Guide Tones
Theory, Application and Aural Comprehension
Status: In stock, Digital book is available for immediate access.
The secret to playing and hearing melodies over chord progressions
Do you want to learn the secret to playing and hearing melodies over chord progressions? If you’ve been knocking your head against the wall for years and not getting anywhere when trying to play over more than one chord, this “Guide Tones” course is your answer. Creating great melodic solos over chord progressions is one of the toughest nuts to crack. The “Guide Tones” Course breaks through these barriers by presenting you with a logical, holistic approach to developing this skill.
Totally change your understanding of how to play over chord progressions!
This “Guide Tones” class is quite simply the key that opens the door to playing over chord progressions! This massive course contains all the elements you need to understand, apply and hear the melodic lines that make sense over simple or complex chord changes. As you can see below, you get everything you need to take a beginner, intermediate or advanced student to a level where they are truly hearing melodies in a key center, even if the progression contains highly complex chords. Here’s what you get:
- 15 Videos and one 113 page PDF on the theory and application of guide tones.
- How to apply guide tone lines to chord progressions with 192 chord progression examples.
- An extensive ear training section which includes ground breaking theory on how to “hear” guide tones and 192 MP3s to use to develop your ability to hear and play guide tone lines.
- 36 Chord Progressions with four examples of guide tone lines each which shows you how these melodies work with both simple and advanced chord changes.
- Midi files of all exercises and recommendations on how to use these files to develop your skills.
- Backing Tracks in a Blues/Jazz style for 36 chord progressions at 3 different tempos.
- Backing Tracks in a Funk Style for 36 chord progressions
- Walking Bass Backing Tracks in a Blues/Jazz Style for 36 chord progressions
A Course for Any Style of Music
No matter what style of music you like, working with this course will develop your ability to solo over chord changes in just about any genre. The book shows you the relationships between the chords you are working with and those in popular pop tunes, demonstrating how applying yourself to this course makes for better solos on any chord changes in any style.
Guide Tones is one of the Core Courses of the Bruce Arnold System..
The “Guide Tones” course show you how to hear melodies in a key center throughout a piece of music. This simple way of hearing melodies as they relate to a key center and not the interval between each note is actually revolutionary. Without this kind of understanding your ability to play beautiful melodies within a key center will be drastically hampered. This course will also teach you how to identify the notes that are being played when you hear a simple melody moving through complex chord changes. This course also takes you from very simple Blues, Minor Blues and Rhythm Changes to highly sophisticated examples.
Common Questions
- How Does This Course Differ From “Hearing Chord Progressions” or the “Fanatic’s Guide?”
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- The Guide Tones Course works well with the “Hearing Chord Progressions” course. While the Hearing Chord Progressions concentrates on hearing the chords as they go by in music, “Guide Tones” concentrates on hearing and creating melodies over these chord progressions.
- You need to have knowledge of music theory to quickly hear and generate guide tone lines as you play. This course gives you enough chord progressions and examples to develop these skills.
- You need to learn to hear Guide Tones and be able to decipher the correct notes to play. This course gives you a unique system to help you first learn a Guide Tone line within a key center, and then transfer that information when adding in the actual chords.
- You shouldn’t stop working with Fanatic’s Guide it has many great exercises but by adding a few exercises from The “Guide Tones” course you can see the bigger picture of how all the exercises you are doing with Bruce Arnold’s Ear Training System fit together.
- Am I Biting off to Much to Add This Course to My Ear Training Practice Regimen?
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- Think of this course as a Direct Application of the contextual ear training that you are currently working on. You need to have at least 50% correct answers on the “One Note Ear Training” to start this course. Learning these Guide Tone lines will help you to hear how each note sounds in a key center, working first over a drone and then over chord progressions. By also playing and improvising with the guide tone line you will begin to develop all the skills need to play over chord changes.
- Guide Tones, along with the course Hearing Chord Progressions will show you how all the Ear Training products in the Bruce Arnold System fit into hearing harmony. It gives you the bigger picture and will work hand in hand with the other Ear Training you are doing with Bruce’s system.
