The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    check out dusan bogdanovic

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #127
    I almost don't know what the thread here is anymore. So I will throw in my 2 cents on the Classical/Flamenco/Jazz guitar idea.

    I taught myself how to play from age 8-18. I went to school and studied classical guitar [that I now have taught at a Major University for over 35 years]. I say this just to show I have earned the right to have an opinion.

    From the beginning I listened to Country, Folk, Rock, Jazz and Classical. Through it all what held my attention was the guy playing solo guitar and keeping everything going. That had a great appeal to a kid growing up on a farm with no bands to fit into.

    My listening cycled this way; The Beatles [mostly George and Paul], Chet Atkins, Jose Feliciano, Mason Williams, David Crosby, Julian Bream, James Taylor, Lenny Breau, Andres Segovia [a bit of backpedaling], John Williams, a little Wes Montgomery, Ralph Towner, lots and lots of Ralph Towner, Pepe Romero, Gerardo Nunez, Tommy Emmanuel...

    Always drawn to the finger style playing regardless of musical genre. The solo artist.

    I simply don't care what music they play if it can speak to the Human struggle with just the sound of the guitar. This is my tribe.

    I would say to all here, "Please don't fight as to which music/player is sophisticated or rustic. Who 'rocks' and who doesn't. Listen to what moves you and steal from the Best!".

  4. #128

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zhivago
    Sorry if someone mentioned it already, I haven't read all the posts yet (but I will).

    The thing is that Adam Rogers, amazing jazz guitarist, plays with Chris Potter, Brian Blade, and all the great jazzers from nowadays, well, he did 4 or 5 years of classic guitar. Check out the album line by line by John Pattitucci. He plays some kinda classical stuff in there, his technique is amazing btw.
    I just downloaded that album line by line. I'm going to check it out, sounds like that guitar player might play like pasquale grasso with that classical background!


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  5. #129

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    Quote Originally Posted by jack_gvr
    Not a question of "belief", which cuts no ice, but of "knowing"

    It's not an issue provided you spend the necessary time practicing the techniques that you will actually use in improvising. (Speaking about the right hand specifically here but in general this applies to everything.)


    What constitutes an "awkward passage" for the right hand? There are, after all, only six strings and five fingers, so how many combinations can there be? An "awkward passage", by me, is anything where you have to do right-hand cross-fingerings. My daily scale practice includes not only the several combinations of two fingers recommended by Segovia in his book of beginner scales, but also combos of three and four fingers: i-m-a, a-m-i, c-a-m-i, i-m-a-c, and more rarely c-a-m and m-a-c. I use these not only for scales but for seventh-chord extension arpeggio patterns: (which I combine freely with scales in improv)

    Code:
    ----------------4-5-4------------------------------
    --------------5-------5----------------------------
    ------------6-----------6--------------------------
    --------6-7---------------7-6----------------------
    ----4-7-----------------------7-4------------------
    --5--------------------------------5---------------
    This pretty much covers cross-fingerings. I actually avoid cross-fingerings in practice by the technic described in the next para, but they don't hang me up when I do use them.

    "i-m", obviously, is the strongest and fastest combo for straight scales, cross-fingerings not being an obstacle there. The trick with more complex passages is to learn to intelligently interpolate the "a" and "c" fingers (as well as the thumb) to facilitate string crossings. There is a simple logic to this, hard to describe, and as difficult to train as anything else, but once you have it going it works, and I don't think about it while I'm playing any more. The "a" and "c" fingers advance toward the higher pitched strings, the "i" finger and thumb reach toward the lower pitched strings, and then the "i-m" combo picks up again until the next "awkwardness". I don't think that this is in principle much more difficult than training crosspicking and sweep picking with a flatpick.

    For instance, in an ascending scale passage, I may reach ahead to each new (higher) string with the "a" finger, otherwise proceeding with "i-m". Descending, I will play the last note on a string with "a", then reach down to the next string with either "i" or "m". When I reach up across several strings I lead with "c". When there are two notes on a string ascending, the last one is played with "i". When there are two notes on a string descending, the last one is played with "a" or "c". Planning is minimized in favor of simple operating rules. (I do most of this with rest-stroke, which maintains a more secure connection of my fingers to the strings so I don't lose the position.)
    I have learned to do this as a matter of course and don't think about it, but I admit that it has been a very difficult technic to teach.


