chord inversions for "all the things you are"

[federer]

I'm working on chord melody for this standard (my first).I have charts from Ralph Patt's Jazz Web Page of the progression in Ab and I'm watching some of the players on youtube to try and pick up their chord shapes. I'm wondering if someone has a beginnner set of chord shapes they could refer me to or pass along. I know the melody note should be on top but it would take me a long time and a lot of trial and error to figure out the right inversions.
thanks...

[mr. beaumont]

well, this is the kind of practice you should be working on....finding the inversions yourself is the kind of thing that'll really teach you the fretboard.

that said, i'll be more than happy to give you a little help...here's the first melodic sequence, thru the C major chord in bars 7 and 8--ultra simplified. you'll hear the melody, but i'll leave it up to you to figure out the rhythm and move any bass notes...like ralph would say, here's the vanilla chords...read these diagrams left to right, low to high...x= don't play, 8 means 8th fret, etc...

Fm7 x 8 6 8 9 x
Bbm7 x x 8 10 9 9
Eb7 x 6 8 6 8 x
Abmaj7 x x 6 8 8 8
Dbmaj7 x 4 6 5 6 x
G7 x x 5 7 6 7
Cmaj7 x 3 5 4 5 x

now, when i actually do this tune i'll flesh it out quite a bit more, but this will get you started...good luck!

[m78w]

one thing you can do is figure out which interval is the melody note. For example on All theThings the first 8 bars are:

Fm7=3rd
Bbm7=3rd
Eb7=3rd
Abmaj7=3rd
Dbmaj7=3rd
G7=3rd
Cmaj7=3rd

So you can easily see the pattern, the next 8 bars is the same just in the keys of Eb and G.

So if you have any chord books or sheets of voicings just look for ones that have the 3rd in the top voice and you can apply any/all of those to the first 16 and last 12 bars of this tune!

MW

[federer]

Mr. Beaumont, MW
Thanks for responding..I know, I know. .but my wife is getting really tired of arpeggios..I need to complete a song.I'm going to break down these chords by scale degrees and work with MW's suggestion to identify voicings. This gives me lots to work on.
Oh, one other question. I'm seeing 3 II -V- I's in the progression, Ab,Eb,& G. In the key of Ab, Eb is the 3rd and G the 7th, guide tones, right? Would this be a common structure of composition to look for in other songs?
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and time.
SS

[m78w]

Hey,
Yeah guide tones are key! I would look at the 3rds and 7ths for each chord, not just the key you're in.

Fm7 = Ab, Eb
Bbm7= Ab,Db
Eb7= G,Db
Abmaj7=G,C
Dbmaj7=F,C
G7= F,B
Cmaj7= E,B

So you can see, but moving only one note, and the odd two note jump, you can comp and blow through all of the first 8 bars!

This is how Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert etc would play. They would play a line then comp the 3rd and 7th of the chord they were on. This gave them the ability to sound like a piano players two hands.

MW

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by m78w

This is how Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert etc would play. They would play a line then comp the 3rd and 7th of the chord they were on. This gave them the ability to sound like a piano players two hands.

MW

right on...that's how i do it to...though i'm no ed or lenny

[federer]

I see the pattern of the 3rd becoming the 7th of the successive chord. Seems like this could be very useful in linking stuff together, I'm going to key on this as I work further on the changes. If I understand your other comment, a more advanced player will use the 3rd & 7th to give the flavor of the chord and play lines around it to keep it lighter..more fluid ??

[m78w]

Yeah that's it, you want to use the 3rds and 7ths as a percussive idea. If you can listen to Bill Evans play a medium to up tempo tune and listen to how he comps. His left hand is just accenting what he is doing in the right with two or three note chords. These chords just fill in between his lines, or they accent certain notes within the line that he wants to bring out.

After you've checked Bill out go back and listen to Lenny, he's on Youtube playing a great version of Georgia that uses this stuff all over.

MW