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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
@Niallseroreilly how well would you say you know the fretboard and your triads?
Take a C Major triad in its most simple form for example. There are three inversions - root (C E G), 1st (E G C) and 2nd (G C E). These three inversions are all found on each group of three strings (EBG, BGD, GDA and DAE). There are at least 16 convenient ways of playing of a C Major triad, you may find some more practical that others though...
Then there are minor, diminished and augmented triads and 11 further different keys. I'm sure you can do the maths
That's just close voiced triads, there are open voiced triads too...
That all probably seems a little scary, but once you get this down in a few different keys there is somewhat of a domino effect.
I like to practise chords horizontally on the same string sets so I can see the inversions and vertically so I can see how they knit together in position on the different string sets.
Another good exercise is to pick a chord progression, say a Blues in C for ease of explanation. Try and find the nearest possible chord throughout, you're after the least amount of movement in the voices. Start with a root position C triad on the top 3 strings, the closest F triad will be a 2nd inversion as that inversion of F shares the C found on the G string.
3---5
5---6
5---5
x---x
x---x
x---x
If the next chord doesn't share any notes, you want to move as little distance as possible. Try this starting on other inversions of the I chord etc...
Triads are 3/4s of a 7th chord...
Knowing triads really well will open up the door to 7th chords and their inversions, be they close voice (unless you have Allan Holdsworth fingers, steer clear of some of these ), drop 2, drop 3, split voiced...
Taking the voice leading exercise a step further, try playing through a dominant blues and playing a different inversion every two beats and then on every beat of the bar.
Try and play through a blues (or any tune for that matter) in a limited area, say 5 frets and find as many of those chords as you can.
Knowing how chords are constructed is really important to improving your chord vocab/voicings. A Cmaj9 (C E G B D) comprises of a C major triad, an E minor triad and a G major triad. Or it's Em7/C. Food for thought there...
All the above are exercises I've found useful to improve my chord knowledge (which is an ongoing thing!). But that's all it is, a process for learning information (often my brain would actually be hurting doing much of this!). Force yourself to use voicings you don't gravitate towards naturally, mix things up as much as you can.
Then it's a case of making music with this stuff which is the important bit
There is also a knock on effect for soloing...
Excellent thanks for posting. - I have a maths background so I love the theory stuff. What I find amazing is theory can describe why even the most complex music is appealing with tension and release etc but as you mentioned the most important bit is still the music [which mathematically is infinite courtesy of notes, beat, dynamics, . . . .].
Chord chemistry is essentially a dictionary of chords with no hints about how to use them.
OP- take a look at the drop chord system.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
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Football is rubbish.
Unfortunately I'm not mathematically inclined so this kind of stuff was always a bit more of a slog for me! But I like seeing how those of a maths/science persuasion view music.
I wasn't keen on Chord Chemistry for similar reasons, but a friend of mine was obsessed with it and got a lot out of it...
@Niallseroreilly how are things going, any joy so far?
Been looking at the drop chord system on Matt Warnocks site @octatonic . Any ideas on incorporating it into a practice routine?
Totally agree.
My first and only guitar teacher - that put me off for a long, long time ... told me to buy it.
It was pages and pages and pages of insanely random dots on paper with ridiculous names and no explanation / reason / justification for them being there.
It might be an ultra- jazz-geek's wet dream but it was a useless load of tosh to me.