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This a post that was strated
in the keyboard forum
I was advised maybe you guys could help me
Greetinigs

i'm trying to discern some information.
while surfing on youtube I stumbled across a video of a technique
for transposimg advanced Jazz chords into different keys without having had to play the chord before in that key. called by the author as "Picture Chords".
It uses the concept of surrounding the note of the key you want the chord in. with certain intervals to the left and to the right of the object key note.
He sells a coures of many concepts but one small section on a DVD
touching the subject for $60.00. So i've been searching the web trying to nail down this technique because it would greatly enhance me and my sons playing.
So if anyone has any tips or can steer us in the write direction it would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. you guys always come through somehow anyway

Top

Deacon,

Welcome to the forum!

I did a quick Yahoo search for "Picture Chords" and came up first with this: http://astore.amazon.com/iwritethemusi-20/detail/0936799145/102-7736837-7626565
and secondly with your post here

The book covers using what the author calls "Picture Chords" to teach various chord structures using alternative tunings on the guitar.

I used to call these "chord shapes." Any polyphonic instrument (an instrument that can play more than one note at a time) must be manipulated to do so. The action used by the hands (or feet, or even in the case of the pedal steel guitar, the knees) to change the chords can be described as a "shape" or can be remembered as a "picture" of someone performing the action.

If you start on the root note (which may or may not be the "key" note, but is actually the relative key of the root...sorry, technical is my blessing and curse ), then most instruments will have set "shapes" or "pictures" that show the chordal tones above and below that root.

I recall a system of piano instruction that used what was called "block chords" that used the hand itself to make the shapes necessary for the chords. On guitar, chord diagrams are used to depict chords, and I used to draw diagrams of all the chordal tones for Cmajor on the guitar neck from the zero to twelfth fret for students to give them an introduction to the concept of the chord shapes on guitar.

I'll do a search on block chords and chord shapes for piano on the internet and get back to you. Not to hurt someone's business, but sixty bucks sounds like a lot to spend, this stuff isn't some secret "magic" trick, there are just different ways of visualizing the manipulation of instruments into chords. Back in a jiffy!

Mike


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Okay...I'm ba-ack!

Here's a great tool, it shows a diagram of piano chords interactively. Click on a chord and it shows the notes you push down. It limits it to the basic notes, but you can just use any of those keys anywhere on the piano. This website is terrific, I'm going to bookmark it myself. And it's my favorite price...free.

http://www.apassion4jazz.net/keys.html

I hope this helps. Happy chording! Mike.

Seeee,Seeee,Seeee. you guys always come thru
Thankyou thank you thankyou mike,
P,S,
dont worry about the technical stuff I'll just press my head on the computer screen and obsorb it slowly lol

And thank you, Deacon. That's what JPF does.