Jazz Guitar Harmony by Jody Fisher

I love chords. Love ‘em, love ‘em, love ‘em!

I’m one of “those” guitar players that gets off on hearing great guitar rhythm playing/comping than a great solo. Especially in regards to jazz, comping and playing the right notes and chord voicings is where it’s at. There is nothing like hearing a new chord underneath a nice melody line in a ballad that sends shivers up my spine.

Let’s be honest. Guitar solos are great. We all know that; that’s why we started playing guitar to begin with, right? Without a great harmonic background to support that ripping solo, however, it’s just not the same.

And so, in my desperate quest to try and pass myself off as a jazz guitar player (still working on it…) I purchased pretty much every jazz guitar harmony/chord book there is. We’re talking dozens and dozens of books. I think I kept the jazz guitar education community gainfully employed for a few months.

Of all the books I bought, only a few managed to stick out and stay on the top of the pile. Though most covered the same material, it’s all in the presentation. Jazz Guitar Harmony, written by guitarist Jody Fisher, is one of the books I continuously turn to time and time again.

You can tell a lot about a jazz guitar player by his chord voicings. I believe, even more so than how he solos. So there must be something about Fisher’s playing that I really like, because I love this book! All of the material you would expect and require from a jazz guitar harmony book is covered here. I think it’s the way Fisher presents the material that strikes a chord (pun intended) with me.

There is not a lot of text explanation, but there are lots of examples to play and practice. Chapter 1 – a very short chapter on triads – is the only group of pages without direct practice material. But once you quickly get into Chapter 2 you are off to the races!

It’s both apparent and obvious to me that Fisher is a very good teacher, as his book builds progressively upon previous chapters to expand your chord vocabulary and knowledge of jazz harmony concepts. But it’s not just a book of chords to learn (though I have circled many a chord voicing to make sure I add to my playing). Rather, it’s a book that gives you just enough material to immediately add to your bag of tricks but also plenty of inspiration and a pathway to work out other ideas on your own. Nothing is too far-fetched or out of place; Fisher provides you with exactly what you need to know to get better quickly and build upon the foundation in your own way.

In addition to chords, progressions, leading tones, backcycling, passing chords, reharmonization, tritone substitutions, and a whole host of other ideas are presented in the book – all with simple but easy-to-understand explanations and lots of examples. I guess I should also mention that every example is written in standard notation and tablature, so you don’t have to be a sight-reading guru in order to get a lot out of this book.

I was hoping to be able to show a few pages from the inside of the book, but for copyright reasons I thought better of it. You can, however, see some example pages from Amazon’s page, so I encourage you to check it out and see some of the material.

Jazz Guitar Harmony also comes with an audio CD in case you are one of those players (like me) who learn better when you can hear what’s going on along with seeing it on the printed page.

If you couldn’t tell already, I highly recommend this book. It is densely packed with important information but not so big that you will feel overwhelmed. A great book for both beginner and intermediate jazz guitar players.

Jazz Guitar Harmony by Jody Fisher (book) is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Chord Hacks: Multi-Use Chord Voicings is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.