The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by pcsanwald
    I really like this article from Ethan Iverson:
    Theory of Harmony | DO THE M@TH
    Yeah I find Ethan's thinking and mine line up a lot. And of course, he takes me onto other stuff I haven't thought about.

    If I had to put my finger on it - I was always taught Jazz ahistorically. As in 'here's some stuff you can do on chord x' or whatever... So when I came across Barry Harris for the first time, I was confused. I think a lot of people are actually. Who is this guy to tell me what is and isn't right in jazz? I hear people say that often.

    To which I think 'don't be so insecure.'

    People (jazz players on the scene) often know surprisingly little about jazz history... But I think it's improving. I think a lot of young players are demanding more context.

    Anyway, in terms of guitar, I heard an interview with Bruce Foreman, who said Jim Hall basically invented comping on the guitar (as opposed to rhythm playing) on the Bridge. I think I kind of had an inkling that guitar instead of piano was a big deal in 1961, but I hadn't put two and two together. Imagine, I'd been playing jazz for over 20 years... Hadn't really grasped how and when guitarists stopped doing the Freddie Green stuff.

    So we model our approach on Jim... And that's a midrangey sustaining thing... Influenced by Bill Evans, for sure... Nice little three and four note voicings. But he's strumming, mostly.

    And then everyone now seems to do the finger pick chords thing. Who innovated that, I wonder? Jimmy Wyble? Why the hell do I not know lol?

    I feel Jim's student Peter Bernstein offers a different angle on the same thing. He plays a lot of rooty chords, but there's something about his sound that makes it work. I think - more pick, less amp... More like a rhythm guitar player in some ways....

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77

    And then everyone now seems to do the finger pick chords thing. Who innovated that, I wonder? Jimmy Wyble? Why the hell do I not know lol?

    I feel Jim's student Peter Bernstein offers a different angle on the same thing. He plays a lot of rooty chords, but there's something about his sound that makes it work. I think - more pick, less amp... More like a rhythm guitar player in some ways....
    I saw Jim and Peter play duo at the new school years ago, and both of them primarily comped strumming. non-guitarists generally greatly prefer the sound of strumming, I've found. I did the pick and fingers thing for years, but these days if I'm playing guitar I'll almost always strum when comping.

    Peter does play a lot of root-y chords but he also plays a lot of substitutions and creates a lot of motion, I think that's why it works.

    Interestingly, when I studied with Rodney Jones, he insisted on the first thing, before anything else, is really getting into the freddie green thing and learning to play that way; there are a couple different articulations and feels that he taught that were basically different long/short patterns that would vary according to tempo and feel of the tune.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77

    Anyway, in terms of guitar, I heard an interview with Bruce Foreman, who said Jim Hall basically invented comping on the guitar (as opposed to rhythm playing) on the Bridge. I think I kind of had an inkling that guitar instead of piano was a big deal in 1961, but I hadn't put two and two together. Imagine, I'd been playing jazz for over 20 years... Hadn't really grasped how and when guitarists stopped doing the Freddie Green stuff.

    So we model our approach on Jim... And that's a midrangey sustaining thing... Influenced by Bill Evans, for sure... Nice little three and four note voicings. But he's strumming, mostly.

    And then everyone now seems to do the finger pick chords thing. Who innovated that, I wonder? Jimmy Wyble? Why the hell do I not know lol?

    I feel Jim's student Peter Bernstein offers a different angle on the same thing. He plays a lot of rooty chords, but there's something about his sound that makes it work. I think - more pick, less amp... More like a rhythm guitar player in some ways....
    Jim Hall and Peter Bernstein definitely played harmony from different densities, but the same concept. However, I'd go further. Jim Hall was all about creating harmonic landscapes--not just outlining the changes. If you listen to Bill Frisell, he does the same thing--with more technology. Some of Jim's chords fall into traditional grips, but so much more of it is about creating movement through inner and outer movements.

    When I think of Jim Hall's comping--I think he truly embodied the string trio and string quartet idiom of accompaniment. As in, his accompaniment is so much more than Drop-2 this or shell voicing that. His stuff with Art Farmer is especially interesting, in my opinion:



    There's a complexity that I think comes from Jim Hall's HUGE ears--his accompaniment is about true interplay. Trying to comp like Jim Hall, and truly interact while being respectful of the soloist (though, I am impressed with Jeffy B.'s transcription) is a feat in-it-of-itself.

    Jim Hall sometimes plays chords way down low, but he knows how to weave in and out of the bass player--he knows how to listen and what to play...

    I wish I could comp like Jim Hall... or Ed Bickert.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by pcsanwald
    as a bassist, I wholeheartedly endorse this advice. definitely buy your rhythm section lunch.

    One of my great loves about playing bass in a jazz band is hooking up with the drummer and powering the whole band. It's the best!

    On comping for a bass solo, I'd say it's the same as comping for anyone else: job number one is to LISTEN. Is what you're playing supportive and is your accompaniment making the music better, or, are you making the soloist work harder? Whenever I've heard someone comp poorly, it's almost always because they aren't really listening, they are focused on "playing the changes", or their voicings, or time feel, or whatever else, but what they aren't focused on is listening to and supporting the music that's happening in the moment.
    [/LEFT]
    Agreed, but to be clear, I was directly quoting Irez87's excellent post above.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by pcsanwald
    I saw Jim and Peter play duo at the new school years ago, and both of them primarily comped strumming. non-guitarists generally greatly prefer the sound of strumming, I've found. I did the pick and fingers thing for years, but these days if I'm playing guitar I'll almost always strum when comping.
    Yeah I figure if people want a pianist they’ll hire one.

    If I could work out how to do the strum thing for bossa that would be cool.

