Wes Montgomery Chord Scales

[m78w]

Hey Everyone,
Just posted a new lesson dealing with Wes Montgomery style chord scales using Secondary Dominant and Diminished chords, check it out, thanks!

Jazz Guitar Chords: Wes Montgomery Chord Scales | MattWarnockGuitar.com

[Kman]

Very nice !!! Thank you for spending the time to do this Matt. I will definately spend some time on this one.

[Drumbler]

Thank you!

[m78w]

no problem guys, some fun chord exercises for the weekend!

[andyhoey1]

Matt as always your input is invaluable for the struggling jazz guitarist such as myself. Just want to say thank you and keep up the great work.

Andy

[m78w]

No problem Andy, glad you dug it, more to come! If anyone has requests for lesson topics just let me know, helps give me ideas of what to write about.

[fep]

Hi Matt, Nice lesson, that definitely helped get those Wes connecting chords concept into my head.

One question, in the last example did you want that g# on beat 4 of m.1?

And beat 4 of m.2, the A7 going to a Gmaj7, that's not following the idea of leading to the next chord with it's dominant. I'm just confused about that chord.?

(I guess that's two questions)

Thanks for the article.

[m78w]

Hey,
those are two instances of Sibelius having a mind of it's own, got those fixed up, should be A7 to D7 and A7-D7-Gmaj7 in those two spots. Thanks!

[princeplanet]

Originally Posted by m78w

No problem Andy, glad you dug it, more to come! If anyone has requests for lesson topics just let me know, helps give me ideas of what to write about.

I have a suggestion. How about picking a famous bop solo and analyzing it from the perspective of what the soloist may have been thinking. Something like a Bird solo where there seems to be a system behind the thinking. I'm particularly interested in parts of solos where it's difficult to offer an explanation for the thinking other than "it sounded cool".... Wes and Benson are good examples of that, if we wanna confine things to guitarists.
Given your interest in patterns and just analysis in general, I for one would be interested to see if you think it's possible to get "inside the head" of some these cats.

[m78w]

Hey
I've thought about putting transcriptions on my site, but there are legal issues with that and I don't want to step on anyone's toes, I'll look into it more and see what I can come up with.

[JonnyPac]

Another nice one, Matt. Check this out, it's similar:

http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/Jazz/Line...%20Voicing.htm

Bert Ligon's "Never play chords when comping" lesson.

[m78w]

Cool, thanks! Bert gets into tritone subs and upper passing chords which I didn't get into in this lesson, definitely worth checking out!

[chuckmchi]

Hi,

Your post is the first that I have read on this forum. What a great way to start for me.

Outstanding lesson and well documented. I will be looking forward to more lessons from you.
Thanks.

[m78w]

Thanks Chuck, glad you dug it! You can find more

Guitar Lessons | MattWarnockGuitar.com

and my resource page as well

Guitar Resources | MattWarnockGuitar.com

Thanks!

[pierre richard]

good good stuff man..

food to consume and digest say...

bert ligon has a lot of good stuff on his site...

time on the instrument is most important...pierre

[m78w]

thanks Pierre, and for sure Bert's stuff is great!

[wagx3]

thanks!

[m78w]

no problem man, glad you dug it!

[Kman]

Originally Posted by m78w

No problem Andy, glad you dug it, more to come! If anyone has requests for lesson topics just let me know, helps give me ideas of what to write about.

Matt, how about a lesson on accompaniment? I know you gig a lot and maybe you can provide some insight, tips, tricks et .,.,

[m78w]

Sure i have a lesson coming up on 3rd and 7th voicings to use in a duo situation, i can follow that up with a few more comping lessons for sure

[m78w]

Kman: here is an audio lesson on comping with 3rds and 7ths ala Lenny Breau that you might dig.

Jazz Guitar Lessons: 3rds And 7ths on the Blues by Matt Warnock Guitar on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Check it out.

[Harleyboy]

Thanks! It will take me awhile to get my fingers to understand all of this but it will be worth the trouble.

[m78w]

Cool hope you have fun with it!

[Dark Star]

I know this would be a lot more work involved, but it would be nice to have some audio examples to go w/the staff

[m78w]

Yep, only so much time in the day, but I've started doing audio lessons on Soundcloud and more videos on YouTube and Facebook so more audio/video going forward.

[2bornot2bop]

Hi Matt,

I just downloaded your e-book. Thanks for posting a link to it on your sig for I wasn't aware of it. Looks like as good a place to begin as any.

In conjunction to that do you forsee providing future instruction on chord melody playing?

Anyway, just wanted to pass along a note of thanks for all the effort it took to put together your rather extensive e-book and providing it at a price affordable to all. I'm looking forward to getting started.

Many thanks!

Greg

[Prome]

Hey, Mat,

Thanks for sharing your article. Keep up the good work!

If you're open to a constructive discussion, I'd like offer another way at looking at the same information, which might change some of the chords you put in your article.

First -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- but those examples are not from Wes transcriptions, but rather they are your own ideas based on his work. They actually don't sound like Wes to me.

But I think I know why. Wes (and Pass, Johnny Smith, Kessel, et. al) used inversions of the V7b9/ii on iim7 chords, but I can honestly think of no instances where they used the V7b9/V as one of their passing chords in those kind of "chord scales."

Also, they pretty much never used that Drop-2 w/ the 7th in the bass, opting instead for a 6th in the bass. Starting w/ Am7, the "chord scale" they used (and heck, even pianists from Bud Powell forward) was more like this:




||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|




||---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|




||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|




||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



FRET 10
||---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



FRET 10
||---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



FRET 10
||---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



FRET 10
||---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



FRET 10
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-*-|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|



Barry Harris has an e-book online where he goes into a detailed argument about how this is just a harmonization of the C Major Bebop scale, saying that's how Powell and others thought of this. It's probably sacrilege to say it, but I disagree with him and others, like Randy Vincent (who in his book says much the same). For one of many reasons, I don't like this idea because we first have to think of the iim7 in G as the relative minor of C, and then work from there -- too much!

The classical cats all did this stuff too, namely they "prolonged" the sound of a chord by going back and forth from it to its related V7. In that sense, your article is spot on. But, in practice, the jazz cats we're talking about didn't do so on the V7, so those V7b9/V chords don't really sound right.

As I'm discussing in another thread, the one about "M7 as dominants," o7 chords push our ears to ii, iii, or vi, not I, IV, or V. Another thing is that many jazz musicians approach iim7 -> V7 -> I as iim7 -> iim7 -> I, meaning they improvise and harmonize iim7 chord ideas, but don't elaborate as often on the V7 the way you have it in your article.

[Dark Star]

Well it's making MY head explode, & I mean in a good way