The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 1 of 7 123 ... LastLast
Posts 1 to 25 of 162
  1. #1

    User Info Menu

    With the current Robert Conti discussions, I went back and looked at the Conti books I own. I was thinking a "Formula" study group might be interesting. I am not a great talent so I would probably want to spend more than one week on each lesson. I have regular lessons and I would be adding this to my practice routine. I thought it might be interesting to compare notes with other folks and eventually pick some tunes and each come up with chord sub arrangements for the first 8 bars or so. Anyway, just tossin' it out there.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

    User Info Menu

    In principle I could be interested but I just ordered the previous course, the "Assembly Line" and think I need to work on that for a few months before graduating to the "Formula"...

  4. #3

    User Info Menu

    Just a recommmendation...

    The majority of the chord forms that Conti uses in both The Formula and in his chord melody arrangements are the same forms you learn in Assembly Line. My suggestion is that you get those forms so well in hand that you can easiy arrange any tune you open a Real Book (or whatever fakebook) to "on the fly", regardless of what key it is in. If you have to fumble around to find chord forms, you will not be able to fully focus on what you are trying to learn in The Formula. You really need that vocabulary of chord forms to be able to experiment with the sounds Conti is providing you in The Formula. Also, it would be a good idea to play through some of his chord melody arrangements to get a sense of what the results from The Formula are, so you have a sense of what you are trying to achieve.

    In fact, Conti has several books of nothing but chord melody arrangements. These make really good references because when you are working with The Formula, if you are working on a tune that is also in one of Conti's arrangement books, you can look at it in his arrangement to see what he would do with the same tune and the same set of "rules" for generating new and interesting harmony. In his arrangements, he often gives you several measure with two or three sets of chords from which to choose. These arrangement books can serve as the "answers in the back of the book", so to speak, when you select the same tunes in fakebooks to arrange according to the guidelines presented in The Formula.

    When I say "you" I mean that in general, rather than a specific poster in this thread.

    Some people have commented that Assembly Line is "paint by numbers". But, really, everybody has their "favorite grips" as Joe Pass himself referred to them. Conti has his, and he shows them to you, but in such a way as to facilitate learning to harmonize ANY melody note in any musical situation. These forms are worth learning because they sound good together and because all of Conti's teaching materials for chord melody use them. Once yuo get into The Formula, any complaint about "paint by numbers" goes away immmediately, and that is really where thinigs get interesting - not that Assembly Line is boring, far from it. But with The Formula, you never have to play the same song the same way twice. That is ultimately where we want to be, especilly if memorizing some arrangement is as difficult for you as it is for me. Conti's approach is much more personally fulfilling and enjoyable.

    Also, though Conti hrmonizes every melody note in his arrangements, he does that only to show you the possibilities. He tells you to do what you want with the arrangement, play it as written, play chord fragements or no chords at all in places, or whatever you want. However, while working through Assembly Line (and using what you learn there to arrange fakebook tunes on the fly), I would suggest harmonizing every melody note to get these forms really deep into your hands so they become second nature. It will take months of playing song after song after song. Conti makes his approach easy to understand, but it still takes a lot of sustained effort to really get it into your hands. There are no shortcuts, and Conti doesn't promise any. What he does do is make the effort enjoyable because all the while, you are playing songs rather than exercises. The exercise is simply matching up the correct chord with the given melody note. Do it in the keys the tunes are written in, over and over until it comes easily without much thought or effort. When you get to The Formula, the exercise is applying various aspects of his concepts to hear what they sound like, figuring out what sounds good to you, and developing your wn chord melody style. All through the entire proocess, yuo are playing songs, rather than exercises and theory that you then have to figure out how to make music with. Conti isall about playing first and then learning to understand what you are doing, so he definitely says to learn your theory, but in the context of what you are already playing intuitively.

    So if you do want a study group, I would say that rather than trying to figure out if Conti is telling you to play this chord as borrowed from this parallel scale or why it works, focus instead on how you are using what he teaches to ceate sounds you like.