    I have never been an advocate or user of the thumb-index combo for scale passages, which many guitarist swear by. The tone is - in my opinion of course - lousy compared to reststrokes with the fingers. (On an electric this tone difference doesn't sound as bad, but on un-amplified nylon strings the difference is huge. ) I use the thumb for the low note of arpeggios, for bass note runs which usually include slurs (ie, hammer-ons & pull-offs in classical-speak), for banjo-style rolls, and for bass lines generally.



    Right, well, I don't swing, I still sound like a classical player. The up and down motion of the pick, and the similar effect of thumb/index, facilitate swing where my techniques don't. Touche'.
    Yeah you didn't mention the p=thumb in the combo for practice?

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  6. #130

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    Quote Originally Posted by fumblefingers
    umm hmm.

    i was surprised by his biographical DVD that came out a few years ago near his retirement. he points out that his original inspiration was Django - and jazz! Then he heard Segovia and decided what he really wanted to do. he could play Nuages i believe it was, and in fact is shown bending strings while playing it and otherwise jamming with his friends in a decades old TV show filmed from his apartment after hours. grooovy baby!

    he played an archtop in an army jazz/stage band while in the service after discovering that soldiering was not his cup of tea (almost cut his hand with his bayonette and started crying like a baby).

    he also recounts a story where S. Grappelli asked him to play a solo on a tune in a jazz club. Bream worked up a memorized solo - one chorus. it sounded so good on the bandtstand that Grappelli signaled him to play another. he said he wanted to kill Grapelli because he didn't have another worked up.

    and like fellow Brits George Harrison and John McLaughlin, he also became enamored with Indian classical music in the groovy 60s (or 70s, can't remember). the film shows him jamming with a solid sitar playing man or whatever. He said his thinking at the time was (paraphrasing) "why not just go off and improvise and play whatever I want, and be free". etc. thankfully for us of course, that didn't happen.
    It's not a sitar those are upright like the double bass. The instrument is called a Saroud

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  7. #131

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    Dunno if that got mentioned here already. Legato is a big thing in classical and needs a lot of time to get the technique good enough. When I jumped to jazz, first thing I noticed its considered "lazy" or a "shortcut".. That was strange. In classical, legato is used to make phrases sound more fluid. They are marked everywhere in the scores... I couldn't understand why jazzers had to play at "100% velocity" all times.

  8. #132

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    Quote Originally Posted by neilio
    As a classical player, too, as well as jazz, I'll give my "Amen". But, can I at least have my jazz "charts" and my "Real Book" handy?

    I've found that studying different styles has improved all of them, to one degree or another. An interesting fact: when you study/play different styles, many times, you're also playing on different instruments. This can also be beneficial, in that you will have less tendency to rely on "muscle-memory", and will have to "learn" the fretboard, scales, chords, and so on. A classical neck just ain't the same as my Les Paul 50's neck, which is different than my es-335, which is not the same as a Fender neck....you get the idea. You'll have to mentally "slow-down" enough to adjust to your instrument, music style, and playing style (pick or fingers).
    All that being said, adding other styles to your study will help you a lot.
    It seems to me that since there's improvisation in jazz you have to know a lot more theory than in classical where, unless your composing, all you need to do is be able to read and have good technique.

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  9. #133

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    all you need to do is be able to read and have good technique.
    then I'll use a machine...

    But unfortunately you are right... modern educational system turned many classical players in meaningless reading machines.

  10. #134

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    Quote Originally Posted by FZ2017
    It seems to me that since there's improvisation in jazz you have to know a lot more theory than in classical where, unless your composing, all you need to do is be able to read and have good technique.

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    There are some great Julian Bream BBC masterclass clips (they may be on YouTube somewhere) where the student first plays the piece flawlessly with great technique, and I’m thinking, wow, wish I could play that piece as well as that. Then Bream takes over and shows how they have been paying insufficient attention to the musical possibilities in the piece, such as phrasing, dynamics, tone colour etc. He plays the first few bars with just a few subtle changes of this nature, and then the piece REALLY comes to life, to the extent that the student’s performance starts to sound mediocre by comparison.

    So a classical player needs interpretation skills too. And this can involve a lot of personal and creative choices to make when playing a piece.

