Compendium of Chords for the Viola

Book excerpt: There are many resources for practicing scales and arpeggios on the viola, but extremely few for practicing chords. Understanding chords on the viola can be a very useful skill for violists for a variety of reasons; the most obvious of which is that chords appear a significant number of times in the viola repertoire. In addition, understanding chords: helps you to think harmonically, helps you to better analyze music, improves your ability to sight read and to play arpeggios and double stops, helps the fingers of your left hand to work better together as a team, and facilitates composition and improvisation.