    Tony

  5. #4
    Tony, thoughtful reply, thanks. I've been working out CM in my regular lessons, I just found Conti's cycle approach in "The Formula" to be a bit of an "ah-hah" for me. I know my teacher has been moving me in that direction, but for some reason reading through "The Formula" pulled it together for me. I understand how folks who only know "Assembly Line" would find it to be "Paint by Number" or "Cookie Cutter", but "The Formula" seems to open it all up. Agreed that having inversions down is required before starting out with re-harmonization (or knowing the fingerboard and chord spellings cold). I had suggested a study group with the idea of folks working out something simple like harmonizing each note in the first 8 bars of a standard - I thought there might be some interesting things come out of it. I played through the first Reference tonight, and added some of my own reharms to it. I have to admit that at this time, I'm leaning more toward diatonic chords than to the chords Conti says "heat things up", but that is a personal thing, some of his chord choices don't resonate with me, but that is the beauty of "The Formula" - to me it's more a way of harmonizing a melody line than an actual formula; it's a set of guidelines that seem to be a starting point and you can go wherever you want to go.

    Anyway, maybe it's not good study group material. Perhaps I'll just keep working along with it on my own and with my teacher, and when I'm feeling more fluid I'll give it a go in the Practical Standards group. As I said, I don't have a lot of talent, I just have to grind it out until I get were I want to be. Pierre's "Time on the instrument .." line always makes me smile; I mentally append "for such little progress! Why do I do it?". Love of the music and wanting to make it, not just listen to it, I guess.

  6. #5

    User Info Menu

    ah.clem:

    A study/discussion group is a god idea. You mentioned having a teacher in addition to using the Conti books. For those of us who don't have a teacher other than the Conti books, I now believe that being very focused is a good way to stay motivated and on track. It has often been suggested when teaching creativity exercises in general, that one approach is to limit one's choices. The reason is that it can become overwhelming to have too many choices. Many of us have far too many resources in the form of books, DVDs, using the internet, etc. for input to our learning process. In addition, there are so many directions to take the guitar that one can get to the point of doing nothing at all due to indecision. I have seen the same questions over and over in various guitar forums as to what to do to get started or how to get motivated after lengthy time not playing, and have experienced these personally as well. It seems to me as if asking a centipede which foot goes first. In that kind of situation, David Sudnow, with his self-study piano course, provided the answer that made the most sense to me. Keep it simple, here are guidelines for voicing tunes, just do that for at least 15 or 20 tunes until you get it into your hands. After you become fluent in these basics, you can pretty much learn to play whatever you want from there.

    Apply that to Conti, and you have Assembly Line and then The Formula. One solution to the issue of not liking some of Conti's chords is to apply an idea I once got from a Joe Beck chord workut video. Start with a chord form you know and then just modify it by moving various fingers around to get a sound you like. But for me, I would want to stick with Conti's forms to get the whole process well in hand before starting to add other stuff in. Think of it like a juggler, adding one ball at a time, making sure not to add too many to the point where the juggler starts dropping them. A step at a time.

    Having a teacher to divide the work and pace you is a good thing. What I am suggesting is really for the self-teaching people such as myself who have to self-pace. Conti's books are great for that. Just his two books and a stack of Real Books and you are good for a few years of an enjoyable journey into the world of "song play" on the guitar. I don't consider that pursuit necessarily having to be "jazz", but instead it can be considered an enjoyable and fulfilling means of playing songs on the guitar. That way, we can enjoy the pursuit without having to justify it as real jazz or whatever some might choose to argue about. Clear all the semantics away and you just have people who want to play tunes on the guitar without the need for outside intervention in the form of having a band, a teacher, or whatever, since many peple have other obligations that preclude being able to schedule that kind of activity with any consistency, or deal with the various people issues that always come up in those situations. It can be a completely self-contained pursuit, perfect for the working adult with other bligations who doesn't have the time and/or money to schedule regular lessons but wants that daily quiet time to enjoy making music. I honestly can't think of a better, more cost effective solution to that problem expressed by so many adults who wish they could play an instrument. I am thinking of starting a blog just focused on that aspect of it because I have been in conversation with so many adults expressing that wish as well as reading so many in forums searching for that "secret sauce" that would alllow them t just play tunes on the guitar as a hobby. I really think Conti's chord melody mateial constitutes the best approach for adults in the situation I described that I have yet found, and I have shelves full of this kind of stuff.

    Tony

  7. #6

    User Info Menu

    Well said Tony, yeah, I would think that many adults out here would benifit from the Conti approach....But again, his cords are standard drop2/3...with minor variations....get those down first, then take a shot at the Formula.....

  8. #7

    User Info Menu

    and those same adults will find a much easier go of "making music" on a decent digital piano at the cost of $1k...which is about the price of a decent entry level archtop...but that won't get one playing guitar if that's their goal.

