If someone had mentioned the term stacked fourths to me years ago, I would have had no idea

what they were talking about.

But I later learned that it is really quite simple and represents a cool approach to constructing
chords. In this lesson, Id like to show you some interesting things you can do with stacked
fourths. In music theory, every note in a chord can be assigned an intervallic number. Typically,
were dealing with scales built from five to eight notes, and each note is given a number to
represent its placement within the given scale.

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For example, the notes B, E and G# create the sound of an E major chord when played over an E
bass note, as shown in bar 1 of FIGURE 1. Now, if I change the bass note to C, as in bar 2, a
very different chord results: Cmaj7#5. Building chords that will stay within the specific key
remaining diatonic to itis just a matter of picking the notes from that keys scale or mode and
only using them as chord tones.

This is the manner by which a harmonized scale can be built, as shown in FIGURE 2, wherein I
use only notes from the E major scale (E F# G# A B C# D#) to form a series of chords that are
constructed using stacks of thirds, fourths and fifths. One can alternatively build, or voice, chords
from notes that are all four scale degrees apart from one another, what are known as fourths.
Lets look at an example. In FIGURE 3, the first chord is built from the notes E, A, D and G,
yielding Em7add4. In this case, each note is a perfect fourth above the one below it, meaning two
and one half steps, or semitones.

If I stack perfect fourths across all six strings, starting on the low E strings sixth fret, the result is
Ebm7#5add4/Bb. Sounds like something from the music of The Twilight Zone, right? A cool way
to explore this stacked-fourths approach to voicing chords is to only use notes from a specific
mode, such as E Dorian mode (E F# G A B C# D).

In FIGURE 4, I ascend through stacked-fourths voicings on the top four strings while sustaining
the low E string as a pedal tone, for reference. Notice that, for the sake of staying within the
confines of E Dorian, not all of the fourths are perfect, with a couple of them, namely G-C# and
C#-G being whats called an augmented fourth, also known as a tritone, which is equal to three
whole steps.

Within the scope of rock music, you might need a wide artistic highway to incorporate these
kinds of chords, but if the music youre playing is experimental and open to jazz influences,
stacked fourths are great to use when, for instance, youre playing a rhythmic accompaniment
over a static Em vamp for 16 bars. FIGURE 5 presents an improvised approach to using
stacked-fourths voicings, which would sound good over a jazz-blues-style bass line, like the one
in FIGURE 6. In FIGURE 7, I intertwine chords and bass line to further illustrate this approach.
Once you get the hang of creating stacked-fourths voicings, try doing the same thing with other
modes, such as Aeolian or Mixolydian.