The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hello All,

    Welcome to the Solo Guitar Arranging Group! We've reached a milestone!! This is song thread #10, The Nearness of You, which was included in a recent poll of song suggestions for the group.

    Players of all levels and abilities are welcome to participate here. Please join us!

    Also, if you'd like to post arrangements of our prior songs, please do so on those song threads and keep them alive:

    #1 Days of Wine and Roses
    #2 Here's That Rainy Day
    #3 Tenderly
    #4 Shadow of your Smile
    #5 Moon River
    #6 Stella by Starlight
    #7 Laura
    #8 Emily
    #9 In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

    The idea is to start a different song thread periodically and encourage everyone to post a video or recording of how they would play/arrange that particular tune for solo guitar (i.e. with no other accompaniment).

    Group Guidelines

    Here are general guidelines for the group.

    1. All levels of players are strongly encouraged to participate, from beginners on up. We hope the group may even be rewarded occasionally, if not often, with contributions by seasoned pros and prominent guitarists. However, no matter your skill level you are strongly encouraged to join in. If you are open to hearing constructive comments and suggestions from the group, please indicate so in your post (e.g. indicate "c&c welcome" in the title of your post).

    2. The arrangement can be easy and simple, or elaborate and complex, or simply playing it on the fly. It’s all about each person’s own interpretation and approach.

    3. After posting the arrangement, each person is encouraged to also post (in a video, on a recording or in writing) their approach to the song, or to specific parts of the song. This explanatory content can be in as much or as little detail as desired (or none at all). If the person is seeking specific help from the group this is a good place to ask for it.

    4. Written notations of the arrangement are certainly not expected. Each person can decide how to handle any such requests from the group.

    5. Future song selections and frequency will be made based on suggestions received and what appears to be a consensus. I’ll try and post a lead sheet for each song selection if that would be helpful. Of course, people can still play the song in any key (or keys) they choose.

    6. Encouragement to each person for their contributions are encouraged. Unless the performer indicates a willingness to hear criticisms (see #1 above), participants should not offer criticisms of individual performances. Advice should only be offered if the person specifically asks for it. Even then resist criticizing anything to do with the interpretation or "artsy" side of the performance and comment on techniques and tips instead (for example playing a particular passage or suggesting chord embellishments, etc.)

    7. Participation in group discussions is encouraged for all, even if a person does not want to personally post their own arrangements at present for whatever reason.

    Goals of Group

    1. To encourage each other to become better solo guitar players and to share knowledge and skills in a friendly and helpful setting. If we individually work up an arrangement and then bring it to the group, it will be invaluable to see how people handled the song or specific parts of the song. We will all enhance our guitar skills and vocabulary. New ideas or approaches would even be useful to the most advanced players.

    2. To increase our repertoire of solo guitar songs.

    3. To build confidence in playing for others, sharing our skills and in recording ourselves.

    Since there is a new thread for each song, there is no time pressure to keep up with the group. People can post to each song thread when they’re ready to.

    As discussed above, there are separate thread for our prior songs. If you want to post a video or recording of one of those, it’s never too late. Please do so in those threads and help keep them going!

    I've attached a lead sheet of The Nearness of You if it would be helpful.

    We hope everyone will join in and participate however you choose.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Oops, tried to edit my post and deleted it by mistake

    OK, so I've played this a lot, and some arrangement ideas came to me quickly, so I figured, what the hell. It's pretty sloppy and I may re-do it. In keeping with calls on the other thread to explain our thought processes, here's what I was thinking ...

    It's a fairly simple tune, and I find that a straightforward "vanilla" c-m falls pretty naturally, so I wanted to not do that. First A has dense sounding chords and quite a bit of reharmonization. Feel free to ask me to spell out voicings. Second A is sparse, with some two-voice counterpoint. Bridge goes back to density and reharm. Third A/ending is much straighter, which I thought gave it more resolution. The improv chorus was just that, with no plan, and some sloppiness in time and articulation that I'll try to clean up in a re-do. But I thought it had some moments, so I kept it. The last A repeats the beginning of the tune



    Thanks for listening. Comments welcome.
    John
    Last edited by John A.; 12-12-2018 at 11:16 AM.

  4. #3

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    fantastic playing as always. I especially liked your guitar tone on this one also.

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by joe2758
    fantastic playing as always. I especially liked your guitar tone on this one also.
    Thanks Joe. It's hard for me not to hear clams and stumbles almost to the exclusion of everything else, so compliments are appreciated.

    John

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    Thanks Joe. It's hard for me not to hear clams and stumbles almost to the exclusion of everything else, so compliments are appreciated.

