John find his own way to save mankind. Excellent video!

Another fantastic video John, thank you! I remember buying the IOU album when it first came out and hearing Allan's chordal work in vivid detail for the first time. Up till then I'd only heard glimpses of it on the Bruford, UK and Tony Williams Lifetime albums but the minute I heard "The Things You See" leap out of my speakers I thought, "Oh my god, his chordal ideas are even more original and amazing than his soloing!". He was a legitimate genius and will never be replaced.

it seems like we are exploring a dark and immense forest , and you are the only one with the torch and that know the righ path, i literally hang on every words you say. Thank you john for all your incredible work, everytime seems everything possible with you on the lead

Always appreciate the tremendous amount of effort that goes into making these videos. Great work!

I've been mesmerized by the harmonic choices utilized by Allan throughout his music. After some time I came up with a way of writing that allows for imitating this sound. They way I think about it is the following: the most important notes, the most audible ones, are the lowest note you play and the highest one so you write those first, only filling in the space inbetween them later. I got inspired to do this by watching reharmonization videos from Gil Evans Inside Out on youtube. This approach is quite flexible because the results can go from more "classical" sounding (if you choose chords with 3-4 notes) to more old-school broadway/ Barry Harris (if you go for a lot of 6th chords and diminished chords) to Debussy/Holdsworth (if you use a lot of sus chords and chords with many extensions and avoid too much functional movement). You can try putting in entire chords after creating the framework, since having 2 notes already limits the available choices of possible chords by a lot. Alternatively, you can think chorally and literally put in one note at a time. Hope this helps somebody in composing, cheers.

The amount and quality of work you put in this video is astonishing. Thanks so much for sharing. it will be useful for generations of musicians.

Thank you @TurrigenousOfficial for this video. We who are fascinated and ever curious to the insights into Allan's style really do appreciate your hard work and great content. I like the fact that Allan used the same chord pattern and moved it around. This is very interesting and helpful. 💯

Thank you soooooo much John for your work and dedication throughout the years!!! Miss Allan everyday😢

great teacher. you really open the box, hah. where is one finally chord is so scary. love it

Literally did assignments and thought “how does he do it?” Cheers! 🍻

man, i came across your channel after listening to holdsworth over a summer road trip two years ago. I’ve learned more from hearing you talk about his songs than I have in my music theory courses in highschool. Appreciate all the good work mate. (Opeth fan too btw :))

Excited!

im glad you did a video about his chords theyve always intrigued me so much

the wizard returns

It's Friday evening here, just got home from work and cracked open a bottle of wine. Switched on YT and glad to see a new Allan vid - the night's entertainment sorted... cheers man.

Dissonance, is a common denominator. The half step tingling sound that grabs your soul.

This is the one video I've been waiting for, his lines are iconic but the harmony behind it really makes it what it is imo. I felt like I knew what he was doing, but this video solidified it for me. Thank you John! Btw, have you ever considered doing SNW by Fredrick as a lesson?

Welcome back! Thank you for doing what do you do for the rest of the world!

Already taking notes! thank you for the video

Ottimo, interessante, utilissimo, pregevole lavoro. Molti complimenti e applausi 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Thanks man for your amazing work!

Another great video tutorial!!! Thanks, John!

You make the best vids. Especially on holdsworth!

Many thanks for an excellent video John. We all appreciate you sir!

This information would make a nice book ;)

great work, so much information in your videos.

I really, really appreciate your work on this. Somehow this one in particular really resonates with me. I guess you are playing many of my favorite chords. Ugh that BM#11 at 12:45

Yessssssss

Amazing!!! :)

Thank you so much for your videos!!

Enjoyed this one a lot. Thank you!

Dude has a PhD in Allan Holdsworth. Brilliant stuff!

Very, very well presented. Educational and exceptionally interesting…

This is by far the best video I’ve ever seen explaining any of these cords. They sound right on to me and honestly like he’s explaining it at a theory level that for whatever reason makes complete sense to me I am pretty shocked that I’m understanding this.

Playing some of my favorite tunes and voicings on the piano right now thank to you John. I will be grateful to you forever! Thanks for the staff notation. 🙏

Thank you

thank you ! insightful and detailed ... incredible work 💯

great stuff as always

Thx John..great and enjoyable lessons :)

Very informative! Thanks

Thank you great lesson!

Excellent.

