This is by far the most extensive chord encyclopedia for guitar alternate tunings yet published, including 1,340 chords from 56 tunings and covering all styles of guitar music. Includes standard notation, guitar tablature, guitar chord diagrams, chord names and instructional photos.

(Music Sales America). Hundreds of guitar tunings in all styles, from folk to Celtic to rock, are included in this unique volume. It covers artists such as Hedges, Kottke, Sonic Youth, Cooder, Crosby Stills & Nash, Pearl Jam, and more. Includes tablature.

For many beginning-to-intermediate level guitarists, guitar tunings are a mystery. Everyone begins with "standard" tuning and knows its basic strengths - and limitations. But, once a guitarist gets beyond basic skills, the desire to play in different styles and achieve individual sounds leads inevitably to exploring alternate tunings. Guitar Tunings: A Comprehensive Guide is the first book to offer practical advice for how to use the most common special tunings for the greatest creative and musical effect. Illustrated throughout with examples in standard notation and guitar tablature, the author introduces different musical styles through the use of appropriate tunings. Including downloadable resources, this book gives clear and concise instruction for the guitarist who has mastered basic skills but wants to go beyond them. It will appeal to guitar students of all ages, and can be used for individual self-instruction or in one-on-one or group teaching situations. In short, Guitar Tunings: A Comprehensive Guide offers a comprehensive approach for all guitarists to enhance their playing skills and creative music making. Also includes 75 musical examples.

Finally—an intuitive, single-source standardization for naming guitar chords in the 21st century! A honing of guitar theory as a subcategory of music theory. Commonsense approach to all things guitar chord, including how to label alternate chord voicings. New concepts, including natural harmonics chords, unison chords, and octaval chords. A massive Instructional Glossary with clear and precise definitions, benefiting both guitarists and music theorists alike. Appendices containing 747 graphical guitar chord boxes and definitions for several guitar tunings: • Standard • Open Major A/E • Open Major G/D • Drop D • Double Drop D • Bruce Palmer Modal “Band of Witches” sample song sheet. Procedures for registering a copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Introduction to U.S. copyright law’s fair use doctrine, including a comparison of mechanical and sync licenses. Presented in an easy-to-read, connect-the-dots manner. An absolute must-read for the guitarist wanting to transcribe new sound-creations into guitar chords. The only textbook needed for a Progressive Guitar Theory 105 course. Though geared toward the needs of a seasoned guitarist, this book contains a wealth of information that will benefit anyone, from the casual campfire-strumming enthusiast to avid music theorists looking for a greater understanding of the challenges facing non-sight-reading guitar players. Book Review: "A soup-to-nuts guide for guitarists looking for a comprehensive way to name and notate chords. Music theory and practicality are sometimes at odds. For example, theory dictates that a chord must have three or more notes, but as debut author Davis explains in his introduction, guitarists play two-note formations frequently, which they must then label as chords when transcribing. As one gets deeper into theory, the conflicts can get more complicated in terms of where a “root” note might lay in a chord sequence, or how a chord might fit in a particular scale. Davis seeks to solve that quandary with a practical standard for working guitarists. It’s a complicated task, and this book provides a lot of context for readers to consider, explaining pitch, tuning, scales, and intervals, and even providing information on copyrighting musical works. Along the way, he takes a lot of advanced ideas into account, such as unaltered nonextended chords, unaltered extended chords, suspended nonextended chords, and the like. Chances are that any guitarist who’s attracted by the title of this book already knows enough to follow these theoretical aspects. The author offers a process to make these concepts clearer, [to Gatekeeper: my rewrite attends to the rest of the sentence & the next one] but it’s not a basic, numbered list of steps. Readers with no education in theory may have to read passages several times to put the level of detail into proper perspective [to Gatekeeper: this ends the portion of the Review I "fixed."]. A weekend warrior who’s happy banging out basic G-C-D or E-A-D progressions, for instance, won’t find much use for the theory, but those looking to move forward will find value in the first, basic chapters and the massive appendices, which feature definitions of everything from Travis picking to truss rods. For guitarists who write, the most useful aspect of this book may be the chord guide, which includes voicings for both standard and alternate tunings. A complex manual for guitar players who want to keep learning new things." -- Kirkus Indie Reviews

