Chord Chemistry – Ted Greene
Chord Chemistry is one of those books that many advanced guitarists talk about. It took me a few years to get around to actually buying it and when I did, and opened it for the first time, I just stared at it. If anything I felt disappointed, it just looks like a book packed with chord diagrams! Well, I’m grown up enough to realise that I must be missing something because I have a lot of respect for the people that recommend this book. With that, I put on the bookshelf and decided to look at it another day. Okay, that was about three years ago and I wanted to write something about it for this website so today was a good day to take another look at it.
I’ll be able to keep this short. I can now see the value in this book, the first two thirds of it is jam packed with just about every chord voicing imaginable. All chords diagrams are only in the key of A and E, that’s it. They are moveable patterns only and some of them will require you to have been born with an extra couple of fingers. The remaining third of the book shows ideas about chord substitution, chord voicing, chord melodies, triads among a few other things and the last chapter shows some interesting ways to jazz up your blues progressions.
I know of some fantastic guitarists that say every time they open this book they learn something new. I can see that now but I have to be completely honest, I’m not ready for this book and I’m not sure I ever will be. This book is about as hands on as you can get, the info and the ideas are there but you need to figure out exactly what you are going to do with them. There is no way I wouldn’t recommend Chord Chemistry but I will say this, if you are unsure if it is what you are looking for, then it probably isn’t. Not everything in here is advanced but I doubt that you would get anything out of it unless you are already an advanced guitarist or a jazzer. Maybe I’m still not ready for it and I don’t mean that because it’s too difficult. I understand it fully but that isn’t the problem. To make the most of it you will need to dissect and devour it. I’m just not ready for that amount of dedication. Then again if you are in a buying mood and don’t know what to buy then it’s always worth putting on the shelf (right next to Piston’s Harmony) so that when your guitarist mates come round they can look and go “wow man, chord chemistry and harmony!” … you can then impress them with a quick “What’s that, oh yeah, just a little light reading for when I’m out of ideas”
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