
Theory isn't always the answer, and it doesn't help in the ways that you imagine it would.
Beginner
Intermediate
- Develop a larger chord vocabulary
- Learn how to voice lead through a IIm7–V7–I progression.
- Understand how to alter dominant chords.
We're going to look at a simple jazz progression and talk about the struggle to make sense of some of these moves in the context of music theory. I want you to leave this lesson with new ways to think about chord progressions, and perhaps a different way to think about music theory.
Every year, I record something for the holidays to send to family and friends. It's almost always a solo guitar piece, or something I do alone with a backing track. It's a nice tradition that forces me to flex my chord chops in a way that I don't always get a chance to use during the year.
This year, I was approached by a vocalist that I had not worked with before to do a duet and I happily said yes. She wanted to cover the classic "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which was a song that I had done a chord-melody version of years ago. When I went to lay down the chord tracks, I had a bunch of realizations that I wanted to roll into a lesson.
The “Starter” Progression
For "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the singer asked to do it in G major. Being a pretty jazzy tune, it's grounded in the most common jazz progression, the IIm7–V7–I. In the case of G major, that's Am–D–G and since it's jazz, we're going to extend it into all 7th chords: Am7–D7–Gmaj7. Ex. 1 shows you where I started.
Connecting Chords Ex. 1
One of the challenges for me was that I had worked up an arrangement years ago where I was playing the chords and the melody all at the same time. Now that I had a vocalist, I had to let her take the melody, and pick chords that didn't interfere with that melody. I also really wanted the chords to be more interesting than just the same stock shapes above, especially considering how often that progression came up in the song.
Let’s Connect
A simple way that you can make your chords sound a bit more interesting is to connect the chords together in the smoothest way possible. This is called voice leading, and while you can get quite advanced about this, you can also do some incredibly simple voice leading that make a big impact. To begin with, let's just focus on the highest note in the chords, which in the case of Ex. 1, is 100 percent on the 2nd string. The top voice started with an E in the Am7, went down to a D in the D7, and then stayed put as a D in the Gmaj7.
Let's try something different. Let's connect the Am7 and D7 chords by keeping the E the same between the two chords. If we think about it as notes, it might get a little confusing, but if we look at closer, it's actually really simple. Just take the D7 chord you know and love and change the highest note from D to E. Don't change any of the other notes in the chords. That's it. Don't think about it any deeper than that. Just play it and listen to it (Ex. 2).
Connecting Chords Ex. 2
Sounds good, doesn't it? It's because you're only changing one note, and you're keeping that note consistent between the two chords, which in turn makes them connect with better voice leading. You only changed one note! Now let's throw the Gmaj7 back into the mix to hear what all three sound like together (Ex. 3).
Connecting Chords Ex. 3
Simple to See & Hard to Communicate
The good news is that by changing your D7 chord to have an E as the highest note, you've made a more advanced V chord with interesting voice leading that sounds better. The downside is that you made the chord more complicated to name. This is one of the things that I was wrestling with as I was working out the arrangement. Many of these moves that I was doing in my progressions were actually really simple to explain if I didn't have analyze them with traditional music theory. I was just moving a finger here and there, picking notes that connected the chords, and grounding it all with things that sounded good.
I wondered what theory was good for, and why it mattered that Ex. 2 has a D9 chord? Music theory in this example is really a means for communication to the outside world. If it's just you at home, and there's nobody to talk to, you don't have to give the chord a name at all if you don't want to. You can do whatever it is that you want to do.
If you do have to talk about it, you'll need to pick some way of communicating what you played. One way is tab, and that's a really popular way to explain guitar music. You could also do traditional written notation. You can also give it a chord symbol, like D9. The point I am trying to illustrate here is that the thing that inspired us to make this more complex named chord wasn't the name; that was only an artifact of having to label it and communicate it. We just wanted to connect those two chords together and make them sound more interesting.
What Else Can We Do?
Throughout the song, I came back to that simple progression what felt like 100 times. To keep it fresh, I tried to change things up a little. Here are a few ways that I took that progression and generated more ideas. One time through the progression, I wanted the top note to not move at all, so, I kept the E the same in all three chords (Ex. 4).
Connecting Chords Ex. 4
I love how the top note grounds the progression together as the rest of the notes move around. Pinning the E to all three chords resulted in the progression turning into Am7–D9–Gmaj13. A really simple concept resulted in more advanced chords. Don't let that stop you or scare you. Play the chords. Listen to them. If you like them, use them. The theory is only there when you need to convey them as chord symbols. It's absolutely possible that someone will listen to you play them, ask what they were and you'll simply say, "I took these basic chords and refigured them to have E as the top note for each." Not knowing that it's a Gmaj13–or why–shouldn't stop you from playing them, or exploring this concept of messing around with basic chords to extend them. Truth be told, there's a zillion different ways to play Am7–D9–Gmaj13, so, just labeling your progression as such won't fully explain what you did. Chord diagrams are actually a much better way to do that. Theory is so often not the answer.
