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Allan Holdsworth Chords Part Two

Continuing our series of posts looking at Allan Holdsworths Guitar Chords, today we look at another inversion than can be taken through a chord scale.

Rather than using standard chord voicings, Allan Holdsworth views chords as being a member of a "family", the family name being the name of the scale from which that chord is derived. Any grouping of notes from that family can be substituted for the standard chord voicings, depending, of course on your own taste and the context in which they are used. For example, if the harmony calls for an Cmaj7, rather than playing a standard voicing, various combinations of notes all drawn from the Cmajor scale can be used.

Here an inversion is taken through the C major scale. As any of these chords can be used over any of the diatonic C major chords no chord names have been given. Although this inversion is taken directly through a scale, bear in mind that Allan usually uses a more complex approach moving between different inversions.


Moving each of the chord to the next scale note gives us the same inversion starting on the 3rd fret.

Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion

Moving each scale note up gives us this inversion thats an easier stretch than the last chord.

Moving each note up again takes us to our original chord inversion starting on the 8th fret.

And again at the 10th.

Finally a different inversion is created by moving each scale note up again.
Moving the chord notes up to the next scale note would give us the same inversion we started with 12 frets higher.

Try taking other inversions for a walk through a scale and substitute these for regular inversions that you might have used. Listen carefully to interesting melodies and check back soon for another guitar chord of the day.

If you liked like this post you might also be interested in the Frank Gambale Magic Chord posts.