  9. #8

    User Info Menu

    I would be into the study group. It might be fun for a few of us to fool around on the same tune and exchange ideas/problems while trying to apply the lessons

  10. #9

    User Info Menu

    what is your point 2bornot2bop?.......

  11. #10

    User Info Menu

    Yes, songs can be played on a digital piano too. David Sudnow created a piano self-teaching method that was similar to what Conti does in Assembly Line, except that you voice each chord following relatively simple guidelines. The results sound quite good, providing the incentive to continue learning. I think The Formula would be a great add-on for the Sudnow piano method. I don't see that learning to play tunes from a fakebook on the piano or guitar using either method needs to be "jazz". These approaches really can be used by anybody to learn to play tunes as solo instrumentals in a satisfying manner. That was part of my point in my last post. There seems to be a certain amount of ego, or at least elitism, associated with jazz, and most people find that attitude to be a real turn-off, especially since for many people, "jazz" often seems quite unapproachable as listener or potential player. I really appreciate people such as David Sudnow (now deceased, though others have kept his site and method up and running) and Robert Conti taking elements from the jazz realm and making them accessible to those who just want to play tunes in a satisfying manner. Both are (were, in Sudnow's case) quite accomplished, but could still relate to the general population. Not everybody wants to spend their time plumbing the depths of jazz (or classical, or whatever), however rewarding that may be for those who wish to do so. These people are not necessarily lazy. In fact, many that I have met are very accomplished in their specialties and music for them would simply be a relaxing pasttime. Nothing wrong with that.

    Tony

  12. #11
    I used the Sudnow method tapes to get back into playing piano, and ended up studying solo jazz piano for a couple of years with a teacher. I was a bass and sax/flute player many years ago, always wanted to play solo jazz piano and CM guitar. I found the piano pretty straightforward but difficult, but CM guitar is really intimidating to me (who knows, my own neurosis). I study hard and I have a good teacher, but if I hadn't started way back with the Sudnow stuff (agreed, very similar to "Assembly Line") I never would have stepped up to wanting more from piano and taking lessons and in turn, getting the courage up to buy an archtop, spend a year learning chords and then walking into my first guitar lesson in 35 years and saying my goal was to play CM. Fortunately, I have a teacher that didn't laugh out loud or explain why I wasn't ready to do CM, or anything like that. He asked me what the first tune I wanted to learn was, whipped up an arrangement for me on the spot, and I spent a couple of months learning the simple chart by rote. I have also learned to analyse what he had done (and does) and started to write my own simple attempts at arrangements. I came into the lessons well grounded in theory, knew my scale and chord spellings, chord subs, ability to read both clefs (but not on guitar, still working on my guitar reading), and the willingness to work hard to learn CM. I am just now slowly seeing how to tie all these things together.

    I'm saying all this because, if I hadn't started with Sudnow years ago, I'd probably still just be playing bass and wishing I could play solo piano and CM guitar. No offense meant, 2B, but I can't see disparaging any method that gets someone playing music, whatever the instrument; we all have different goals and abilities.

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    When discussing solo guitar, or cord melody playing, is it or is it not jazz question always comes up at some point..For some players it is jazz, with added improv...and cord changes on the fly...Guys like Martin, Greene...for many ( maybe most of us) I would go with what another jazz guitarist called it and that would be playing in a jazz style.....We use jazz harmony, but limited or little improv...mostly arrangements....Utube is full of this, and many are very nice....there is room for the jazzers and the arrangement players....Both are good....( in my opinion).....

  14. #13

    User Info Menu

    For a casual listener though it definitely is jazz since it has the types of sounds that they associate with jazz. And you can definitely get "jazz" gigs playing canned CM arrangements verbatim.

    I think that regardless of our ambitions most of us will always be more towards the end of the spectrum where we are mostly playing memorised arrangements if we want to play solo guitar, since the jump in skill required to play an arrangement and improvise an arrangement on the fly is so huge.

  15. #14

    User Info Menu

    The one aspect of "jazz" that I find difficult to grasp is that it seems to cover such a wide musical territory that if soebody says "I enjoy listening to jazz", everybody who hears that comment will hear in their own heads what they consider jazz to be, or at least filter that statement with their own definition of jazz, and then react to that statement accordingly. I tend to think of "jazz" as being highly improvisational - a conversation between the musicians involved, even if the head is clearly stated at the outset. Again,that is my own definition, and does not impact the "rightness or wrongness" of anybody else's definition. I d think that the harmonic sensiibility of jazz can be aplied to fixed arrangements, as others here have said. I don't disagree with anything said here.