Let's try the same progression and this time, let's pin the D and connect it to every chord—we will end up with Ex. 5:
Connecting Chords Ex. 5
I really like this progression because the first chord just sounds beautiful as an Am11—it's one of my favorite chords and I use it all the time. But it's still a IIm–V7–I.
Let's try a different idea. Instead of pinning a single note in the chords, let's try to descend from E down to D. To do so, we will end up with a really neat chord, the D7b9, which by itself isn't exactly beautiful, but in the context of this progression works so well. It works because you get E–Eb–D as the top voice of the chords, stepping down by half-steps. Check it out as Am7–D7b9–Gmaj7 (Ex. 6).
Connecting Chords Ex. 6
That one was about descending the top voice. Let's try one last idea where we ascend it and see what happens (Ex. 7).
Connecting Chords Ex. 7
We start with the Am7 with the E on top and head into our next new chord, the D7#9, adding an E# (or F) to the top of the chord. We finish it off with a physically hard chord, still a Gmaj7, but in a more spread voicing. You end up with a beautiful ascending voice of E–E#–F#.
If that felt evil and unplayable, you can get the same effect with Ex. 8, which doesn't have exactly the same voice leading but does retain the top note and is still a very nice way to go.
Connecting Chords Ex. 8
To close with, let's look at a much more advanced example—well, actually, it's only advanced when we have to name it. The concept is really simple. Instead of moving the note on the second string around to connect our chords together, this time I'm going to smoothly connect the bass note. Check out Ex. 9.
Connecting Chords Ex. 9
Our progression changed from a standard Am7–D7–Gmaj7 to an Am11–Ab7b5–Gmaj7! This is a really cool technique called a tritone substitution where Ab7 can substitute for D7 since it's a tritone (b5) away. But don't overthink it, the top three strings of the Ab7b5 are the same as the top three strings of the D7 it replaces. We simply connect the bass notes down in half-steps to create a smooth bass line. Since the top notes are the same ones that we already know and love, our ears fully accept it. You could even reasonably call this a D7/Ab and you wouldn't be wrong. You can use this approach (and these chord shapes) for any IIm7–V7–I where your IIm7 chord starts with a 6th-string root like each of our previous examples. And there is more we can do—try making some new chord progressions and applying the principles learned here and see what you come up with.
Summing It Up
You can do so much with that simple progression just by being creative. Changing one note in the chord can have a big impact on the sound, and if you try to apply some principles such as keeping a single note consistent between the chords, or trying to ascend or descend the top note, you can end up with really wonderful chords that all fit the progression but give you a ton of new sonic options.
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Ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore records the song of Mountain Chief, head of the Blackfeet Tribe, on a phonograph for the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1916.
Once used as a way to preserve American indigenous culture, field recording isn’t just for seasoned pros. Here, our columnist breaks down a few methods for you to try it yourself.
The picture associated with this month’s Dojo is one of my all-time favorites. Taken in 1916, it marks the collision of two diverging cultural epochs. Mountain Chief, the head of the Piegan Blackfeet Tribe, sings into a phonograph powered solely by spring-loaded tension outside the Smithsonian. Across from him sits whom I consider the patron saint of American ethnomusicologists—the great Frances Densmore.
You can feel the scope and weight of theancient culture of the indigenous American West, and the presence of the then-ongoing women’s suffrage movement, which was three years from succeeding at getting the 19th Amendment passed by Congress. That would later happen on June 4, 1919—the initiative towards granting all women of this country the right to vote. (All American citizens, including Black women, were not granted suffrage until 1965.)
Densmore traversed the entire breadth of the country, hauling her gramophone wax cylinder recorders into remote tribal lands, capturing songs by the Seminole in southern Florida, the Yuma in California, the Chippewa in Wisconsin, Quinailet songs in Northern Washington, and, of course, Mountain Chief outside the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Author of more than 20 books and 200 articles, she carefully preserved the rich cultural diversity of Native Americans with over 2,500 field recordings.
Why am I writing about this? Firstly, to pay homage! Secondly, because it serves as a great reminder to seek and cultivate sound outside the studio as well. We live in a time of great technological power and convenience. Every week a new sample pack, plugin, pedal, or software instrument hits the market. For all the joy that these offerings bring, they deprive us of the joy of creating our own instruments from scratch.
This month, I’m advocating for you to make some field recordings of your own—nature, urban, indoor, outdoor, specific locations, animals, or anything that piques your interest! Bring the material back to the studio and make music with it! I’ll show you how to make your own sample libraries to use in your music. Tighten up your belts, a multipart Dojo is now open.
