The Keyboardist's Picture Chord Encyclopedia (Piano Book)

One thing I particularly like about the book is the simple, uncluttered, and easy to read presentation. The pictures of each chord are large enough to see easily. While they do present 78 chords for every note, there are only 8 chords per page. This book measures about 12" by 9". It's very handy to open the book to the page I need. While I'm playing, I can quickly glance over to see the chord one more time.

I have found this book to be highly useful and recommend it to anyone looking for a keyboard chord book.


A review of Vogler's book   September 10, 2001
 73 out of 74 found this review helpful

This book is a timely resource for anyone who has to deal with chord symbols--such as is found on rhythm charts and lead sheets-- and wants to know how to play them on the piano or keyboard. It even could help an arranger who has landed on a chord he likes but doesn't know what to call it.

This book has a Chord Construction section at the beginning, consisting of a review of the role that scales play, intervals, chords, inversions, altered triads and chord names. That's just 4 pages, so it doesn't bog down there. Next follows the major section of the book, which consists of *78* major and minor chords for each of the 12 notes of the scale. Each chord is depicted with what the chord looks like on a staff, what it would look like on a keyboard (the affected keys are shaded), and what its chord symbol typically would be. In the key of C, for example, you'd see everything from a plain old "C" chord to something like "C13 b5 #9" (whew!).

The final section of the book deals with what the left hand could do against the chords (whatever they are and against whatever rhythms your RH might be playing them). It provides info about such styles as boogie-woogie, funk, jazz & blues, swing, latin, rock and shuffle. There are multiple possible LH rhythms given for each of those, giving you variety in your possible choices. There also are multiple depictions of combination RH/LH patterns for rhythm & blues, gospel, country and rock.

This is one of those resource books that you like to have handy in your music library, for when you need it you'll probably REALLY need it right then!