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Richard Barrett steps back into the golden era of Hollywood with these orchestral-style chord examples
The term ‘soundtrack’ in our title doesn’t refer to music theory, it’s just a broad description of the type of chord we’re looking at in this feature. These chords evoke the soundtracks from the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood, even though this type of music was usually an orchestral arrangement, rather than solo guitar. It’s an interesting challenge to see how harmonically detailed we can get with just six strings and even fewer fingers
Here, we’re looking at extended and altered chords based around minor, major and dominant 7ths. Often, the guitar need only extend up to the 7th and leave further extensions (9th, 11th or 13th) to the strings, woodwind or brass. However, if you’ve ever listened to great players such as George Barnes, Martin Taylor and George Van Eps, then you’ll know that there’s no reason for the guitar not to get fully involved – and it’s interesting to note how different players stretch the boundaries to create interesting chords.
Example 1
This Emin11 builds on an Em chord with a dominant 7th, adding the 9th (F#) and, of course, the 11th (A). Note the 5th (B) is missing. This is often the case on extended voicings such as this to aid clarity. It isn’t just a concession to the limited amount of fingers and strings available!
Example 2
Moving just two fingers gives us a very different chord and mood. This D#7 (#11#9) could be described as the ‘tension’ before the