What do you need to get started? Quite simply, you just need any device that is capable of recording. This can range from your cell phone to a dedicated field recorder. The real question is: Do you want to use mics housed in handheld units or have more robust mic pres with the ability to power larger live/studio microphones using XLR connectors found with the larger units? Let’s look at three scenarios.
The Cellular Approach
The absolute easiest way to get started is with your cell phone. Take advantage of a voice-memo recording app, or use an app that records multitrack audio like GarageBand on iOS. Phone recordings tend to sound very compressed and slightly lo-fi—which might be exactly what you want. However, the method can also introduce unwanted noise artifacts like low-end rumble (from handling the phone) and phasing (moving the mic while recording). I recommend using a tripod to hold your phone still while recording. You might also want to consider using an external mic and some software to edit your sample recordings on the phone. I like using a Koala Sampler ($4.99) on iOS devices.
Upgrade Me
The next step up is to use a portable recorder. These have much better mic pres, and offer true stereo recording with pivoting mic heads. This can give you the added benefit of controlling the width of your stereo image when recording or helping isolate two sound sources that are apart from each other. You sacrifice the ability to easily edit your recordings. You simply import them into your computer and edit the recording(s) from there.
Pro-Level Quality
I would recommend this scenario if you want to record multiple sources at once. These devices also have SMPTE time code, 60+ dB of gain, phantom power (+48 volts), advanced routing, and a 32-bit/192 kHz sampling rate, so you’ll never have a distorted recording even when the meter gets unexpectedly pegged into the red from a loud sound source. I recommend the Zoom F8n Pro ($1099). Now you can use your microphones!
Best Practices
Try to safely record as close to the sound source as you can to minimize ambient noise and really scrub through your recordings to find little snippets and sound “nuggets” that can make great material for creating your own instrument and sample library—which we’ll explore next month! Namaste.
Need more firepower? Here’s a collection of high-powered stomps that pack plenty of torque.
There’s a visceral feeling that goes along with really cranking the gain. Whether you’re using a clean amp or an already dirty setup, adding more gain can inspire you to play in an entirely different way. Below are a handful of pedals that can take you from classic crunch to death metal doom—and beyond.
Universal Audio UAFX Anti 1992 High Gain Amp Pedal
Early 1990s metal tones were iconic. The Anti 1992 offers that unique mix of overdrive and distortion in a feature-packed pedal. You get a 3-band EQ, noise gate, multiple cab and speaker combos, presets, and full control through the mobile app.
Revv G4 Red Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
Based upon the red channel of the company’s Generator 120, this finely tuned circuit offers gain variation with its 3-position aggression switch.
MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive Pedal - Red
The Viking king of shred guitar has distilled his high-octane tone into a simple, two-knob overdrive. Designed for going into an already dirty amp, this stomp offers clarity, harmonics, and more.
Empress Effects Heavy Menace Distortion Pedal
Arguably the company’s most versatile dirt box, this iteration is all about EQ. It’s loaded with an immensely powerful 3-band EQ with a sweepable mid control, footswitchable noise gate, a low-end sculpting control, and three different distortion modes.
JHS Hard Drive Distortion Pedal - Tan
Designed by late JHS R&D engineer Cliff Smith, the Hard Drive is a powerful and heavy ode to the post-grunge sounds of the late ’90s and early ’00s. This original circuit takes inspiration from many places by including cascading gain stages and Baxandall bass and treble controls.
Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal Distortion Pedal
Few pedals captured the sound of Swedish death metal like the HM-2. The go-to setting is simple—all knobs maxed out. Flip over to the custom mode for more tonal range, higher gain, and thicker low end.
Electro-Harmonix Nano Metal Muff Distortion Pedal
Voiced with an aggressive, heavy tone with a tight low end, this pedal offers +/- 14 dB of bass, a powerful noise gate, and an LED to let you know when the gate is on.
Soldano Super Lead Overdrive Plus Pedal
Aimed to capture the sound of Mike Soldano’s flagship tube amp, the SLO uses the same cascading gain stages as the 100-watt head. It also has a side-mounted deep switch to add low-end punch.
We chat with Molly about Sister Rosetta’s “immediately impressive” playing, which blends jazz, gospel, chromaticism, and blues into an early rock ‘n’ roll style that was not only way ahead of its time but was also truly rockin’.
In the early ’60s, some of the British guitarists who would shape the direction of our instrument for decades to come all found themselves at a concert by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. What they heard from Tharpe and what made her performances so special—her sound, her energy—must have resonated. Back at home in the U.S., she was a captivating presence, wowing audiences going back to her early days in church through performing the first stadium rock ‘n’ roll concert—which was also one of her weddings—and beyond. Her guitar playing was incendiary, energetic, and a force to be reckoned with.