  11. #135

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    There are some great Julian Bream BBC masterclass clips (they may be on YouTube somewhere) where the student first plays the piece flawlessly with great technique, and I’m thinking, wow, wish I could play that piece as well as that. Then Bream takes over and shows how they have been paying insufficient attention to the musical possibilities in the piece, such as phrasing, dynamics, tone colour etc. He plays the first few bars with just a few subtle changes of this nature, and then the piece REALLY comes to life, to the extent that the student’s performance starts to sound mediocre by comparison.

    So a classical player needs interpretation skills too. And this can involve a lot of personal and creative choices to make when playing a piece.
    Julian Bream is a genius!

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  12. #136

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    Quote Originally Posted by Billy Stewart
    I have studied with Ralph Towner. In my opinion (I will not say humble opinion as that editorial should be one ascribed to me -or not- by others), Ralph is a rare and unique example of what is best in combining Jazz and Classical. Yet I never see him given his due in this thread.

    Why is that? Am I that out of touch with what this thread (Classical vs. Jazz) is supposed to be about?

    Just asking...

    Best to All!
    I always feel obliged to contribute to threads when Ralph is mentioned. You are indeed fortunate to have studied with him. He is, in my opinion, a modern day musical genius. Historically, musical ‘labels’ such as ‘classical’ and ‘jazz’ were largely used to assist in categorising music for radio audiences and I have often wondered whether having these rigid tram lines hinder musicality.

    Surely there are just two types of music, good and bad. If classical guitarists weren’t hemmed in by the expectation that they cannot improvise then maybe we would see more players like Ralph Towner who cross the divide and just play wonderful music. I bet Ralph never sat down and put himself firmly into one category or another.

    Incidentally, I play both classical and jazz although I’d prefer to say I just play. Hopefully it is good!

  13. #137

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    Quote Originally Posted by CP40Carl
    I always feel obliged to contribute to threads when Ralph is mentioned. You are indeed fortunate to have studied with him. He is, in my opinion, a modern day musical genius. Historically, musical ‘labels’ such as ‘classical’ and ‘jazz’ were largely used to assist in categorising music for radio audiences and I have often wondered whether having these rigid tram lines hinder musicality.

    Surely there are just two types of music, good and bad. If classical guitarists weren’t hemmed in by the expectation that they cannot improvise then maybe we would see more players like Ralph Towner who cross the divide and just play wonderful music. I bet Ralph never sat down and put himself firmly into one category or another.

    Incidentally, I play both classical and jazz although I’d prefer to say I just play. Hopefully it is good!
    They do affect musicality! The greats like Mingus and Zappa just said they play music. It's all music man. People need to get more eclectic and mix and mash all the styles together. Phish and King Crimson do a good job of that. As does Henry Cow.

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  14. #138

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    Oh and your right about Towner. He's a monster! I've been listening to Clifford Brown with Max Roach, Curtis Mayfield, and Rush lately. Mixed in with a little Stravinsky and Bach to fuse an interesting gumbo. Now that's a mix and mash of styles!

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  15. #139

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    Quote Originally Posted by neilio
    As a classical player, too, as well as jazz, I'll give my "Amen". But, can I at least have my jazz "charts" and my "Real Book" handy?

    I've found that studying different styles has improved all of them, to one degree or another. An interesting fact: when you study/play different styles, many times, you're also playing on different instruments. This can also be beneficial, in that you will have less tendency to rely on "muscle-memory", and will have to "learn" the fretboard, scales, chords, and so on. A classical neck just ain't the same as my Les Paul 50's neck, which is different than my es-335, which is not the same as a Fender neck....you get the idea. You'll have to mentally "slow-down" enough to adjust to your instrument, music style, and playing style (pick or fingers).
    All that being said, adding other styles to your study will help you a lot.
    What's interesting about playing a classical piece is interpretation. That's the modern day classical players improvisation. Now Bach was one hell of an improviser! So was Frank Zappa on the guitar. Instant Composition!

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  16. #140

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    Quote Originally Posted by FZ2017
    Oh and your right about Towner. He's a monster! I've been listening to Clifford Brown with Max Roach, Curtis Mayfield, and Rush lately. Mixed in with a little Stravinsky and Bach to fuse an interesting gumbo. Now that's a mix and mash of styles!

