The Note On Top

Three shapes. That's the whole thing.

Every major and minor chord can be played on the top three strings in exactly three ways, and the only difference between them is which note ends up highest. That note is the one a listener hears as the tune. Everything underneath it is texture.

Which makes it odd that every chord book files chords by their root. That's how chords are named, not how they're heard.

What's in it

The three triad shapes on strings 1, 2 and 3, named by the note on top rather than by their textbook names, so you can pick one for the sound you want instead of working it out. None is more than two frets wide and there isn't a barre anywhere in the book.

The method, in one sentence: put the note you want on the top string, then put the shape underneath it. The notes of the high E string are included, so you can actually do it.

Seven progressions worked through, twelve different ways, every shape drawn. Among them a twelve-bar blues in A where the top note moves two semitones in the whole chorus and your hand never leaves frets 4 to 7.

Five named effects — settled, going somewhere, winding down, ringing, tight — so you can reach for a sound instead of a shape.

Every major and minor triad on the top three strings, in all twelve keys, with the note on top marked on each one. 72 shapes.

What you'll have done by the end

Triad inversions. Voice leading. Common tones. A cadence. None of those words appear until the last chapter, because a term is a label for something you can already recognise, and most books hand you the label first and then wonder why people stall.

If anybody has told you voice leading is advanced, they meant the vocabulary is.

Free. 21 pages.