All about Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 : Jazz & Funk guitar
Frequently asked Questions
Welcome to the FAQ for Modern Guitar Chord Styles, Book 3. The most in-depth and sophisticated book in the Modern Guitar Chord Styles series, MGCS3 builds on from MGCS2 but focuses on Jazz, Blues and Funk chord work and the wide range of music this leads you into. Packed with sophisticated examples and progressions, MGCS3 can develop your skills to a tertiary standard, giving you the ability to participate in professional guitarist activities such as theater and studio chart reading/playing.
What topics are covered?
Jazz chords
Advanced strumming techniques
Funk chords & 16th note muting techniques
Ragtime, Latin Jazz, Big Band, Bebop, Gypsy Jazz, Bossa Nova and more!
Fingerstyle Jazz & walking bass line techniques
And much more!
To find out more about MGCS3 and how it can help you, read on:
“With it’s challenging but richly rewarding blend of technique development and appealing progressions, Volume 3 really is the flagship of the Modern Guitar Chord Styles series. I’m confident you will gain high value from this exciting guitar method”
-
Modern Guitar Chord Styles Volume 3 is an advanced chords and rhythm styles tutor that concentrates on Jazz, Blues and Funk chord forms, rhythms and styles of use. It includes harmony theory appropriate to the level, chromatic chords, funk semiquaver-rhythm exercises, finger-style jazz, chord comping, accompanied walking bass style, and more. As with MGCS 1 & 2 there are plenty of great, real-world progressions demonstrating the style applications for the techniques introduced. It comes complete with audio recordings to help students get their timing and tone just right.
-
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 is aimed at developing players already comfortably at intermediate to advancing level. For graded systems this represents Grade 4 - 5 ability as a minimum entry level. It is important that you already have fair bar-chord stamina and know the common Root 6 and Root 5 forms before commencing this level of study. The required physical ability in the chord hand for MGCS3 aligns with the expectations of Grades 6 - 8, tertiary study and general work-a-day professional playing. This book is designed to guide intermediate -standard players up into the sophisticated and exciting realm of jazz and funk guitar styles.
-
Not the entire book but, if you know all the chord forms in MGCS2 and understand the rhythm-slash notation of the progressions you’ll be able to handle Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3. MGCS2 is mostly Rock / R’n’B oriented and, whilst it is an excellent rhythm chords tutor for electric guitar the old-school style doesn’t appeal to everyone. If you are more drawn to the cool guitar sounds of funk and jazz, and you already have a good intermediate standard then MGCS3 is the book for you.
-
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 deals with a comprehensive range of Root 6, Root 5 and Root 4 chord forms. This includes all common moveable major and minor shapes plus their diatonic extensions, as well as advanced altered forms including augmented, augmented 7th, diminished, diminished 7th, half-diminished 7th, dominant 9th, 11th & 13ths, and altered extensions to dominant chords. These represent all the important chord types we find regularly in advanced jazz and funk styles.
-
As indicated, general familiarity with music notation is needed to get the full benefit from Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3. This doesn’t mean ‘sight reading’ ability, and there is TAB included with some progressions, but the complexity of music presented within MGCS3 really does need full notation to express it in a complete musical way. This level is beyond the reasonable limits of what TAB demonstrates and represents the range expected in many professional situations. A working understanding of notation will enable you to make full sense of the exercises and examples.
-
As with the playing requirements, an intermediate understanding of chord theory is needed to get going in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3. Without this you quickly run into material that is too complex to fully absorb/understand. This volume goes well beyond basic harmony theory, covering primary and secondary diatonic chords and their common extensions, chromatic jazz harmony including diminished, augmented and altered dominant forms, and complex altered chord extensions. General familiarity with reading music notation will be beneficial.
-
Yes, Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 contains an excellent section on funk rhythms, including several pages of precision-building funk rhythm studies. Funk is all about rhythm; if you can’t nail down a syncopated semiquaver rhythm and keep it tight with percussion and bass then you can’t play funk - simple as that! And, as with all other techniques, MGCS3 includes several cool progressions in funk styles for you to enjoy putting all the technical stuff into music practice.
-
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 includes harmonic arpeggiation, particularly in the jazz finger-style section. ‘Harmonic’ (as opposed to ‘melodic’) arpeggios are chord-based phrases used primarily for accompaniment playing but that can also function as signature melodic passages. MGCS3 includes some great examples of these arpeggio uses.
-
Yes, definitely! Jazz comping is the most sophisticated of all guitar chord styles and the one that many accomplished players find the most satisfying to play. Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 provides an in depth introduction to chord-comping forms and rhythm techniques plus lots of appealing progression examples. These comping exercises show you how to create your own lines for accompanying other musicians, or create your own comping solos.
-
Yes, finger-style jazz techniques are introduced in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 with clearly explained pattern exercises and standard progression examples. This ‘Rolls-Royce’ of guitar styles is a favourite of many professional players and MGCS3 contains several great progression examples for you to enjoy as you learn.
-
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 includes a great section on how to play a walking bass line with chords punctuating the off-beats. This challenging but exciting technique is as demanding as anything a guitarist can learn and MGCS3 contains several exciting solo examples to show you how it’s done. So who needs a bass player, right!?
-
At the end of the book, Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 includes lists of suggested jazz and funk artists and songs that exemplify the styles covered. These lists focus on the classic examples and artists most associated with their styles and, this gives you good starting points for exploring further artists and examples. It’s a big world out there!
-
Yes, absolutely! The ultimate intention of Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 is to help you to develop into an accomplished player, confident of the advanced techniques expected in professional range music making. Playing with other similar musicians is a big part of this and MGCS3 can provide a significant part of your education towards that.
-
Yes - if you know the chords presented, and can play most of the progressions in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 3 then you are ready for advanced, tertiary music study. No doubt about it.
“The Modern Guitar Chord Styles series soon gets students’ chord vocabularies overflowing and playing in so many different musical styles. With these books, learning Rock progressions becomes a breeze and learning pop songs becomes straight forward and effortless! Highly recommended!”
GET STRUMMING WITH MODERN GUITAR CHORD STYLES
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : This is a very helpful book for entry-level players and those who already know the common chords but are still having trouble putting a full song together. If this reflects where you are up to, even just a few weeks of the technique building work in MGCS1 will consolidate your skills and have you putting full songs together with confidence.
