Sunday, September 19, 2021

The Synthase Guide to Chords by Nate May

The Synthase Guide to Chords: Descriptions, Voicings, and Examples for Commonly-Heard Chords

Free Kindle Ebook for a Limited Time for your Kindle app on your phone or PC. Click Now on the Cover Photo. Get your free Kindle Ebook on September 20-24, 2021.

A coffee table book for your phone or tablet, The Synthase Guide to Chords connects you to the flavor and personality of eleven chords commonly heard across many genres of music. In addition to suggested voicings notated on a staff and on a keyboard, each chord is featured on the Keyring, an innovative visualization tool that unifies every possible instance of a chord into a single shape. Inspired by Peterson field guides and D.C. Peattie's A Natural History of North American Trees, composer-educator Nate May writes lovingly and knowledgeably about each chord as it appears in real songs and pieces, as well as how to use it in new ones.

From the preface:
I’m guilty of this, and I don’t think I’m alone: I snitch samples of raw ingredients while cooking. Little slices of carrots, tofu, or celery will just casually… disappear. I mostly do this because I feel like it, but it has another advantage: it helps me know my materials better. My goal in cooking, as in music, is to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. In order for that to happen, I have to be able to savor the parts on their own, and help them open up a window to the whole.

This chord guide is meant to serve that purpose. It’s not a comprehensive guide to calculating every voicing and fingering, but an invitation to sample raw chord-ingredients and learn how other composer-chefs use them. It can also be useful as a traditional field guide—when you encounter a chord in a piece of music, this guide can help you identify it and learn more about it.

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