Tobe A. Richards

Tobe Richards is the author of 40+ books on musical chord theory for fretted instruments including the well known Fretted Friends Chord Bible Series. His first book, The Irish Bouzouki Chord Bible, was published in 2005 and has been followed at irregular intervals with over 35 more titles featuring many other fretted instruments as diverse as the guitar, the plectrum banjo and the charango. Born in 1961, Tobe has over 40 years experience in music, composition, harmony and chord theory.

Discussing how he writes and compiles the books, Tobe says: "there's no magic bullet solution to writing a book of this nature. It's a gradual, fairly laborious process of sitting with an instrument on my lap, working out the chords key by key and inputting the results into a design program on the computer. On average it takes me between 2 and 3 months to finish one book, depending on the degree of difficulty for each instrument. My wife is very understanding at having to share our living space with a myriad of different fretted instruments!"

Tobe has also been a part-time theatre reviewer and used to design fonts and educational clipart for the now defunct Acorn Archimedes range of computers. He also has a background in technical illustration.