guide tones as comping

I am all about synergy. I am told that guide tones are so important when soloing. I usually use arpeggios which include these guide tones, but I figure I can also use the guide tones when comping. I usually play with many other instruments so it is maybe a good idea to leave some space when comping. I need to learn the guide tones (on the 3 and 4th strings) so i am able to play them directly out of a real book without preparation. Is there some chart of the guide tones? Yes, I know the theory and could figure them out but I am lazy and would rather spend my time memorizing.

No offense, but you'd learn sooo much more by figuring them out. And once you get the first couple down and see how they relate to chord shapes that you already know, it's quite easy. Just work through a couple of ii-V-I patterns like this and it'll reveal itself quite quickly.

Once you get the guide tones down, then you can add a note on the B or E sting to add some color, create other moving lines. These little 3-note voicings are great.

Peace,
Kevin

I think of it this way

IINTERVALLIC distance between 3rds and 7s

M7-P5
m7-P5
7-tritone

Originally Posted by ksjazzguitar

No offense, but you'd learn sooo much more by figuring them out. And once you get the first couple down and see how they relate to chord shapes that you already know, it's quite easy. Just work through a couple of ii-V-I patterns like this and it'll reveal itself quite quickly.

Once you get the guide tones down, then you can add a note on the B or E sting to add some color, create other moving lines. These little 3-note voicings are great.

Peace,
Kevin

You think so? I am not quite sure. I keep figuring them out and forgetting them. I decided to start writing them down.

Originally Posted by ksjazzguitar

No offense, but you'd learn sooo much more by figuring them out. And once you get the first couple down and see how they relate to chord shapes that you already know, it's quite easy. Just work through a couple of ii-V-I patterns like this and it'll reveal itself quite quickly.

Once you get the guide tones down, then you can add a note on the B or E sting to add some color, create other moving lines. These little 3-note voicings are great.

Peace,
Kevin

THIS

put on your biab or metronome and practice simple patterns in one key, then all keys.

what is this?

Originally Posted by richb2

what is this?

Just figure out the guide tones to the chord sequence yourself. You already know the diatonic arpeggi, the GTs are the 3s and 7s of the respective chords.

I-vi-ii-V

CM7: Guide tones are: E and B: the 7 of I is B, and moves to.....
Am7: Guide tones are: C and G: the 3 of vi, which is C, which moves to..
Dm7: guide tones are F and C: the 7 of ii, which is C, which moves to
G7: Guide tones are B and F: the 3 of V, which is B

Write out the chord tones for each chord, pick out and relevant 3 and 7 of each chord..

Look at that movement above (or lack of movement, actually)--total distance covered is a semi-tone: B to C to C back to B.

I am actually more interested in guide tones for comping. For soloing I am usually using the full arps (which contain the gt's). So I need to memorize positions for the various chords.

For each chord, assuming that you are putting the guide tones on the middle strings, there are only two possible voicings. One has the root nearby on the E string and the other has the root nearby on the A string. Like I said, just learn your ii-V-Is and go from there.


---------------
---------------
---5---5---4---
---5---4---4---
------(5)------
--(5)-----(3)--


That is the ii-V-I in G. Figure out all the rest. Really, it's not that hard once you get into it. Obviously, you should learn to think without the roots, and understand what these notes are and how they are moving.

The next step, would be to add another note above to make it more interesting. Like:


---------------
---5---4---3---
---5---5---4---
---5---4---4---
------(5)------
--(5)-----(3)--


It creates a nice line, it adds a 5-b9-5 on each of the chords respectively.

Just put in the work. Great rewards await you.

Peace,
Kevin

what about chords w/o a 7th such a a dim 7 (I realize it is really a 6th) or a minor? Do I just play the flatted 3 and a 5th?

That is an option, but I still think that the bb7 is the true "7" - not just in name but in function. But we also look at how the chord is functioning to see what the true guide tones are. For example, if the chord progression is Bdim7->CMaj7, then the guide tones in the dim chord are actually the root and 5th (B and F) because that Bdim7 is really just a sub for G7. It's easy to confuse voicing with harmonic function. But if the chord progression is Em7->Ebdim7->Dm7, then it is the 3rd and the 5th again because it connects the guide tones of the other chords.

I think that smooth connection is the most important thing. If you step into another voice to bring out an interesting line, then it's not the end of the world. By definition, you'll have to have a break in there somewhere or you'll but keep descending until you run out of frets. But if your goal is to pedantically play the guide tones to learn how to do it - a worthy goal - then consider what I said above.

Good luck.

Peace,
Kevin

All great points... but I really get sick of smooth voice leading, sounds like elevator music. Our ears are so trained you could play roots and we would already hear those smooth not movement harmonic progressionssssss... ops, I fell asleep. I'm not saying don't learn and understand standard voice leading practices of old as well as of new, that doesn't take very long, most kids can cover it, but get over it and start hearing lines that actually have some character, maybe even jazz character. In the time it takes to talk about playing guide tones you could make your standard chart of all possibilities... approach every chord type from above and below with every chord type... start with Nat. Min or maj... by the time you finish you'll understand standard pitch movement and probable won't need to finish with rest of scales... Best Reg

Hey kevin have you been exposed to chromatic function, which may or may not have dom. function. I was checking out your Diminished example. It's somewhat related to voice-leading, like descending passing or approach Dim.7 chords... best Reg

Originally Posted by Reg

... but I really get sick of smooth voice leading, sounds like elevator music. ... I'm not saying don't learn and understand standard voice leading practices of old as well as of new, that doesn't take very long, most kids can cover it, but get over it and start hearing lines that actually have some character,

I agree that if all you do is smooth voice-leading by step, then it will get pretty boring. I disagree that this is common practice among guitar players based on the number of people who seem to have no concept of it. Just the sheer volume of people on here that don't understand that tensions want to resolve to a specific note is staggering to me. And the number of people who think that guide tones resolve themselves just because their in the scale ... well I'll forestall the rant.

