Product Description

This book leads readers in a step-by-step, easy-to-understand way through the basics of musical intervals, scales, triads, more complex chord voicings, and the kinds of chord progressions used in thousands of well-known songs. While firmly grounded in traditional music theory, it addresses the needs and interests of readers who are more comfortable with pop music. Unlike some "chord and scale encyclopedia" books published for guitarists and jazz players, which give you hundreds of scales and licks without explaining where they come from, Chords & Harmony "opens up the box" to explain why some chords and scales work well together while others clash.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283207 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 198 pages

Customer Reviews

Great Starter Music Theory Book For Musicians
A nicely written and fairly comprehensive book for those like myself who were taught how to play "songs", but never learned any music theory. For the most part, the author makes the explanation of "textbook concepts" in understandable ways that can be applied to whatever instrument and/or style of music you are into. Most of the writing is kept on the

I found there to be a couple of times in the book where some fundamentals were breezed over & not covered as thoroughly as I'd have liked them to be.....though after re-reading the sections over a few times, things became more clear.

Regarding what the previous reviewer stated (not sure what he's got against the author?), the author DOES NOT say anything about guitarists not being able to play real chords. He simply says that using a keyboard in conjunction with the book will make learning the concepts easier to learn with the examples & exercises he uses (because of the linear layout of a piano/keyboard). Virtually every college music theory class uses piano/keyboard to teach concepts. The author also makes 1 drummer joke and admits that it is only a joke. He says, "If you love music but can't tell high from low, your only hope is to become a drummer". Then he goes on to say that his joke isn't really good/true because drummers have to tune their drums to higher and lower pitches regularly.

I took 6 years of private classical music lessons, but was never taught any music theory. Trying to "jam" with other musicians and/or write music was as a result difficult for me. This book has helped me immensely to play with others and in my own musical compositions. It packs a lot of information into a 200 page book. I highly recommend it to anyone who'd like to do more that just "play songs".

deceitful title
I gave only one star for this book because of the dishonesty of the
author and/or editor in the selection of the title: A Player's Guide to
Chords & Harmony.
On page 3 the author says that ONLY pianists can derive something from the
book because they're the only musicians that play chords. The author claims that guitarists don't play real chords(Maybe we play "knock-offs"!) So shouldn't the title be A Pianist's Guide to Chords & Harmony?
This author is also extremely depreciative of other musicians. He thinks,for instance, that drummers are stupid people that can't be arrested as real musicians and therefore had no other choice but turn to drums and make noises instead of music. And the funny thing is that we learn from the back cover that this author "composes" music on the synthesizer. Well now,Mr. Aikin, do you uses electronics and call yourself a musician?