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.