistry" was very influential to me reading it, playing and understanding it over and over. I also have "Vol 1&2 Single Note Soloing" which has a tremendous amount of material but I found it less practically useful. The kind of thing that you go to when you want to sit down and "study"...I like to understand principles over endless examples and progressions that I might not play that much.

With a lot of chords in progression stuff...what you are really looking at are not "blocks" of sounds but multiple lines that move and generally in predictable ways to produce smooth progressions. That means being able to create voicing that say have the b5 in a ii chord fall to the root of the V chord, or a b9 in a V chord to the 5th of the I. I am not sure if 'chord chemistry' covers that (it has been a lot of years since I have studied it) but there is a danger in learning a "chord dictionary" kind of approach without understanding progressions.

Still...it did make a big influence on me and clarify a lot of things at the time and that amongst a host of other approaches allowed me to see these connected lines and chord structures and functions. The understanding of how chords are built and how they connect one to another in a progression is vital to a host of improvisation styles.