But I do agree that it can get very boring if everything is just stepwise resolution. I like to put in some leaps (especially within the chord) or interpolate something in between the dissonance and the resolution. Or sometimes you just do an unexpected jump - I think it usually works fine if the melody implied by the lead voice is strong.

But I still say (and I don't think that you're disagreeing with me here) that being able to voice-lead "properly" and understanding what is happening is useful. But yeah it gets boring really fast by itself.

Originally Posted by Reg

Hey kevin have you been exposed to chromatic function, which may or may not have dom. function. I was checking out your Diminished example. It's somewhat related to voice-leading, like descending passing or approach Dim.7 chords... best Reg

I think I know what you are getting at. Yeah, dim chords are snaky things. But really, if we realize that we only have 3 diminished chords, it is less complicated. So there are three categories of how a diminished can relate to a tonic. If we are in C, they would be (I'm sure you know this Reg, but for the sake of those listening):

Bdim7, Ddim7, Fdim7, Abdim7 - These are all inversions of the leading tone diminished. You can call it "dom. function" if you want, since the Bdim7 can be thought of as a rootless G7b9 and functions and resolves similarly (I was taught "leading-tone diminished" but we're saying basically the same thing.) So really, when you see Dim7->C, that is not some random dim chord but is just a misspelling of the Bdim7, perhaps to emphasize the bass line. (As I said in another thread, dim 7 chords are often misspelt to avoid awkward double flats.)

Cdim7, Ebdim7, Gbdim7, Adim7 - These are the family of common tone diminished chords - "common tone" because it has the tonic in it. These are very common in classical and show up in jazz too. It can be an expansion of I, often being used to harmonize the 7th scale degree. They can also be used as that passing chord to connect iii and ii. But if we see iii as a sub for I, then again this can be an expansion of I, with an interpolated ii and V before it resolves. So really, the iii->biiidim->ii can just be thought of as a disguised common tone diminished. (I'm not saying that that is the only or best explanation, but just for the sake of categorizing.)

C#dim7, Edim7, Gdim7, Bbdim7 - Of course, these occur most often as leading-tone diminished to the ii chord and we all know how these works. This categeory will usually not have a relation to the tonic directly, but will tonicize something else.

Of course, any of the diminished chords can also function as leading tone diminished to any of the chords. And you can also have a common tone diminished to chords other than the tonic, as a form of tonicization. Really, I think that you just have to look to where it resolves. If it (or one of it's inversions) resolves to a chord that is a half-step up (or one of it's subs is) then it is a leading tone diminished. If it's character is that it (or it's inversions) is expanding a I or i (or a sub) whether real or through tonicization, then it is a common-tone diminished.

I'm making it sounds more complicated than it is. [sarcasm]Thank God I never do that.[/sarcasm]

And of course there is a whole other category of diminished chords that are not functional. In classical music we call them voice-leading chords - chords that have no real function but just arise because we are getting from one chord to another through the voice-leading chord and that is just a smooth path to get there. Chopin was a master of this - sometimes you analyze something of his and spend 10 minutes trying to analyze the function of a chord before you realize that it is not functional and you just have to label it "V.L."

But of course, in jazz usually the function is pretty clear once you know the basic functions. We don't get nearly as crazy as they do in classical.

Peace,
Kevin

Hey Kevin thanks for classical dim 101 refresher... But no that's not what I was referring when I brought up chromatic function.
When I play and look at jazz I tend to look at Dim. chord as Ascending, Descending or Auxiliary...Aux. being same root as chord of resolution, usually I or V... (I know there already is this very simple explanation, which you covered above), but my newer method of hearing Dim chords makes for simple re-harms.... Dim chords sound like you couldn't find the chord you were looking for in jazz the majority of time to me... There great for effect...personal thing, but like you always say... IMO. And yes we appear to agree that traditional voice-leading and classical tension resolve should be standard knowledge... but I don't follow many of those practices by choice... Our ears are very different when it comes to Jazz... hey that's a good thing right... Thanks again Reg

If you're interested in a book full of different examples on good voice leading you can see these 3 ones:

• Voice Leading For Guitar from Berklee (musical notation only)
• Diatonic Voice Leading Techniques (based on chord shapes)
• Advanced Chromatic Voice Leading Exercises Pt1 (based on chord shapes)

The first one requires good ability in sight reading instead the other ones do not.
Are good books to study jazz approach to voice leading based on guide tones, pedals, common tones, chromatic movement and so on.

have fun

Ale

Originally Posted by ksjazzguitar

That is an option, but I still think that the bb7 is the true "7" - not just in name but in function. But we also look at how the chord is functioning to see what the true guide tones are. For example, if the chord progression is Bdim7->CMaj7, then the guide tones in the dim chord are actually the root and 5th (B and F) because that Bdim7 is really just a sub for G7. It's easy to confuse voicing with harmonic function. But if the chord progression is Em7->Ebdim7->Dm7, then it is the 3rd and the 5th again because it connects the guide tones of the other chords.

I think that smooth connection is the most important thing. If you step into another voice to bring out an interesting line, then it's not the end of the world. By definition, you'll have to have a break in there somewhere or you'll but keep descending until you run out of frets. But if your goal is to pedantically play the guide tones to learn how to do it - a worthy goal - then consider what I said above.

Good luck.

Peace,
Kevin