- If you have 10 to 15 minutes a day to practice playing and hearing guide tones you will find that in a few months you will be much better at hearing notes within a key and have a greater understanding of how to play over chord changes.
- What Will This Course Do For Me?
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- It will give you an understanding on how to hear melodies against chord changes.
- It will improve your technical skills on your instrument.
- It will improve your theoretical skills.
- It will give you an understanding of the true nature of Guide Tones and how they can go way beyond just being the 3rd and 7th of a chord.
- It will drastically improve your key retention which is crucial to hearing more complex music.
- It will give you the background you need to understand how melodies work over chord changes.
- Additional Information:
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- Digital Edition IBSN: 978-1-59489-568-5
- 113 page PDF with Theory information applying to chord tones and chord progressions with various guide tone lines
- 15 Videos explaining various aspects of Guide Tones
- 192 MP3 Backing Tracks for ear training or solo practice.
- 288 MP3s for practice hearing and playing guide tone lines
- What people are saying:
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- A ground breaking course. I never realized guide tones could be this hip and this easy to learn. E. Echer
- Bruce knocks in out of the park again. This course makes learning to play over chord changes a breeze while also developing my ear training skills. Highly Recommend! G. Tomas
- I’ve been completely bogged down trying to play improvised melodies over chord changes. This progressive study is just what the doctor ordered. Thanks Bruce!! D. Schulberg.
- What a great idea; combining hearing melodies over a drone and then playing them over chord changes. I can really see — I mean HEAR– why I was having problems when trying to hear melodies within chord changes. It’s all so simple now just need to practice! T. Hamilton.
- Recommended books to use with Guide Tones
- Best way to practice theGuide Tones Course
- Quite a few of you have been asking me “what is the best way to practice with the Guide Tones Course?” Here are some recommendations.
- First, the Full MetroDrone® course is a super helpful tool to use in conjunction with the Guide Tones course, and gives you the most options in the long run. I have included a few MetroDrones already to get you started, but you will eventually want to speed up your ability, which will require the Full MetroDrone® Course. Depending on your level you could start each Guide Tone line exercise differently and over time you might start skipping some steps as you improve.
- Here is a ground-up approach.
- Sing the Guide Tone line over a MetroDrone®: pick a tempo or use the included MetroDrone® files. If using the full MetroDrone® course pick a tempo that allows you to sing one note per MetroDrone® pulse.
- If you are not sure you are singing correctly use the MetroDrone® with the note and name addition which is included in the course to check your intonation. When possible try to sing the note before the tone and answer are given.
- Once comfortable with 1-2 Try to sing the Guide Tone line over the chord changes. You can do this multiple ways.
- Here is a list from easy to difficult.
- Sing along with the Guide Tone MP3 with chords which will give you both the note and the answer in the key center.
- Sing along with the Guide Tone MP3 with chords only.
- Sing along with the Guide Tone MP3 with bass and chords in a Funk Style.
- Sing along with the Guide Tone MP3 with bass line.
- Things to remember:
- You are trying to hear all notes in the key center, NOT in relationship to the chords.
- I recommend using solfeggio for the singing, but note names or degrees can work too.
- Try to master one Guide Tone Line per week. You should be able to do this with about 15 minutes of study each day.
- Try to also apply the Guide Tone Line using your chosen instrument so that you start to improvise around the Guide Tone Line.
- Keep in mind:
- The “Guide Tones” Course is teaching you how to hear melodies over changing chords. This will transform your ability and understanding of playing and hearing chord progressions.
- Be patient! For some of you who are getting only around 50% correct answers on the One Note Ear Training, it will be tougher, but remember that it is getting you to understand how to hear with chord changes, which is important to your understanding of music in general. So don’t rush, just learn at your own speed.
- Most music uses the same kinds of chord progressions over and over, as is demonstrated with the pop tunes mentioned in the course. So learn one Guide Tone line, and it will actually work over many chord progressions, in many songs. So by mastering one Guide Tone line you will have done a lot to help you hear music.
- What should I work on after Guide Tones?