If you read my reviews, you know that at age 42, I decided to pick up the guitar, start taking guitar lessons and learn to play! You are never too old to learn after all, and it is a lot of fun. Learning new things is also one of the secrets to happiness.

I've learned my basics, the D chord, E chord, A, G, D minor, A minor, even the still hard for me barre chords like F and B. I've even got to use fun filled 7th chords and sus chords, but the more I play and learn songs from my guitar teacher and TAB books the more I realize that THERE ARE A LOT OF CHORDS OUT THERE! I decided to back up a little and buy a book that had ALL the chords in one handy place. I didn't just want a chart, I wanted a book that placed the chords in context and this book Chord Master: How to Choose and Play the Right Guitar Chords by Rikky Rooksby seemed to be just the ticket. The book is divided into nine basic sections, and it is only the LAST SECTION, section 9 that is the actual Chord Matrix, or the master list of all chords.

The Chords throughout are all shown in easy TAB style diagrams showing you where each finger should go to form all the chords.

The book begins in Section one with the basics, which I was happy that I already knew. Info like major chords sound happy and minor chords sound sad are in this section of the book. You also get basic info on how to mute a string that is not to be played in a chord. Again, this info I knew from my teacher, but if one didn't know, a simple trick like lightly laying your finger on the string that is NOT supposed to sound is valuable advice indeed.

Section 2 advances this with the basic guitar chords which for me matched the chords my guitar teacher taught me first. This made sense, they were easier to form, and when formed, the basic chords make up a huge number of songs.

The Third section is Triads. Isn't that fitting!. This chapter gives you the basic triad (i.e. THREE string chords) structures. You'll be pumping out power chords in short order with this chapter. If there is one thing that I learned from reading TAB it is that many great songs use some pretty basic power chords aka triads.

Section Four is moveable shapes, i.e. chords that you can slide up and down the fret board. The fret may change, but the finger positions on the strings stays the same. (well, not exactly, they slide up to the desired fret... well you know what I mean). I still find Barre chords to be hard to form, but they get easier as I progress. I'm sure many of you reading may think back to a day when you too had trouble with barre chords.

Section 5 divides up chords into basic families, i.e. D major, D minor, E major E minor etc. The major chord families are shown, then the minor chord families. Remember, major chords happy, minor chords sad.

Section Six gives a different breakdown of chords, dividing them up into musical styles. Acoustic and Folk, Blues and Rock n' Roll, Funk and R&B, Indie Rock, Heavy Metal and Punk, Soul and Easy Listening and Jazz. This is not to say that any genre can only use certain chords, but just illustrates that generally some chords are heard more in certain genres than others. In a later section some chord exercises illustrated the point to my ears.

Section 7 was a fun section giving a list of chords used in famous songs. Some oddly shaped chords are so distinct in a song that once you hear the chord, you can almost hear the song. Case in Point, the chord for David Bowie's Starman was listed. A simple Bflat major 7 add 11A ???? I looked at it and said, oh an A chord shifted up one fret and played it. Sure enough I immediately recognized the flat sounding chord that opens Starman. Other famous chords included the Beatles Taxman, Police's Roxanne and Pink Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond. I believe this chapter was included to illustrate the power of a single chord.

Section 8 was a chapter that I used to practice a lot with. It is chord progressions. Chord changing is something that must be practiced and practiced again. I liked this chapter because not only did it provide chord exercises, they were ones that sounded good. It started with triads, then worked into open chords, inversions, progressions and finally musical chords. Remember what I said about Section 6? Sure enough, when I did the exercise on Blues and Rock Chords, I could just hear the roots of dozens of rock and blues songs. There is also a CD which accompanies the book so you can listen to how these progressions should sound.

Finally, as I began this review, it is only in the ninth section that you get an in depth list of all the chords.

Summary

I really liked this book because it didn't just list all the chords, it gave me information and grouped the chords into several easy to understand categories and gave me some exercises that were fun to play and advice to help me form even the difficult barre chords. I don't believe that an advanced guitar player would benefit much from this book, a simple list of all chords may suffice as advanced players know the theories and the chord forming advice already, but I would highly recommend this to a beginner guitar player.

Now often when I am learning a song, I will write out the chords in that song for easy reference and place that next to a song that I have written out in chords until I have them memorized. If I have the song in TAB, I will always note above the TAB for a particular chord what chord it is, so that the names and fingering of each chord becomes automatic as it has become with the basic chords.

Other TAB books and Guitar Books

The Best of AC/DC
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Black Sabbath Tab Book
Franz Ferdinand
Guns N' Roses Complete
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Metallica .. and Justice for All
The Rolling Stones Singles Collection - The London Years / Guitar Tab Edition
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Lightning Blues Lead Guitar
Neil Young Anthology

Chord Master - How to Choose and play the right guitar chords
Total Scales Technique and Application
Electric Guitars - The Illustrated Encyclopedia


Recommended: Yes