On this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re joined by guitarist Molly Miller, who in addition to being a fantastic guitarist, educator, bandleader, and performing with Jason Mraz, is a bit of a Sister Rosetta scholar. We chat with Molly about Sister Rosetta’s “immediately impressive” playing, which blends jazz, gospel, chromaticism, and blues into an early rock ‘n’ roll style that was not only way ahead of its time but was also truly rockin’.
When Building Guitars—or Pursuing Anything—Go Down All the Rabbit Holes
Paul Reed Smith shows John Bohlinger how to detect the grain in a guitar-body blank, in a scene from PG’s PRS Factory Tour video.
Paul Reed Smith says being a guitar builder requires code-cracking, historical perspective, and an eclectic knowledge base. Mostly, it asks that we remain perpetual students and remain willing to become teachers.
I love to learn, and I don’t enjoy history kicking my ass. In other words, if my instrument-making predecessors—Ted McCarty, Leo Fender, Christian Martin, John Heiss, Antonio de Torres, G.B. Guadagnini, and Antonio Stradivari, to name a few—made an instrument that took my breath away when I played it, and it sounded better than what I had made, I wanted to know not just what they had done, but what they understood that I didn’t understand yet. And because it was clear to me that these masters understood some things that I didn’t, I would go down rabbit holes.
I am not a violin maker, but I’ve had my hands on some of Guadagnini’s and Stradivari’s instruments. While these instruments sounded wildly different, they had an unusual quality: the harder you plucked them the louder they got. That was enough to push me further down the rabbit hole of physics in instrument making. What made them special is a combination of deep understanding and an ability to tune the instrument and its vibrating surfaces so that it produced an extraordinary sound, full of harmonics and very little compression. It was the beginning of a document we live by at PRS Guitars called The Rules of Tone.
My art is electric and acoustic guitars, amplifiers, and speaker cabinets. So, I study bridge materials and designs, wood species and drying, tuning pegs, truss rods, pickups, finishes, neck shapes, inlays, electronics, Fender/Marshall/Dumble amp theories, schematics, parts, and overall aesthetics. I can’t tell you how much better I feel when I come to an understanding about what these masters knew, in combination with what we can manufacture in our facilities today.
One of my favorite popular beliefs is, “The reason Stradivari violins sound good is because of the sheep’s uric acid they soaked the wood in.” (I, too, have believed that to be true.) The truth is, it’s never just one thing: it’s a combination of complicated things. The problem I have is that I never hear anyone say the reason Stradivari violins sound good is because he really knew what he was doing. You don’t become a master of your craft by happenstance; you stay deeply curious and have an insatiable will to learn, apply what you learn, and progress.
“Acoustic and electric guitars, violins, drums, amplifiers, speaker cabinets–they will all talk to you if you listen.”
What’s interesting to me is, if a master passes away, everything they believed on the day they finished an instrument is still in that instrument. These acoustic and electric guitars, violins, drums, amplifiers, speaker cabinets—they will all talk to you if you listen. They will tell you what their maker believed the day they were made. In my world, you have to be a detective. I love that process.
I’ve had a chance to speak to the master himself. Leo Fender, who was not a direct teacher of mine but did teach me through his instruments, used to come by our booth at NAMM to pay his respects to the “new guitar maker.” I thought that was beautiful. I also got a chance to talk to Forrest White, who was Leo’s production manager, right before he passed away. What he wanted to know was, “How’d I do?” I said, “Forrest, you did great.” They wanted to know their careers and contributions were appreciated and would continue.
In my experience, great teachers throw a piece of meat over the fence to see if the dog will bite it. They don’t want to teach someone who doesn’t really want to learn and won’t continue their legacy and/or the art they were involved in. While I have learned so much from the masters who were gone before my time, I have also found that the best teaching is done one-on-one. Along my journey from high school bedroom to the world’s stages, I enrolled scores of teachers to help me. I didn’t justenroll them. I tackled them. I went after their knowledge and experience, which I needed for my own knowledge base to do this jack-of-all-trades job called guitar making and to lead a company without going out of business.
I’ve spent most of my career going down rabbit holes. Whether it’s wood, pickups, designs, metals, finishes, etc., I pay attention to all of it. Mostly, I’m looking backward to see how to go forward. Recently, we’ve been going more and more forward, and I can’t tell you how good that feels. For me, being a detective and learning is lifesaving for the company’s products and my own well-being.
Sometimes it takes a few days to come to what I believe. The majority of the time it’s 12 months. Occasionally, I’ll study something for a decade before I make up my mind in a strong way, and someone will then challenge that with another point of view. I’ll change my mind again, but mostly the decade decisions stick. I believe the lesson I’m hitting is “be very curious!” Find teachers. Stay a student. Become a teacher. Go down all the rabbit holes.