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Less is More As most guitarists will eventually discover, when there is a bass player in the band, playing a no-root voicing of a chord can be a great choice. Essentially, the guitarist “leaves room” for the bass player, and the result is a more refined, less cluttered sound. In like manner, arranging music with multiple parts can be enhanced by assigning the guitarist only a fragment of a chord — leaving room for another instrument (e.g. a flute or saxaphone) to fill in the missing notes. In this sense, for guitar players, sometimes less is more. This is the great beauty of the implied chord — an incomplete articulation of a particular chord which nonetheless implies that chord. Another benefit of implied chords is sheer practicality. Many complex chords are difficult or impossible to play with only four fingers and six strings. (And, for this very reason, there are few voicings presented for the complete chords being implied in this section of the book.) A solution is to play a fragment of the chord to imply its complete articulation. An example can be found in the song Josie by Steely Dan, where several times a triad is played over an 11th — which can be understood in this song as implying a maj9 chord (A/D implying Dmaj9, G/C implying Cmaj9, D/G implying Gmaj9, and C/F implying Fmaj9). A third benefit of implied chords is simplicity. Let’s face it, guitarists play a difficult instrument. Any device or approach that simplifies the task is a step in the right direction. The implied chords presented in this book simplify the guitarist’s life in two ways. First, the chord forms are generally easy to play, and are offered in several locations on the fretboard. Second, because the implied chords are presented as triads over a bass note, the soloist can readily omit the bass note and simply play the remaining triad as an arpeggio — assuming that the bass note is played by another instrument. |
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