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[Dick Rees]

I find it great to note the pleasure of discovery as the diatonic system reveals the basic chord/melody relationship in all its glorious simplicity. 

[playandteach]

Here's a video of the DG version, G and A minor tongue twisters. It's a straight to camera video with some clunks in the middle, but I'm not able to edit video at the moment. I made the mistake a couple of times of trying to watch the image in the camera to make sure it was clear, but that threw my mind on where my fingers actually were. No harm, I think in seeing me struggle.
I hope the intent of the exercises is clear - do ask questions if unsure.
B minor and C exercises next.

[playandteach]

And this is another reason to play the G chord with the D on the outside row, because I'm doing the same thing for B minor.
The big difference with the B minor and C chord exercises is that they have only one note on the inside row, and that is the tonic of each chord (B and C). In the G and A minor exercise it was the 5th of the chord that was the only note on the outside.
For B minor and C it helps to embed the tonic position too.

[Barry M]

Thank you p&t
Have found this thread very useful

[arty]

For some reason I completely missed this whole thread a year ago. Anyway, I have discovered it now and what a gold mine of information and ideas it is!

Having just spent a very happy couple of hours on the first page of exercises, I feel I am getting so much out of it already. As I repeated those first exercises, I found myself being able to improvise short little passages, linking the chords together. What fun, I have never been able to do that before 
I have printed out all the pages and put them at the front of my practice folder, so I can use them as a kind of 'warm up period' before going on to tunes. That 2 hours flew by and I really enjoyed myself - I shall continue, daily!!!

***Thank you very much Pete, wherever you are!

Having read through the whole thread, it seems that quite a few people were very enthusiastic about these exercises. I wonder how many have kept them up and what they have got from it. I would be interested to know where it has led.

[Chris Ryall]

I kept it up and use all the time. Simple arpeggio chords are the gateway to improvisation, how it started even?

I’ll often simply chord in a session when 20 others are playing tune.

Chording also was my gateway to singing with accordion, I think Gavin’s too? Amazing how easy the our instument’s diatonic layout makes it in straightforward on piste keys and their modes. Go for it! Also note the trivial substitutions eg Em for G, Am for C. Sometime these suit a tune better!

Another tip is to work on “Anatole”, said to have been developed in Hot Club de Paris.  You use the chords strictly of your key’s scale, but preceed each by it’s 5th, or as close as.  In say Em (mode of the G scale) …

   |  Am -  |  D  G | C  F#mb5 | Bm  Em |

F#mb5 looks scary, but our layout provides … 4 adjacent fingers, pull, G row 👏.  It is basis of a number of jazz classics  eg Fallen Leaves and offers a moment of tension as you cadence back to Em. You can use anatole in part, eg as substitution for the folk ubiquitous Am > Bm > Em progression

[Schnorbitz]

I somehow missed this thread the first time. Which is a shame because it is probably one of the best explanations / resources of right hand chording that I have found so far on the forum. Thank you P&T for your work on this, the explanations are really well thought out.

I happened across the thread as the result of working on the chordings for a gypsy jazz tune which my brother in law sent over (he plays tunes from music that I am into, so the vice versa is only fair). This one has been really good for my right hand chords but raised a few questions. The discussion above answered all of those and unlocked a few other 'doors' for me as well.

Chris' comments re the minor 6th chord are spot on. It is wonderful. It's in the tune I am working on (along with a minor b6th). Having worked through P&T's videos I found the different inversions just appearing in front of me. Absolutely superb!

I'm off up into the loft today to find my jazz theory book to see if I can get a bit further through it then last time.

Once again, thanks to all who put their knowledge into this thread. It is wonderful 

[Will Searby]

Thank you very much for this P&T, and others for their responses and wisdom. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for at the moment and I intend to spend quite some time with these exercises.

[Elly Dixon]

Thank you so much for uploading these.Your youtube videos are also great but having the notes written down in the pdf's (once I found the D/G version - I was getting a bit confused with the D/C) is really helping with my understanding of what's going on, along with the keyboard layouts.

[playandteach]

Thanks to those who've said that these are useful. I wonder if I can still play them - haven't picked up the box in a while, but someone has asked me for help with GC playing, so I'd better get back to it.