Understanding Chordal Harmony

Okay, we're going to look at something called chordal harmony. This posh name essentially refers to a chord that's created by stacking lots of fourths in a row. So, fourth, fourth, fourth, fourth creates our chordal harmony chord.

Why Use Chordal Harmony?

I really like this idea. It's nice to throw in to something like a slow blues or something funky, just to give things a bit of a fusion-esque sound. It's quite reminiscent of Robin Ford's style.

However, it was a guitarist named Greg Cork who actually showed me this nice little lick, so thanks Greg for that!

The Chord Structure

Finding the Chord

We're going to start with the following notes:

• F#
• B
• E
• A

This forms our chord, using A as the root note.

Concentration on Root Notes

What you need to concentrate on is that these notes move from the root note, allowing you to monitor where you're at.

1. D ? 4th fret
2. G ? 4th fret
3. B ? 5th fret
4. A ? 5th fret

This forms a nice chord, but take that top note, A. That's the note you need to keep an eye on.

Blending with the Blues Scale

Now, what you're going to do is play a pentatonic scale or a blues scale on your E string. It's up to you. I'm going to play a blues scale because I think it sounds much nicer.

Incorporating the Chord

You're going to include all the other parts of that chord while you play it. So, you're going to play your blues scale and then combine it with the chord:

• Play up to the top of the blues scale.
• Use the chord alongside it.

Once more, here's our pentatonic scale up the E string, combined with our chordal harmony style chord, played over the blues scale.

Extending the Scale

Obviously, you can carry on if you can reach. That's as far as I'm going to go, but you can also go back down.

Practical Application

So, the entire blues scale is using that chord over it. Now, I'm going to give you an example of the sort of things you can do.

What you're trying to achieve is to play over a blues scale while incorporating an entire chord.

Let's Play

I'm going to get the guys to play me a vamp, and I'll show you what we can do over it.

A 1, 2, 3, 4.