Allan Holdsworth Chords

Virtuoso guitarist Allan Holdsworth was born in Leeds, UK in 1946. Holdsworth is known for his legato lead lines but his chord use is equally interesting. In today’s we’ll start a new series looking at how Allan Holdsworth approaches chords.

Holdsworth is known for his unusual chord voicings that often involve large stretches and his approach to using chords: rather than following diatonic chord progressions, Allan approaches chords as groups of notes that imply a certain scale, thinking of chords as belonging to a certain key, which imply a given diatonic scale.

You can then play any note that is diatonically correct for that scale that sounds good. For example if playing a C major chord, the chords may not necessarily be an inversion of any kind of C Major chord, but just something that comes from the scale.

This is quite different to the more traditional jazz approach of playing chord changes.

Creating A Chord Scale

Play a chord inversion, ideally one that is a little ambiguous and not a standard triad or seventh chord.
Move each note of the chord up to the next note of the scale you're using
Continue moving the chord through the scale and use all of these possible chords to play

Here we take one inversion and take it through the C Major scale. This chord uses the notes G, C, D and A. Although this chord is labelled D11 here, Allan would use this chord in place of any diatonic chord from C major.

Raise each note to the next note in the scale and we end up with the same inversion two frets higher, here named E11 but again used for any diatonic C Major chord. We change from: