Petrushka Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is 

The Petrushka chord is a frequently used polychord used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka. These two major triads, C major and F# major - a tritone apart, these two chords clash when sounded together and create a dissonant chord.

There are a number of ways to finger this chord on the guitar this inversion is up on the 8th fret:


The C major chord uses the notes C, E and G
The F# major chord uses the notes F#, A# and C#

Polychords use the notes of two chords together and are written like this:
       C
       F#
Polychords shouldn't be confused with slash chords. Slash chords indicate a chord with an alternate bass note. So C / F# is a slash chord that is played as a C major chord with F# in the bass.

Elektra Chord Guitar

Today's Guitar Chord of the day is the 'Elektra chord'. The Elektra chord is a polychord used by the composer Richard Strauss to represent the title character of his opera Elektra.

Polychord's are chords that are created by playing the notes of two chords at the same time. Here the notes of C# major and E major chord are played together, this results in a dissonant polychord.

Here are the notes of each chord:

• C#major = C#, E#, G#
• Emajor  = E, G#, B

Polychords are written like this with a horizontal line between the two chords:

C#

E

It's important to note that polychords are different to slash chords. Slash chords symbols use a forward slash written like this: C#/E this tells us that the chord is a C# major chord with an E in the bass. The other notes of the E major chord are not used for slash chords. With polychords the notes of both chords are played at the same time.

Using polychords opens up a whole new harmonic vocabulary. Check back soon for more polychords at Guitar Chord of the Day.

Quintal Harmony | Advanced Guitar Chords

We played a guitar chord built up in 5ths in a previous post here. Usually chords are constructed from a scale in 3rds: taking every other note, quintal harmony builds chords in 5ths.

With a root note on the 4th fret notes of our chord are: Ab, Eb, Bb, F

Quintal and quartal chords are frequently used in modal music. Rather than playing through chord changes you can improvise taking the quintal voicing through the mode that is being improvised with.

Although this chord is not constructed in a traditional way, we can also think of it as Ab69 (no 3rd).

Add Guitar Chord Of The Day to your daily practice routine and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.

Allan Holdsworth Chords | Part Two

Continuing our series of posts looking at Allan Holdsworth's Guitar Chords, today we look at another inversion than can be taken through a chord scale.

Rather than using standard chord voicings, Allan Holdsworth views chords as being a member of a "family", the family name being the name of the scale from which that chord is derived. Any grouping of notes from that family can be substituted for the standard chord voicings, depending, of course on your own taste and the context in which they are used. For example, if the harmony calls for an Cmaj7, rather than playing a standard voicing, various combinations of notes all drawn from the Cmajor scale can be used.

Here an inversion is taken through the C major scale. As any of these chords can be used over any of the diatonic C major chords no chord names have been given. Although this inversion is taken directly through a scale, bear in mind that Allan usually uses a more complex approach moving between different inversions.

Moving each of the chord to the next scale note gives us the same inversion starting on the 3rd fret.
Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion

Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion that's an easier stretch than the last chord.
Moving each note up again takes us to our original chord inversion starting on the 8th fret.

And again at the 10th.
Finally a different inversion is created by moving each scale note up again.
Moving the chord notes up to the next scale note would give us the same inversion we started with 12 frets higher.

Try taking other inversions 'for a walk' through a scale and substitute these for regular inversions that you might have used. Listen carefully to interesting melodies and check back soon for another guitar chord of the day.

If you liked like this post you might also be interested in the Frank Gambale Magic Chord posts.

Allan Holdsworth Chords

Virtuoso guitarist Allan Holdsworth was born in Leeds, UK in 1946. Holdsworth is known for his legato lead lines but his chord use is equally interesting. In today’s we’ll start a new series looking at how Allan Holdsworth approaches chords.

Holdsworth is known for his unusual chord voicings that often involve large stretches and his approach to using chords: rather than following diatonic chord progressions, Allan approaches chords as groups of notes that imply a certain scale, thinking of chords as belonging to a certain key, which imply a given diatonic scale. 