5:46 ! Bingo ! That's what it really is. John, you truly "saved the mankind" !! (I love that comment below). I have been using this concept forever, especially in orchestral writing. In piano soloing too, especially in free improv or composing... The main thing here is that Alan while playing ANY chord, he automatically and instantaneously visualized entire scale ! And this is a genius in itself. Then he moved to another chord, and automatically "heard" that upcoming entire scale... Holy cow ! Here's the method that helped me to apply the concept to the piano : 1. Identify all notes of the scale. 2. Treat them evenly as "bricks in the wall" to construct ANY combinations of these notes vertically. No note is more important than the other, so the concept of scale "degrees" doesn't really apply here, just like in some Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Williams, Goldsmith, and plethora of orchestral writers, film composers etc. 3. You do NOT need to name these "chords" (or rather sonorities) separately. Just focus your mind on visualizing corresponding scale. And that's hard at the beginning, but then it gets easier and easier 🙂 4. Similar approach applies when you study Barry Harris concept for example. You build these chords of corresponding notes of the scale (in all 12 major and minor keys). Or when you study Messiaen modi of limited transposition. Bravo John !! You did a remarkable job for all of us and for posterity... I've watched Alan's videos (the ones from the 80s), studied the "Reaching For The Uncommon Chord" - all of that is OK, but your explanation of "everything Holdsworth" sheds a new light of narrowing down to his concepts, and favorite choices. Something that Alan had sometimes difficulties to explain himself, when asked in workshops or after the concerts. I already went through your entire videos, including my favorite - "Spokes" (something i can really apply to the keyboards).

Timing of this couldn't have been better as I just finished getting through your comprehensive study video!

Bravo! Another deeply researched video celebrating Allan's beautiful chordal approach.

Fantastic as always! What's "Grey day"???? Where the hell is this coming from?!?!

Tks!

9 in the Bass

Holdsworth’s compositional approach in harmonic terms was actually quite simple, with little in the way of complexity or theoretical density. Rhythmically there was almost always more to it, and of course there were the fearsome challenges in the execution. But this constant stuff about the compositions themselves being somehow very complex is just wrong.

nice👌🎸💥

🍻

Wake up Kids, The King has dropped the new Hotness

Thank you for an excellent video about his music. How important is the bass/keys player in his ensemble? If you have these instruments anchoring the root of the chord, then that would give Allan all the freedom to play his chordal voicings on top? Cheers - Mark

fear of 'same note twice' is both a strong point, and allan's Achille's heel....

chords are key for allan

Whats that song at the beginning of the video?

Amazing work! Do you feel,now, after played almost every chord and invertion, combination that Allan did, if that explains why he did recognize an particular scale or scales inside of theses strucutres(?)... meaning why he did not call the chords names!!!? I don't know if I agreed with some notations like the ""maj with 11" in some cases, or "m75+" (sometimes sound like a triad with 9), and specially on this kind of "sound" and as we knew the music Allan was listening to; Bartók, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Debussy and jazz, etc... but I still recomend all of your videos for everyone who knows or likes Allan's music. Thank You!

Hey John! This is random, but at 34:54 I noticed that this section of Grey Day doesn't appear on the souncloud version uploaded by Gary Husband. Do you have access to an alternate version? Only asking as I am trying to transcribe it myself and rework it in my DAW, thanks!

would you be interested in trying to transcribe some of the material he did with igginbottom?

Okay, so kind of a modal approach to chords, not functional harmony.. in terms of internal logic, using sequences and following the melody.. what about going between modes or keys, did you notice any patterns to those movements? (Maybe a song has 3 chords that could be considered part of D Dorian, and then another 4 chords that belong to A melodic minor, etc..) I wonder if Allan chose the modes/scales and key centers before choosing the chords, or the other way around

20.28. That stretch was. Hard. White lion does it ???

By the way John, do you know of Ben Monder?

For the algo 👊

Man i need a tutorial to use YAMAHA MAGICSTOMP for eletric guitar . Please ! I need the presset of Allan Holdsworth but my computer dont identify the pedal because o use Win 10

51.00 Idiomatic for guitar, and relatively not-so-difficult to execute. On the keyboard to the contrary : these parallel movements can be "finger breakers" ha, ha !

didnt EVH say alan was the best ?

Kiesel just brought back the HF2 Fatboy.

yay. hi. allan hated ii V I. i learned to love it, esp after realizing that ii V I is crucial to Giant Steps, countdown and lots of other favorite pop and jazz tunes (bach, too esp the last few pieces of WTC) . ALLAN IS TO BE APPRECIATED FOR SHUNNING THAT, but don't shut it your self. god, drunk, hard to type...

OMG.

First

If you really want it- Stop being another guitar player and go study tonality- Harmony and counterpoint. Go on to study the music of Bach, Messiaen, R. Strauss, Wagner. Take few years to dive into that and thank yourself later.