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    Here’s to variety. I’m currently working on a Brouwer sonata and my friend is getting me tickets to see Slayer on their final tour - I’m a little bit anxious about the Slayer thing though but will try to keep an open mind. Bill Frisell and Pat Metheney are perhaps more my thing on the electric guitar!

  17. #141

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    When listening to KoKo, lets say by fats Navarro, to hear the chord changes do you listen to the piano or are they implied? Cause there's no guitar but the pianos gotta be playing the chords right? I know if there's no instrument in the ensemble with harmonic possibilities the chords are definitely implied then right?

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  18. #142

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    Quote Originally Posted by FZ2017
    When listening to KoKo, lets say by fats Navarro, to hear the chord changes do you listen to the piano or are they implied? Cause there's no guitar but the pianos gotta be playing the chords right? I know if there's no instrument in the ensemble with harmonic possibilities the chords are definitely implied then right?

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    I think it depends on the music. If there's a piano and bass, then I'll use both to figure out the changes.

    If there's no harmonic instrument, then really you have to combine the bass line with what you think are the important chord tones in the soloist's lines, to work it out.

    Also depends on the style, if it's a 'standard' type tune and you are familiar with a lot of those tunes, after a while you can sort of guess what many of the changes are because they all ultimately use similar harmonic moves (such as 2-5-1 etc).

    On the other hand if it's a Wayne Shorter or ECM-type thing, it may be more difficult to pin down.

  19. #143

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    By the way if you're trying to figure out KoKo (i.e. by Charlie Parker), it is the same chords as 'Cherokee', apart from the introduction (I don't know if Navarro includes the intro, I don't know his version). In fact Parker's KoKo isn't really a 'tune' as such, just a fast 'composed' intro, then he goes straight into his solo. The intro has no piano and no chord changes really, it's on an implied Bb pedal as I recall.

    (There is also a completely different tune by Duke Ellington called Koko, I assume you didn't mean that.)

  20. #144

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    What I've enjoyed most about classical style guitar is composing tunes in the classical style. Nowadays, other than my own tunes I'm not that interested in playing classical guitar. Well not quite, if the material is easy enough to site read I enjoy playing classical pieces. Grinding away learning a difficult classical piece is just not for me. I find it an unrewarding use of my time... too much time spent on a single tune.

  21. #145

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    Very old thread but I just found it now, let me in, and let me share my experiences about this. I have been visiting classical music school and learnt flute about 6 years long, saxophone for a half year, or so, classical piano, and jazz guitar in conservatory (3 years long), now I am learning in college (jazz guitar also). And I am teaching classical because where I live jazz is unfortunately not so common but classical is, so all we have to do is teach classical with no classical guitar background. And that is a pain in the ass... In my view in official school we all should leran classical for about 4-5 years long, and then change to jazz (whoever wants). It is a must to get that classical background in this instrument because of the sight reading. I am a pick player so right hand technique is not a problem in this case but the sight reading is...

  22. #146

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    Quote Originally Posted by mrblues
    Very old thread but I just found it now, let me in, and let me share my experiences about this. I have been visiting classical music school and learnt flute about 6 years long, saxophone for a half year, or so, classical piano, and jazz guitar in conservatory (3 years long), now I am learning in college (jazz guitar also). And I am teaching classical because where I live jazz is unfortunately not so common but classical is, so all we have to do is teach classical with no classical guitar background. And that is a pain in the ass... In my view in official school we all should leran classical for about 4-5 years long, and then change to jazz (whoever wants). It is a must to get that classical background in this instrument because of the sight reading. I am a pick player so right hand technique is not a problem in this case but the sight reading is...
    If you're a pick player does the whole classical fingering technique give you trouble? And do you teach your kids to use nails?

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  23. #147

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    At the beginner levels it doesnt give me trouble. But when I try to sight read a Bach piece, which consist of 3-4 voices, that gives me trouble, yes. I have a very good friend, who is classical guitarist, and he is showing me things, so I am trying my best but the jazz college is the first now. I teach the kids to use their fingertips instead of nails.

  24. #148

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    Quote Originally Posted by mrblues
    At the beginner levels it doesnt give me trouble. But when I try to sight read a Bach piece, which consist of 3-4 voices, that gives me trouble, yes. I have a very good friend, who is classical guitarist, and he is showing me things, so I am trying my best but the jazz college is the first now. I teach the kids to use their fingertips instead of nails.
    You know if they ever want to go to a major conservatory for classical guitar they will fail there audition if they don't use nails!

