The Chord Wheel is a book by Jim Fleser for all musicians to analyze chord progressions, help compose their own music, apply music theory, and transpose chords. It has a transparent, plastic circle on the cover that lays over a rainbow-colored set of boxes containing the letters of chords.
I use the Chord Wheel when I am writing songs to help me add some complexity in the bridges. Simply put, I was working on a song in the key of D. (If you're not sure what a key is, this book will help with that as well) I also had the fourth and the fifth of G and A in the song. By using the chord wheel, I was able to immediately see that an E minor, Fsharp minor or B minor would be a smooth transition.
Did I already know this? Kind of. In the back of my head, sure. I have played guitar for 25 years and have stuck to mostly rhythm and chords. So, yeah I kind of knew. But what I didn't know was the chords known in the Chord Wheel as the II and III (2 and 3) chords.
There are many reasons to use the Chord Wheel, it is an unending reference of music theory. It helps a songwriter to compose their own music. Chord progressions become a breeze when referencing the Chord Wheel while playing.
Additionally, the Chord Wheel makes it easy to transpose chords. Transposing chords is like moving to another key. If you have ever seen a singer start singing a song and then look at the accompanist and say that it is a bad key for them, then suddenly different sounds come from the guitar and the singer can sing. The Chord Wheel allows for the player to jump to a different key quite easily.
For example, if I was a playing a song in G with chords G, C, D, B minor, F# and A, I could look at the Chord Wheel and see the position of those chords on the wheel. If I moved to the key of F, A simple glance tells me that I should now play F, B flat, C, D minor, E and G.
The creator of the Chord Wheel was able to lay chords out in a manner that allows for quick rotation of a plastic overlay to find all the pertinent chords in a key.
But it is more than that! The Chord Wheel is as complex as you want it to be. From simply analyzing progressions all the way through transposition, composition, scales and relative minor chords.
Reading through the book introduces a person to different progressions from different genres including jazz and pop.
Hey, like I always say, I am just a guy with a web site. I like to write about things that matter to me and music definitely matters. I play guitar and enjoy writing my own music. The Chord Wheel has helped me tremendously in all of my musical endeavors.
Every once in a while, I like to just grab my Chord Wheel and read through it again. It seems like I get new ideas every time I use it. I also come to understand soloing, minors, majors, sevenths, diatonic, root progressions, modulations and accidentals and more!
It's like I know what people are talking about but don't know the word to describe it. The Chord Wheel helps me to discuss music with much more educated musicians than myself and understand what we are talking about in our conversation.
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