One of the latest publications from Janek Gwizdala is Chordal Harmony: A Comprehensive Guide to Chords On Bass.

While there are many publications for chords on bass, I have not seen one that is totally focused around chords and adding melody with them in the way that Janek does. Chordal Harmony starts out with the basics and I was immediately using them on my gigs, where I felt they would be appropriate to use. From the basics, Janek goes into triads, triads with inversions, adding 9ths, and some really comprehensive and useful jazz progressions such as V to I, ii, V, I and so on.

From there Janek expands in building your vocabulary, re-harmonization, which is a really cool thing to do, as well as minor and major chord exercises, chord melody fragments, and chord voicing. With quite a few of the exercises, blank staff is provided to write in your own progressions. There are also very many etudes to practice with and further your chordal abilities on bass.

Janek states the real goal of this book is to, “Have a concept musically, compositionally, improvisationally, to have those reactive skills to music when you are playing either solo or with a group.”

Also included with Chordal Harmony are twenty-seven videos that go along with the exercises in the book. Janek goes into great detail in the videos for each exercise and I would strongly suggest using the videos along with the book. Each video is very high quality.

Check out Chordal Harmony: A Comprehensive Guide to Chords On Bass from Janek Gwizdala, available from his website here and be sure to check out other great publications including ebooks, video courses, audio courses, and play-alongs.

Visit online at janekgwizdala.com