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  25. #149

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    Hello, thought this might help you.

    ive played a lot of Bach on classical guitar, for whatever reason, it seems to favor beginning on the M plucking finger, alternating with I. Starting on I, ime, doesn’t work out as nicely.

    hope that helps

  26. #150

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    There are some great Julian Bream BBC masterclass clips (they may be on YouTube somewhere) where the student first plays the piece flawlessly with great technique, and I’m thinking, wow, wish I could play that piece as well as that. Then Bream takes over and shows how they have been paying insufficient attention to the musical possibilities in the piece, such as phrasing, dynamics, tone colour etc. He plays the first few bars with just a few subtle changes of this nature, and then the piece REALLY comes to life, to the extent that the student’s performance starts to sound mediocre by comparison.

    So a classical player needs interpretation skills too. And this can involve a lot of personal and creative choices to make when playing a piece.
    A few years ago, my teacher asked me to help Oscar Ghiglia, a longtime good friend of his, with an unrelated non musical matter, which I did. I eventually got to meet Oscar, and heard him give a master class to Northwestern University graduate students ( The woman who heads the guitar department at Northwestern school of music is a former student of Oscar’s, and always has him come and perform every year). I mean, these graduate students were serious players of course, but the advice Oscar imparted on their interpretive skills was HUGE. You could hear the differences almost immediately, even a schlump like me noticed.

    For those that do not know, Oscar was Segovia‘s most famous student, studying with the maestro for 10 years. I found him to be a very nice, down to earth guy with a very quick wit and an articulate, very cultured point of view.

    I was thinking about the relationship between Jazz and classical players. I remember this conversation I had with my old teacher; he recounted in an interview with Studs Terkel in 1968 that becoming a professional classical Player after already being a professional jazz musician helped keep him sane , Because the sad reality is, being a professional jazz musician meant playing your heart out in a a bar or a club in which most people are talking over you, don’t really give a shit, and are more concerned with getting drunk and barely noticing the music at all. The much more respected classical venues at least meant people were paying attention to the music. .

    He had this great story, he was playing electric guitar with the singer Peggy Lee in her band at a small jazz club in Chicago. Before anyone else would arrive, he would show up early and bring his classical guitar to keep his chops up-to-date and practice the classical repertoire in a room away from everybody else. One day when he was doing this, as he finished, he heard a noise and looked behind. It was Peggy Lee, and she had heard the entire practice repertoire and was in tears and demanded that he perform a solo classical set before hrr Jazz group played. He happily complied and did double duty .

    This double duty kind of created this attitude in which his fellow musicians saw all that green grass over there. Oscar for example, was always wowed by his Jazz playing, and conversely, every time Joe Pass would come into town, he would always demand that he played classical guitar for him. After he would finish, Joe would always say something like, “Man, what do you play is real art and when I play is bullshit “. Talk about being humble and self deprecating. Wow.

    By the way, Bream asked him to play jazz with him in a duet setting . It did not go well at all, he felt Bream was stuck in the 1930s and was downright brutal with the guitar . That is actually not a surprise conclusion for anyone who has watched Bream’s DVD documentary of his life, when he subbed for a jazz big band for a Fiver in London. The big bandleader thanked him for his service and said if he showed up tomorrow, he would give him a rhythm guitar lesson

    Thank God he had his day job !

    The other thing I want to say about the relationship between jazz and classical is another story my teacher said about long ongoing conversations he had with Jimmy Weible decades ago. Jimmy was developing his ideas about two line counterpoint on an improvised basis , and my teacher convinced him the in order to develop these ideas more fully, he needed to develop his right hand in a more systematic way by taking formal classical guitar lessons. Finally Jimmy agreed, and my teacher flew out to LA to help him get a very nice guitar with one of the famous Spanish guitar makers he knew. I believe the Jimmy actually studied classical with the Brazilian guy who played with the modern jazz quartet among others and lived in United States for many years . Not Baden Powell or Luis Bonfa, I can never remember his name.

    The point is, Jimmy studied classical guitar not to perform classical music, but to develop his technical skills in order to musically develop his jazz improv two line improv ideas better.