Finally—an intuitive, single-source standardization for naming guitar chords in the 21st century! A honing of guitar theory as a subcategory of music theory. Commonsense approach to all things guitar chord, including how to label alternate chord voicings. New concepts, including natural harmonics chords, unison chords, and octaval chords. A massive Instructional Glossary with clear and precise definitions, benefiting both guitarists and music theorists alike. Appendices containing 747 graphical guitar chord boxes and definitions for several guitar tunings: • Standard • Open Major A/E • Open Major G/D • Drop D • Double Drop D • Bruce Palmer Modal “Band of Witches” sample song sheet. Procedures for registering a copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Introduction to U.S. copyright law’s fair use doctrine, including a comparison of mechanical and sync licenses. Presented in an easy-to-read, connect-the-dots manner. An absolute must-read for the guitarist wanting to transcribe new sound-creations into guitar chords. The only textbook needed for a Progressive Guitar Theory 105 course. Though geared toward the needs of a seasoned guitarist, this book contains a wealth of information that will benefit anyone, from the casual campfire-strumming enthusiast to avid music theorists looking for a greater understanding of the challenges facing non-sight-reading guitar players. Book Review: "A soup-to-nuts guide for guitarists looking for a comprehensive way to name and notate chords. Music theory and practicality are sometimes at odds. For example, theory dictates that a chord must have three or more notes, but as debut author Davis explains in his introduction, guitarists play two-note formations frequently, which they must then label as chords when transcribing. As one gets deeper into theory, the conflicts can get more complicated in terms of where a “root” note might lay in a chord sequence, or how a chord might fit in a particular scale. Davis seeks to solve that quandary with a practical standard for working guitarists. It’s a complicated task, and this book provides a lot of context for readers to consider, explaining pitch, tuning, scales, and intervals, and even providing information on copyrighting musical works. Along the way, he takes a lot of advanced ideas into account, such as unaltered nonextended chords, unaltered extended chords, suspended nonextended chords, and the like. Chances are that any guitarist who’s attracted by the title of this book already knows enough to follow these theoretical aspects. The author offers a process to make these concepts clearer, [to Gatekeeper: my rewrite attends to the rest of the sentence & the next one] but it’s not a basic, numbered list of steps. Readers with no education in theory may have to read passages several times to put the level of detail into proper perspective [to Gatekeeper: this ends the portion of the Review I "fixed."]. A weekend warrior who’s happy banging out basic G-C-D or E-A-D progressions, for instance, won’t find much use for the theory, but those looking to move forward will find value in the first, basic chapters and the massive appendices, which feature definitions of everything from Travis picking to truss rods. For guitarists who write, the most useful aspect of this book may be the chord guide, which includes voicings for both standard and alternate tunings. A complex manual for guitar players who want to keep learning new things." -- Kirkus Indie Reviews

Finally—an intuitive, single-source standardization for naming guitar chords in the 21st century! A honing of guitar theory as a subcategory of music theory. Commonsense approach to all things guitar chord, including how to label alternate chord voicings. New concepts, including natural harmonics chords, unison chords, and octaval chords. A massive Instructional Glossary with clear and precise definitions, benefiting both guitarists and music theorists alike. Appendices containing 747 graphical guitar chord boxes and definitions for several guitar tunings: • Standard • Open Major A/E • Open Major G/D • Drop D • Double Drop D • Bruce Palmer Modal “Band of Witches” sample song sheet. Procedures for registering a copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Introduction to U.S. copyright law’s fair use doctrine, including a comparison of mechanical and sync licenses. Presented in an easy-to-read, connect-the-dots manner. An absolute must-read for the guitarist wanting to transcribe new sound-creations into guitar chords. The only textbook needed for a Progressive Guitar Theory 105 course. Though geared toward the needs of a seasoned guitarist, this book contains a wealth of information that will benefit anyone, from the casual campfire-strumming enthusiast to avid music theorists looking for a greater understanding of the challenges facing non-sight-reading guitar players. Book Review: "A soup-to-nuts guide for guitarists looking for a comprehensive way to name and notate chords. Music theory and practicality are sometimes at odds. For example, theory dictates that a chord must have three or more notes, but as debut author Davis explains in his introduction, guitarists play two-note formations frequently, which they must then label as chords when transcribing. As one gets deeper into theory, the conflicts can get more complicated in terms of where a “root” note might lay in a chord sequence, or how a chord might fit in a particular scale. Davis seeks to solve that quandary with a practical standard for working guitarists. It’s a complicated task, and this book provides a lot of context for readers to consider, explaining pitch, tuning, scales, and intervals, and even providing information on copyrighting musical works. Along the way, he takes a lot of advanced ideas into account, such as unaltered nonextended chords, unaltered extended chords, suspended nonextended chords, and the like. Chances are that any guitarist who’s attracted by the title of this book already knows enough to follow these theoretical aspects. The author offers a process to make these concepts clearer, [to Gatekeeper: my rewrite attends to the rest of the sentence & the next one] but it’s not a basic, numbered list of steps. Readers with no education in theory may have to read passages several times to put the level of detail into proper perspective [to Gatekeeper: this ends the portion of the Review I "fixed."]. A weekend warrior who’s happy banging out basic G-C-D or E-A-D progressions, for instance, won’t find much use for the theory, but those looking to move forward will find value in the first, basic chapters and the massive appendices, which feature definitions of everything from Travis picking to truss rods. For guitarists who write, the most useful aspect of this book may be the chord guide, which includes voicings for both standard and alternate tunings. A complex manual for guitar players who want to keep learning new things." -- Kirkus Reviews

The non-jazz improvisation series is a concept that germinated in Dick Weissman's mind while he was attending music school. He wrote a 15-piece arrangement of the old square dance tune, Cripple Creek, and wanted the trombone to take a solo as part of the arrangement. When the trombonist kept playing a bebop solo that was totally unsuitable for the chart, Dick realized that - in addition to the many musicians who do not improvise - there are even jazz musicians who don't know how to improvise outside the limits of their own stylistic backgrounds.Fingerstyle and flatpicking techniques demonstrate the use of the guitar as an incredibly versatile instrument that holds its own in a variety of musical genres. Various guitar tunings are included. All examples are written out in traditional and tablature notation.