    My own interest in Conti's The Formula is that I don't have to memorize an arrangement, but can instead freely explore various ways of harmonizing the melody. My memory is a seive, s0 I have real incentive to take this route.

    To me, however a person chooses to approach enjoying music is fine. It isn't my place to judge whether another person's approach is real jazz or not, and especially whether another's approach is a valid means of approaching music. It seems to me that music is just something humans enjoy making, and I am quite interested i the ways some people, such as Sudnow and Conti have made it possible for anyone who cares to, to do so to whatever level each individual chooses. I detected absolutely no elitist or exclusionary attitude from either of these individuals in direct conversation. Both were truly interested in seeing people play the msic they wanted to play, regardless of what anyone chose to call it. Both were (are) into "jazz" as an improvisional skill, but seem to make no judgement about what others choose to do with their own efforts. That makes sense to me, where anything exclusionary does not.

    Tony

  16. #15

    User Info Menu

    Those are all good posts Tony.

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by artcore
    what is your point 2bornot2bop?.......
    the point was made about adults having a passion to make music. I made the point emphasizing making music for a beginner is easier on a piano, if making music was a beginners goal. that's all.

  18. #17

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by tbeltrans
    Yes, songs can be played on a digital piano too. David Sudnow created a piano self-teaching method that was similar to what Conti does in Assembly Line, except that you voice each chord following relatively simple guidelines. The results sound quite good, providing the incentive to continue learning. I think The Formula would be a great add-on for the Sudnow piano method. I don't see that learning to play tunes from a fakebook on the piano or guitar using either method needs to be "jazz". These approaches really can be used by anybody to learn to play tunes as solo instrumentals in a satisfying manner. That was part of my point in my last post. There seems to be a certain amount of ego, or at least elitism, associated with jazz, and most people find that attitude to be a real turn-off, especially since for many people, "jazz" often seems quite unapproachable as listener or potential player. I really appreciate people such as David Sudnow (now deceased, though others have kept his site and method up and running) and Robert Conti taking elements from the jazz realm and making them accessible to those who just want to play tunes in a satisfying manner. Both are (were, in Sudnow's case) quite accomplished, but could still relate to the general population. Not everybody wants to spend their time plumbing the depths of jazz (or classical, or whatever), however rewarding that may be for those who wish to do so. These people are not necessarily lazy. In fact, many that I have met are very accomplished in their specialties and music for them would simply be a relaxing pasttime. Nothing wrong with that.

    Tony
    David's novel 'Write a Book' has some interesting insights into the mind of a self taught musician.

    It's free and in pdf but it's too large to upload here:

    http://www.sudnow.com/index.php?page...ial&cat_id=242

    David was very inventive, and even went so far to devise a tab style notation to assist towards getting a total non reader to play. How kewl!

    I like his philosophy on practicing with the goal of not making mistakes.

    Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 01-25-2013 at 04:41 PM.

  19. #18

    User Info Menu

    I just ordered the assembly line last night and would be willing to be part of a study group. I've played guitar for a long time but I'm just trying to add some jazz flavoring to my playing. I've always wanted to build up a repertoire of solo pieces and this sounds like it might have the potential to guide me in that direction. Honestly, a paint by numbers or assembly line approach sounds good to me! I figure if I can get the basics down I can always improvise from there.

  20. #19

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
    David's novel 'Write a Book' has some interesting insights into the mind of a self taught musician.

    It's free and in pdf but it's too large to upload here:

    The Sudnow Method ≅ Student Club ≅ Miscellaneous Info From David

    David was very inventive, and even went so far to devise a tab style notation to assist towards getting a total non reader to play. How kewl!

    I like his philosophy on practicing with the goal of not making mistakes.

    Yes, that (partial) book is an interestig read, as is his "Ways of the Hand", in which he documents his process of learning play. I had many opportunities back in the 90s, to talk to him in person. The video you linked was a recording straight out of hs tapes. He had two inventive "tab" styles. One was his "dot system", in which he made pictures of the keyboard with dots where your fingers go for each stop of a song to play. The second was a "fraction notation" that was a very quick shorthand to notate how you voiced a chord under a melody note right in your fakebook as you were voicing your own tunes, so you could remember what you did.

