Guitar Chords: Easy-to-Use, Easy-to-Carry, One Chord on Every Page

Product Information

Chord books also need to be easy to use. First and foremost, they are a learning tool, and should be useful while you’re playing your instrument. For the most part, that means spiral binding is the best sort for a chord book. Think about it: when you’re playing guitar, your hands are occupied. You want a book that can lay flat in front of you so you can read it while you’re playing. This book is very clearly aimed at players who are new to the instrument. It is not as comprehensive as it could be: it includes no information on how chords are built, and therefore encourages rote learning rather than deep understanding. While learning complex voicings and inversions can be useful, most guitar players just want to play. That’s where this book really shines. The book covers the most common expanded chords and how to use them in a musical context.

Most brand new guitar players struggle with transitioning between chords and maintaining an even strumming pattern. It can take weeks, or months, of practice to get competent at strumming your way through songs. The great thing about this book is that it assumes the reader has zero musical experience. It covers basic chord theory in language that is low on jargon and very easy to understand.You want to use a chord book that either shows you chords using the notation you understand, or that can teach you to read the notation you aren’t yet confident with. Most guitar players can read tablature (or tabs) very easily. Some chord charts require more practice to get to grips with. The idea is simple: this book begins with the most basic chord theory to help you understand how and why guitar chords work. From there, memorizing 100 chords is easy. The more you understand, the less you have to remember. Helpfully, this book covers some optimal practice routines and goes in detail on different strumming patterns and approaches to strumming to help new guitar players become more confident with their playing. The key to this book is understanding how chords are built and where each interval within a chord could be on the fretboard. In addition to this, it actually explains where certain chords can be used and why. You also want to make sure your chord book is matched to your current level of experience and ability. A beginner who hasn’t yet mastered barre chords won’t find much joy in running through drop 2 and drop 3 inversions. Likewise, an advanced player with an extensive chord vocabulary won’t have much use for an introduction to the CAGED system.

Most advanced guitar players know somewhere between 20 and 30 variations on each chord, at minimum, and this book offers a fantastic starting point for getting your chord vocabulary up to those towering numbers. The layout of the book is very helpful. It is divided into sections by root note, running from C to B. These sections have subsections for the main types of chords, with photos showing the chords and inversions for each. This book doesn’t stop at simple chords, however. It’s important for new guitar players to build good habits for technique and practice.The book is also not spiral bound, so it refuses to lay flat on a table while you’re playing. Normally while I’m reading chords I’m playing guitar as well, and one, if not both, of my hands are occupied. The book needs a spare hand to keep it open, so it’s not easy to read while playing.

The layout of the book encourages rote learning, but it’s better for players to find comfortable ways of playing chords for themselves instead of simply copying what works for someone else. Many beginners think there are only twelve chords for guitar. Some even think the musical alphabet ends at the letter G. That’s why this book is so helpful: identifying the first one hundred chords for guitar in a way that is accessible and useful for total beginners. Does music theory feel arcane and irrelevant to the music you want to make? Then Guitar Chords in Context might be the right chord book for you.However, some of the diagrams are confusingly numbered, and fingers next to each other don’t always land next to each other on the fretboard.