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Chords & Harmony - Open & Closed Voicings - A methodical approach by Ralph Wyld

I've been thinking lots about the open/closed thing that Tony brought up again recently, and so I've come up with an exercise which I've been doing everyday this week. It's quite big... I can just about get through all the keys in a hour now, and it still makes my head hurt following it through and remembering which chord I'm on! But I really feel it's improving my knowledge of scales (just major so far, but there's no reason why it won't work through other scales/progressions etc.), and the chords within scales.

Chords & Harmony - Using Tensions by Ted Wolff

For this month's "chords and harmony" topic I've written up an article focusing on tensions and several ways to use them effectively when comping. Some of the areas discussed include:

  • using tensions to indicate major or minor tonal center
  • available tensions for maj7, min7, min7(b5), dom7, and dim7 chords
  • adding tensions to a blues progression

Hope you find it helpful.