Holdsworth is known for his unusual chord voicings that often involve large stretches and his approach to using chords: rather than following diatonic chord progressions, Allan
approaches chords as groups of notes that imply a certain scale, thinking of
chords as belonging to a certain key, which imply a given diatonic scale.
You
can then play any note that is diatonically correct for that scale that sounds
good. For example if playing a C major chord, the chords may not necessarily be
an inversion of any kind of C Major chord, but just something that comes from
the scale.
This is quite different to the more traditional jazz
approach of playing chord changes.
Creating A Chord Scale
- Play a chord inversion, ideally one that is a little ambiguous and not a standard triad or seventh chord.
- Move each note of the chord up to the next note of the scale you're using
- Continue moving the chord through the scale and use all of these possible chords to play
Here we take one inversion and take it through the C Major scale. This chord uses the notes G, C, D and A. Although this chord is labelled D11 here, Allan would use this chord in place of any diatonic chord from C major.
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Raise each note to the next note in the scale and we end up with the same
inversion two frets higher, here named E11 but again used for any diatonic C Major chord. We change from:
- G, C, D, A to
- A, D, E, B
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Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:
- A, D, E, B to
- B, E, F, C
This time we have a different inversion
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Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:
- B, E, F, C to
- C, F, G, D
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- C, F, G, A to
- D, G, A, E
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Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:
- D, G, A, E to
- E, A, B, F
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Raise each note to the next note in the scale. We change from:
- E, A, B, F to
- F, B, C, G
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Allan Holdsworth chords. Play combinations of these over any
C major chord e.g:
- C major
- D minor7
- E minor7
- F major7
- G7
- A minor 7
- B half diminished
