Chord Progressions for Guitar Book/Online Audio

The way I see it, the "Chord Progressions" book/CD is a great companion to the main Musician Institute book for Rhythm Guitar, the "Complete Guide". While the "Guide", another excellent book, builds your playing technique and chord vocabulary and can be used as the main "course book", "Chord Progressions" provides dozens of realistic examples of rhythm guitar as applied in popular music. "Chord Progressions" is a great value for the money! It is useful for the beginner and intermediate guitar player, as it lays out smart chord progressions and includes 100 well-recorded tracks covering most styles in American popular music, from folk rock to heavy rock, from country to new wave, from soul & funk and reggae to classic rock ballads. Believe me, there are lots! And the guitar sounds right on every track. If you are a well-rounded music lover that enjoys different styles, particularly from the '60s to the '80s, this book will have something for you. As for me, I am committed to learning ALL of the progressions. I found the music fun and they are a great source for songwriting and jamming inspiration. Playing the tracks in enjoyable in its own right, but the greatest benefits will come from studying the progressions (rhythm, harmony and melody) and relating it to the famous and worthy music that guided the making of this book. The author introduces EACH progression with very welcomed info on harmony, suggested playing technique, tricky parts and what makes the track effective. Do not overlook Mr. Kolb's comments as they clarify the "lessons" you should take from the exercise. As a final remark, please note that the level of difficulty DOES vary from track to track, but NOT in a gradual way. Since the exercises are separated by style rather than difficulty, you might be stuck on a tough "country rock" lick, but if you move a few pages ahead you might find a rock ballad that is much easier. That is just an example, but the message is: browse through the whole book - there are lots to enjoy. Some tracks you might be able to play right away, others will take considerable practice to sound right... But in the end, by the time you master this fine book, you will be ready to join most bar bands in the world! OR perhaps write a hit song based on a "classic" progression.

I've been doing these progressions in order though you don't have to - but doing so really gives you a feel for how different voicings and sometimes different keys can flavor the same style and make it sound fresh. I had gotten in a rut, droning on in practice trying various voicings for chords and needed something to make such practice more productive and efficient. I tried this book based on the reviews here and found that this guy had done all the work for me in writing out and recording a collection of useful progressions that sound great and really mix up the voicings. Descriptive narratives are provided in the book for each progression sample. These are really great because they point out the main concepts in a nutshell - things you might already know and understand but might not really talk about in such a well summarized way. I use the cd that demos each sample to loop the progressions and play along, changing from rhythm to lead back and forth so I am ending up getting more then double my money worth - the rhythm guitar practice is great and then doing lead practice against each progression helps get you comfortable making up rifs and melodies for each style against the various voicings... I can't believe the price point on this. It's so little for so much - get it before they catch on to what a deal this is! Bottom line: This book is fun, and it helps train your ear and improve your playing. Mastering all the samples will add a lot of variety to your tool kit of sounds - a great collection of voicings to encorporate in your own creative efforts.

The book has a lot of usable progressions even though I personally am not into Folk or Country, all the progressions help to increase speed and in most cases can be used in a variety of styles. The first part of the Rock section is very disappointing as I personally cannot comfortably stretch across 5 frets (from 3 to 7) just to hit a two note power chord. Also some of the cd tracks don't match the Tabs exactly, but close enough that you can figure it out. Some of the reviews call this book cheesy or contemporary, and I am not sure exactly what these people are after, as this book is obviously to put together simple chord progressions to build up chord change speed; which it does very well. This is actually my second (modified) review of this book, as once I gave it more time, I was actually pretty impressed. As Chord Progression books go, this is a good one.

Best teaching book for chord progressions, with a variety of easy to hard chords, a few fingerpicking and mostly strumming. The book is organized by style of music. Each exercise is at least two lines and when repeated can feel like you are playing a song. Tabs. Great book. Not for a new to chords student. I would use for students who have mastered the first position open chords, and have learned the A and E form bars and are looking to expand their right hand strumming technique.

Maybe it's just me and regular people don't care any more about details like if the table of contents of a book matches the book chapters or not. What does it matter if Chapter 9 just seems to be missing? ... or wait ... is it? Could have been a bindery error, but I just couldn't get past how shoddy I felt the book was and returned it Amazon. Other folks seemed to like it a lot (others not so much) so I won't slam it or give it high praise because I never spent any time with it. Hope your copy turns out to be better put together.

I have been playing guitar for quite a few years now but never went through any lessons. I feel there is a lot out there online to learn and this book is another great thing to have if you want to learn some basic chord progressions. IF you can't get through one, move to the next as the difficulty level varies throughout the book.

Great examples with very wide variety. Well written. Tom Kolb is definitely a professional! The supplemental CD is very helpful. An excellent book for the experienced guitar player; examples can be applied to chart reading and be helpful with basic feel/style mentioned in charts/lead sheets. I would like to see walking bass in the jazz examples. Overall a great book!

There's nothing too complex here. The book offers a variety of chord progressions with some strum patterns as well. I could have used a book like this when I first started learning to play the guitar. It would probably be a good book for a novice player who is learning chords. It offers a foundation on which you can build your own progressions. The book offers the following chord progressions: Folk, Country, R&B, Rock, Ballad, Blues, Jazz, Latin, Fusion, Funk, and a section for miscellaneous progressions.

Good book for intermediate and beginners

OK

Written to higher level. Recommend to musicians.

I have found working through this book to be really constructive. I have been trying to work on my rhythm playing, and this book has some great bite sized lessons - covering both the rhythms and the music theory of how chords work together. There is so much on this book, I know it is going to be used thoroughly for many months, probably years.

Hier gibt es auf 56 Seiten plus einer Playalong-CD 98 Akkordfolgen. Die Gitarre befindet sich auf einer Seite des Stereo-Spektrums der CD und lässt sich beim Abspielen ausblenden. Die Akkordfolgen umfassen bis Ca 12 Akkorde und sind in 9 Kategorien eingeteilt. Es gibt 9x Folk, 10x Country, 11x R&B, 16x Rock, 11x Balladen, 8x Blues, 17x Jazz, 10x Funk und 4x Sonstiges. Nicht alles ist nur toll. Aber Vieles ist brauchbar. Wer also einen Baukasten braucht, um schnell mal einen Jingle im Mainstream-Stil zu zimmern, für Werbung etc., kann sich einen schlanken Fuß machen und einfach in die Kiste greifen. Melodie drauf fertig.