    However, what was unique with both of these notational systems was that his ultimate goal for the student was to use these as training wheels and drop them both as sooon as possible. He was not at all about written music, preferring an improvisational approach to playing. However, he also said to do whatever was most comfortable. If you always want to play from a fakebook, as long as you are voicing your own chords and always experimenting with new harmonies, go for it. If you want to learn to play completely without music, he described in detail how to start by picking out simple melodies and progressing to being able to pick out the melody to the tunes you wanted to play by ear and then supplying the chords on the spot, so to speak, avoiding books and sheet music altogether. He talked at length about how we should have a "hero", such as Bill Evans, whom we would listen to over and over again very carefully (just listening and not doing anything else at the same time), getting each tune into our ears and absorbing the sounds, always about the sounds rather than the theory and all the talk and thinking about playing.

    Sudnow said that having to rely on music books to play was like going to a museum and forgetting your glasses so you couldn't see anything. A real musician should, in his opinion, not need to turn down requests as long as s/he could hum the tune - have the skills to play it - then you are a "musician". I never heard him even consider memorizing somebody else's arrangement so you could recite it back verbatim - except as a means of taking somebody else's style, and then making it your own. He was defnitely "old school" like Conti. They both are all about playing tunes, rather than having to go to school and studying all manner of theory learning about how music should work, rather than just doing it.

    He recommended initially two possible fakebooks to work with. One was the Hal Leonard "Ultimate Jazz Fakebook" (C Edition), or better yet, the Real Book Fifth Edition (if you could find it). Later on, Dick Hyman's two books came out and he recommended them too. I have all three original Real Books plus Jazz LTD and now all four Hal Leonard Real Books, with volume 5 coming out next month, finally. In addition, I have several other real books from the original era, such as "The Book" and "The Musician's Club Date Book" and a few others, equaly obscure but in a similar style to the well known Fith Edition. I just open one of these and play from it. I like all of these much better than anything else.

    Sudnow was a smart guy and I am glad to have known him. So is Conti, and I have had the priviledge to talk to him on the phone a few times. Both were/are very generous and interested in giving everybody a chance to approach music on their own terms with guidance as needed.

    Tony
    Last edited by tbeltrans; 01-25-2013 at 09:04 PM.

  21. #20

    User Info Menu

    Forgive my lack of understanding, I have looked at the Conti site and do not understand which books are being addressed, please advise. This looks interesting, but I must orient myself.

  22. #21

    User Info Menu

    This is the link to the page "Source Code DVDs". The books being discussed are the "Chord Melody Assembly Line" and "The Formula". These are books that come with DVDs in which Conti explains the book's material to you in detail, much like a "live" teacher might. Another useful book for chord melody is in the same series "Intros, Endings, and Turnarounds", thought we have not been discussing it specifically here.

    Jazz Guitar Instruction by a verifiable professional - Robert Conti - No Modes No Scales® Jazz Guitar

    Tony
    Last edited by tbeltrans; 01-27-2013 at 03:27 PM.

  23. #22

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

    I like his philosophy on practicing with the goal of not making mistakes.
    Wow. I enjoyed hearing David Sudnow talk about practicing without making mistakes. I downloaded the pdf and will give it a look. I think he's right about how we can learn too fast and learn things wrong. The older I get, the more I realize I spend for too much time trying to untangle lines that I KNOW but still get wrong because, well, I learned 'em wrong. I'm going to look for more stuff by him. Thanks for posting this!

  24. #23

    User Info Menu

    Will have to put the intro's, endings and turnarounds on my buy list.....I had the book Ron Eschete put out on this topic and damn if I didn't loose it when moving to Florida....It was a good one....

  25. #24

    User Info Menu

    I'm working on Conti's "Precision Technique" now and it is a breakthrough book for me. I wish I had discovered it decades ago. (Well, it may not have been around that long ago....) This has done more for my technique in less than a month than every other technique book I've ever worked in. (And I got a couple cardboard boxes full of 'em!) I think it helps to play long lines that aren't scales. The Mickey Baker book, by way of contrast, has lots of short patterns that one plays up and down the neck, which is of some value, but it's nothing like playing a 20-30 measure piece over and over!

    I'm sold on Conti's approach and will get to the "Assembly Line", though I may work through "Jazz Lines" first.

    Glad to see so much interest in Conti here!

  26. #25

    User Info Menu

    Mark, could you elaborate as to how Conti helped with your technique? Also what book are you referring to? Is the name of the book Precision Technique?

    thanks