You can then play any note that is diatonically correct for that scale that sounds good. For example if playing a C major chord, the chords may not necessarily be an inversion of any kind of C Major chord, but just something that comes from the scale.

This is quite different to the more traditional jazz approach of playing chord changes.

Creating A Chord Scale

• Play a chord inversion, ideally one that is a little ambiguous and not a standard triad or seventh chord.
• Move each note of the chord up to the next note of the scale you're using
• Continue moving the chord through the scale and use all of these possible chords to play

Here we take one inversion and take it through the C Major scale. This chord uses the notes G, C, D and A. Although this chord is labelled D11 here, Allan would use this chord in place of any diatonic chord from C major. 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale and we end up with the same inversion two frets higher, here named E11 but again used for any diatonic C Major chord. We change from:

• G, C, D, A to
• A, D, E, B 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• A, D, E, B  to
• B, E, F, C

This time we have a different inversion

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• B, E, F, C to
• C, F, G, D 

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• C, F, G, A  to
• D, G, A, E

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• D, G, A, E to
• E, A, B, F

Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:

• E, A, B, F to
• F, B, C, G

Allan Holdsworth chords. Play combinations of these over any C major chord e.g:

• C major
• D minor7
• E minor7
• F major7
• G7
• A minor 7
• B half diminished

You'll find more Allan Holdsworth chords in these other posts.

Frank Gambale Magic Chords 4

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day continues our series looking at Frank Gambale's Magic Chords.
Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

As with yesterday's inversion, today's Chord of the Day can be considered in many different ways.

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position. The chord can function as:

C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords

We've looked at using the Magic chord as major7 and minor7 chords, today we'll look at using the Magic Chord as a Dominant 7th chord.  For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it could function as a C7:

2nd position C13 (D, G, A, D)
5th position C11 (F, Bb, C, F)
7th position C9 (G, C, D, G)
9th position C69 (A, D, E, A)
12th position C11 (C, F, G, C)

Try playing through some songs you know and dropping in other Frank Gambale Magic Chords in place of major and minor inversions you might use and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day. 

Frank Gambale Magic Chords 3

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day continues our series looking at Frank Gambale's Magic Chords. This example is another chord inversion constructed from intervals 1, 2 and 5 or C, D and G if we're in C. As these advanced guitar chords aren't constructed in the usual way of stacking 3rd intervals from a scale they are  ambiguous and can be used in lots of different contexts.

Here's the fingering for this guitar chord:

As with yesterday's inversion, today's Chord of the Day can be considered in many different ways.

C, D, G
Csus2 (1, 2, 5)
D11(b7, 1, 11)
Ebmajor 13 (13, 7, 3)
F69 (5, 6, 9)
Gsus4 (4, 5, 1)
Abmaj7#11 (3, #11, 7)
Am11 (b3, 11, b7)
Bb69 (9, 3, 6)

We can use our one Magic Chord in place of 8 different chords all with the same fingering in the same position. The chord can function as:

C, D, F, Bb and G dominant 7th chords
C, Eb, F, Bb, Ab, G major7th chords
C, A, D, G, F minor 7th chords

Yesterday's Frank Gambale Magic Chord post looked at using this chord a major7, today we'll give more examples of using this chord as a minor7th chord. We can play this chord in several different positions and still have it function in the same way. For example, we could play this inversion in the following positions and it would work as a Cminor7:

3rd position Cm11 (G, C, F, G)
5th position Cm69 (A, D, G, A)
8th position Cm11 (C, Bb, F, C)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)
13th position Cm11 (F, Bb, Eb, F)
10th position Csus2 (D, G, C, D)

Try playing through some songs you know and dropping in other Frank Gambale Magic Chords in place of major and minor inversions you might use and tune in tomorrow for another Guitar Chord of the Day.