12 Voicing Studies (Over a 12 Bar Blues) + Video + backing tracks

12 Voicing Studies (Over a 12 Bar Blues)

In this book I am showcasing some of my very favorite ways to practice harmony and work on expanding my chordal vocabulary on the guitar. I have selected the basic 12 bar blues form (in the key of F) as the canvas over which I will be presenting the different voicing studies and exercises.

Each one of the 12 harmonic etudes presented here is specifically designed to target and help improve key areas of our polyphonic navigation and control of the instrument.

Studies 1-3 are based on an exercise where each new voicing has a melody note that moves higher in a stepwise motion until you reach an area of the fretboard where chord voicings are getting hard to be executed precisely. Then you turn around and start moving the highest note of each new voicing lower in a stepwise motion.

Studies 4-6 take the same idea from the first three studies but this time we start as high on the fretboard as comfortable and then move the highest note of each new voicing in a descending stepwise motion until we reach the first position. Then we turn around and start ascending using the same principle.

Studies 7-9 limit our hand movement to a specific fretboard position where we can use all six strings to voice our chords but this time we can not move horizontally up and down the neck which forces us to get more creative with the voice leading and soprano melody movement.

Studies 10-11 implement a moving melodic voice in ascending and descending 3rds. The highest note moves by an interval of a 3rd (between any two chords in the same measure). The last chord of a measure and the first chord of the next measure can also connect using a stepwise motion if desired.

Study 12 works on the idea of trying to harmonize a chromatic melodic line within a tonal context. It presents an ascending chromatic melodic motion on the highest note of each voicing until we reach an area of the fretboard where chords are getting hard to execute comfortably and from there we reverse using a descending chromatic motion on the highest voice of each harmony. 

Materials Included:

12 Voicing Studies (Over a 12 Bar Blues) book (PDF file - TAB and Standard Notation).

HD video with performance of all 12 studies.

Two backing tracks: 12 bar blues in F (at tempo and slowed down).

For more info please e-mail: hristo@hristovitchev.com