Polychords Options

[scruffguitars]

very sorry if this is not the right place to ask.
but there's nowhere else i can get a thorough answer....i have NO IDEA what a polychord is.

i would appreciate if someone would explain this to me =\

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[Matt23]

"A bichord or polychord consists of two or more chords, one on top of the other." I hadn't heard if this so i looked it up on wikipedia. Seems to be you get 2 chords and overlap them.

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[Andrew Cockburn]

Polychords are fascinating - I will write a lesson on them one day!

They are indeed playing separate chords and stacking them on top of each other - this can be on the same or even different instruments. Here's a simple example:

You play a chord of C major - C-E-G

Your mate in the band plays a chord of G major - G-B-D

Put them together and you have:

C-E-G-B-D - which is a chord of Cmaj9!

To make it sound good, your mate will probably want to play the G chord on the higher strings, not in full - but you get the basic idea. This can be a powerful way of getting a fuller more complex sound out of multiple guitars. Alternatively, you can use this as a way of constructing complex chords out of simpler building blocks.

Here's another example:

Your bass player plays a root note of A. You play a chord of C major

Put it together and you get A-C-E-G - Aminor7!

That probably doesn't qualify as a polychord as the bass is only playing a single note, but it is a closely related concept.

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[Jeff]

Polychords are fascinating - I will write a lesson on them one day!

They are indeed playing separate chords and stacking them on top of each other - this can be on the same or even different instruments. Here's a simple example:

You play a chord of C major - C-E-G

Your mate in the band plays a chord of G major - G-B-D

Put them together and you have:

C-E-G-B-D - which is a chord of Cmaj9!

To make it sound good, your mate will probably want to play the G chord on the higher strings, not in full - but you get the basic idea. This can be a powerful way of getting a fuller more complex sound out of multiple guitars. Alternatively, you can use this as a way of constructing complex chords out of simpler building blocks.

Here's another example:

Your bass player plays a root note of A. You play a chord of C major

Put it together and you get A-C-E-G - Aminor7!

That probably doesn't qualify as a polychord as the bass is only playing a single note, but it is a closely related concept.

cool!

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[Gerardo Siere]

The idea of polichords come fro keyboard technique, they can play one chord with one hand and other chord with other hand, ussually they use triads that are technicable reachable and has memorize a lot of formula. Fusion music like Weather Report, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter use this chords a lot. For bibliografy better check a harmony book oriented to keyboard, it is easier to see there. For guitar I think Frank Gambale has wrote about it. In the world of guitar they are used for duets, that way you can get all kind of closed position chords, or even clusters that are imposible to play on one guitar. We all will be waiting for Andrews lessons over this topic.

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[Andrew Cockburn]

Great background Gera, I hadn't thought of it like that but of course it makes a lot of sense that keyboard players would use this - after all, you have 2 hands and can easily play 2 triads together

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