PART ONE: (Visualization Techniques, Triad Shapes, Chord Construction and Embellishment)

Performance of Amazing Grace

Lesson 1. Obstacles to clear thinking on the fingerboard. (Introduction)
How to compensate for the irregular, unequal standard tuning system
Triad shapes across four sets of three adjacent strings (four qualities)
Landmark Octave Shapes

Triad applications. Seventh chords in root position
First inversion triad shapes expanded to seventh chords in first inversion. (first
inversion as passing chords - song demo)
It's Always About Context!
Second inversion triad shapes expanded to second inversion seventh chords (Swing
Low, Sweet Chariot, Cockles and Mussels)
Third inversion voicings - combining root position, first inversion, second and third
inversions (Song Demo) Amazing Grace, Home on the Range, Sometimes I Feel Like
a Motherless Child.
Chord Embellishment and Chord Substitution defined and demonstrated.
Embellishments for dominant chords in root position and second inversion. Thinking
"outside the box (Aura Lee). Table of Chord Embellishment.
PART TWO: (Chord Symbol Interpretation and Voice Leading - Applications of moving lines to
songs for accompaniment and chord-melody)
Still Crazy After All These Years - Paul Simon
Introduction to slash chord symbols (Danny Boy, Wayfaring Stranger, Still Crazy).
Extracting bass lines. Triads over bass notes (as shorthand for indicating voicings).
Working with standard chord symbols. Extracting moving lines from standard
symbols.
Approach 1. Spelling out and cancellation of common tones to reveal moving lines.
Worksheets
Working with standard chord symbols in real time.
Approach 2. Line Dependant Progressions
Saint James Infirmary
Approach 3. Adjacent Chord Symbols and Adjacent Chord Shapes
My Old Kentucky Home
Approach 4. Diatonic and Chromatic Chord Progressions
America the Beautiful, Still Crazy, Ohh! Susanna
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Approach 5. The Cycle of Fifths and Cycle Patterns
Greensleeves, Combining Skipwise and Stepwise Bass Lines in Typical "Standard
Chord Progressions
Diminished 7
th
Chords
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Waltzing Matilda
Chromatic Approach Chords
Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Aura Lee
Putting it all together with Danny Boy
Comping with Walking Bass Lines. Bass plucking techniques.
Blues For Hy - H. Morgen
PART THREE: Putting the Ohh! In Oh Susanna
Chord Substitution and Chord Additions
Introduction to the original version
Re-harmonization technique #1. Backcycling (Review of cycle of fifths)
Re-harmonization technique #2. Relative Majors and Minors
Re-harmonization technique #3. Tritone Substitution
Application of re-harmonization techniques 1. 2. and 3 to first four measures of Oh
Susanna
Application of re-harmonization techniques to measures 17-20 of Oh Susanna:
Experimenting with chord quality and chord embellishment.
Oh Susanna performed as a solo arrangement.
Personalizing the Arrangement. (Passing tones, Parallel approach chords, non-
garden variety chord voicings, common tone substitution, voicings in perfect
fourths, "comping with chord fragments and block chord-melody style
In manual only, analysis of substitution techniques applied to original melody and progression of
Danny Boy
APPENDIX
Chord function
Table of chord Substitution
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Fingerboard Breakthrough with Howard Morgen
Song List
"Amazing Grace
"America the Beautiful
"Aura Lee
"Blues For Hy - H. Morgen
"Cockles and Mussels
"Danny Boy
"Greensleeves
"Home on the Range
"Loch Lomond
"My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
"My Old Kentucky Home
"Ohh! Susanna
"Saint James Infirmary
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
"Still Crazy After All These Years
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
"Waltzing Matilda
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home
These song titles will be employed throughout the course using a variety of approaches either as
excerpts or as chord accompaniments and solo instrumentals, depending on the topic being
discussed and demonstrated.
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Amazing Grace
Arranged for Solo Guitar by
Howard Morgen
8lowly 1st Chorus
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Lesson
Introduction
As guitarists, I think we've all experienced that sense of frustration and helplessness that occurs
when, while playing, the fingerboard starts to shut down, dissolving into an elusive maze of
strings and frets. Just what is it that makes viewing musical relationships on guitar so difficult?
Actually, there are a number of factors that are responsible and during this course we are going to
address and hopefully remedy all of them.
One obstacle is the result of a misconception and habit of thought acquired during the earliest
stages of learning to play that is carried over into later playing situations. That misconception is
that chord symbols represent isolated, unrelated finger "grips. For example, when playing a
simple folk song, each chord symbol is treated as representing a finger grip to be strummed until
the next chord symbol is spotted above the lyric. (This is an example of vertical thinking.) While
this is a fine and necessary approach for a beginner, later on, encountering more harmonically
complex material, thinking of chord symbols as isolated and unrelated finger grips tends to
obscure the closely interdependent horizontal flow and function of chords within a progression. Let
me give you some examples.
(See video)
Progression for Danny Boy, Loch Lomond
D Dmaj7 D6 D G Gmaj7 Em7 A7 D
(Above progression with isolated finger grips.)
(Above Progression with good voice leading showing the descending moving bass line on the 6
th
string.)
Notice how the beautiful moving line implied by these chord symbols was obscured when I
approached each chord symbol as an isolated and unrelated finger grip. Try to keep lines moving
in the same direction as long as possible.
Now, to acquire the skills necessary to interpret chord symbols as a guide to accessing moving
lines, you'll need to become thoroughly familiar with triads which are the building blocks of
chords, chord construction formulas and chord voicings in all inversions and locations along and
across the fingerboard.
Part One of this course will introduce you to all these topics. Part Two will cover the application of
chord symbols to the process of finding moving lines for accompaniment and solo playing, and
Part Three features an in depth discussion of chord substitution.
But first, in preparation for these insights, we'll need to look closely at why and how chord shapes
appear as they do on the fingerboard. This is directly related to another built in obstacle to the
visualization of musical relationships that we all encountered as beginners...the irregular standard
tuning system.
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