    John
    That's probably just part of improvising I would guess. Mine are pretty much 100% arranged and I still have clams haha. I'm getting faster and faster at arranging them so I think that's promising.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by joe2758
    That's probably just part of improvising I would guess. Mine are pretty much 100% arranged and I still have clams haha. I'm getting faster and faster at arranging them so I think that's promising.
    I've definitely gotten faster at coming up with arrangements. This study group has been very helpful in that regard.

    John

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    ...Comments welcome.
    John
    I like it a lot, but especially the 2nd half. Your playing felt freer, fluid and expressive the 2nd time around. I’ll give this tune a try.

  9. #8

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    Here’s my shot at it in F, three times through. First ballad, then swing, then tried a bluesier harder swing. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m getting the tune internalized. Maybe I’ll try it again in another key. Comments welcome.


  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by KirkP
    Here’s my shot at it in F, three times through. First ballad, then swing, then tried a bluesier harder swing. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m getting the tune internalized. Maybe I’ll try it again in another key. Comments welcome.

    That was great. I think I like the bluesy/up-tempo version best.

    John

  11. #10

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    Hi Guys, Here is my contribution. I learned this by ear from one of the Johnny Smith albums.
    I love the song. I hope you like my rendition.
    Joe D

  12. #11

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    Superb Joe, you and Fred Archtop are my favourite players
    here . You captured the essence of the song perfectly.
    Mrs 007 will love it too, Bravo my friend.

  13. #12

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    cool! the intro sounds like a carcassi etude; made me sentimental

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    That was great. I think I like the bluesy/up-tempo version best.

    John
    not that you’re probably keeping tabs, Kirk, but I think the first was my favorite. just to offer some vague feedback and to spite John

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max405


    Hi Guys, Here is my contribution. I learned this by ear from one of the Johnny Smith albums.
    I love the song. I hope you like my rendition.
    Joe D
    Beautiful!

    John

  16. #15

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    Sorry, it's got nothing to do with chord-melody but I like this song so do you mind if I sing it? This was done way back in 2014 on my Washburn by the sound of it. I do sound remarkably sober. There's another version somewhere with rather more racy lyrics but we don't want to go there... I think the picture's rather lovely too


  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by joe2758
    not that you’re probably keeping tabs, Kirk, but I think the first was my favorite. just to offer some vague feedback and to spite John
    We're the Seinfeld and Newman of jazz guitar.

    John

  18. #17

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    I think KirkP's versions were great.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    Oops, tried to edit my post and deletes by mistake

    OK, so I've played this a lot, and some arrangement ideas came to me quickly, so I figured, what the hell. It's pretty sloppy and I may re-do it. In keeping with calls on the other thread to explain our thought processes, here's what I was thinking ...

    It's a fairly simple tune, and I find that a straightforward "vanilla" c-m falls pretty naturally, so I wanted to not do that. First a has dense sounding chords and quite a bit of reharmonization. Feel free to ask me to spell out voicings. Second a is sparse, with some two-time counterpoint. Bridge goes back to density and reharm. Third A/ending is much straighter, which I thought gave it more resolution. The improv chorus was just that, with no plan, and some sloppiness in time and articulation that I'll try to clean up in a re-do. But I thought it had some moments, so I kept it. The last A repeats the beginning of the tune



    Thanks for listening. Comments welcome.
    John
    John, That's really nice playing. Really really nice.
    Thanks, Joe D

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by KirkP
    Here’s my shot at it in F, three times through. First ballad, then swing, then tried a bluesier harder swing. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m getting the tune internalized. Maybe I’ll try it again in another key. Comments welcome.

    KirkP, Very cool. Great Job.
    Joe D

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by silverfoxx
    Superb Joe, you and Fred Archtop are my favourite players
    here . You captured the essence of the song perfectly.
    Mrs 007 will love it too, Bravo my friend.
    Foxman,
    Thank you buddy. Tell Mrs 007 she has a really really special song coming. I just have to tidy up some details.
    JD

  22. #21

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    All three very nice. My favorite the maybe soft swing of the middle but the ballad style is luscious also.

    Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

  23. #22

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    i poked around on this one a little, but i think only like a 50/50 chance I’ll get anything worth posting since i’m working on single note stuff mostly right now.

    you know how Pops always goes “MmmmYeesssss” inbetween phrases? on this song he’s funny because everytime he’s like “ooohh nooo...mmyyeessss” lol

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1

    Joe, I swear you've lost it
    pops starts around 2:00

    mmmyeessssssssss


  25. #24

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    yo but my favorite line from that album is on Tenderly he goes "the evening breeze, erase the trees, tenderly"

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by joe2758
    pops starts around 2:00

    mmmyeessssssssss
    Can't hear a thing, seriously. He goes 'Mmm... yessss...' at about 2.00? Can't hear it. Is that the right recording?

    Anyway, he'll have a lotta trouble holding that one tight. That's some squeeze :-)