    Peter does play a lot of root-y chords but he also plays a lot of substitutions and creates a lot of motion, I think that's why it works.
    I don’t think that’s *why* it works exactly... I think he has his sound right to make it work. If you didn’t and tried to play that stuff you would really get in the way. A lot of jazz guitarists have the volume up too high and too much bass on the amp to use these types of voicings. Strumming the chords really helps.

    Just my thoughts anyway....

    Interestingly, when I studied with Rodney Jones, he insisted on the first thing, before anything else, is really getting into the freddie green thing and learning to play that way; there are a couple different articulations and feels that he taught that were basically different long/short patterns that would vary according to tempo and feel of the tune.
    I didn’t know you studied with Rodney.

    I’m glad I spent a few years playing rhythm guitar for dancers. There’s a lot of subtlety you can put into it...

  7. #31

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    I like strumming comping... I also like how Bill Frisell combines pucntual strumming with counterpoint-like lines in compping

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I didn’t know you studied with Rodney.

    I’m glad I spent a few years playing rhythm guitar for dancers. There’s a lot of subtlety you can put into it...
    yeah, I switched to benson style picking in college so I took some lessons with rodney to try and get that together. I agree about rhythm guitar, finding out how much I enjoyed 4 to the bar comping was a big motivator for me to try bass, which is one of the best musical decisions I've made.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by JaxJaxon
    the bass will play a octave lower than a guitar is this corect. and a double Bass is two octaves lower. Now I understand that a Bass can play in the guitars octave range and a guitar can play in a bass octave range. what I dont get is why would eather want to play in the others octave range if they are playing together. I could down tune a 7 string guitar to be closer to the bass octaves and i could up tune a 5 string bass to be in more of the guitars octave range. And then make a avantgarde style of music.
    Double Bass or Acoustic Bass are the same thing. They have the same notes as a standard 4 string electric bass. Bass lines easily and frequently get into the guitar range. I had a big band director tell me to be careful with anything below the C (third fret of the A string).

    As Cosmic Gumbo said, if it sounds good it is good. At least related to tone and mud, playing low notes on a brighter sounding guitar (like a dreadnaught or a bright tele sound) will probably work better when playing in an Acoustic Bass range as the tones are so different... a traditional hollow body guitar type sound not as much.

    Freddie Green had to fit in with the piano, bass, and horns. Not a lot of room there. He is known for that chunk chunk style with the short notes cut off and muting the low strings. It looks like he is playing the low string but often was just muting it. More important as a rhythm instrument than a harmonic instrument.

  10. #34

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    Finally had the chance to see what the video in the OP was (firewall blocks YouTube at work)

    Of course it sounds fine, the bassist is playing half notes!

    The "stay out of the bass range" really applies much more when comping while the bass player is walking, not when the guitar is taking the melody with chords and the bass is staying out of THE GUITAR PLAYERS way.

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    Double Bass or Acoustic Bass are the same thing. They have the same notes as a standard 4 string electric bass. Bass lines easily and frequently get into the guitar range. I had a big band director tell me to be careful with anything below the C (third fret of the A string).

    As Cosmic Gumbo said, if it sounds good it is good. At least related to tone and mud, playing low notes on a brighter sounding guitar (like a dreadnaught or a bright tele sound) will probably work better when playing in an Acoustic Bass range as the tones are so different... a traditional hollow body guitar type sound not as much.

    Freddie Green had to fit in with the piano, bass, and horns. Not a lot of room there. He is known for that chunk chunk style with the short notes cut off and muting the low strings. It looks like he is playing the low string but often was just muting it. More important as a rhythm instrument than a harmonic instrument.
    '

    Freddie played staccato and without a lot of low frequency energy. Since he played unamplified, he didn't have a problem with the bass strings starting to feedback, even before the guitar starts howling. The bassist was predictable and Basie was the very soul of discretion in terms of leaving space.

    On the Brazilian strumming thing -- Brazilians do it when the tempo gets fast enough, but that's samba, not bossa. One trick I've seen, worth trying, is all downstrokes.

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    '
    On the Brazilian strumming thing -- Brazilians do it when the tempo gets fast enough, but that's samba, not bossa. One trick I've seen, worth trying, is all downstrokes.
    Well I suppose that leads neatly onto the dilemma of, what do you do with your thumb when you play bossa with a bass player :-)

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    '

    Freddie played staccato and without a lot of low frequency energy. Since he played unamplified, he didn't have a problem with the bass strings starting to feedback, even before the guitar starts howling. The bassist was predictable and Basie was the very soul of discretion in terms of leaving space.
    True, a big wooly archtop with a floating pickup and round wound strings can be a problem.

    If only there was some way of adjusting the EQ and volume on the instrument!

    You'd think they'd have addressed that in the almost 100 year history of the instrument, wouldn't you?

    Seriously I think it's knowing all the sounds you can get on your instrument/amp setup and how to alter your pick technique according to requirements. One compliment I get (from bass players) is that I know how to clean up the bottom range frequency of the instrument so that it doesn't compete. This is something I have worked on a lot.

    (It's also why I prefer 10" speakers. I just end up rolling off the bass on anything bigger anyway.)

    Strings, pickup setup, volume level compared to pick attack, and EQ and the instrument itself all play a part. But you have to use your ears.

    (Also, Freddie mostly played the D string.)

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Well I suppose that leads neatly onto the dilemma of, what do you do with your thumb when you play bossa with a bass player :-)
    Suck on it?

    In bossa, with bass player... strum! Percussive strumming, why not? Honestly, was never a big fan of Charlie Byrd.

    In a traditional samba group where there is no bass player, then you do the thumb. That and a big fat hand drum takes care of bass.

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Suck on it?

    In bossa, with bass player... strum! Percussive strumming, why not? Honestly, was never a big fan of Charlie Byrd.

    In a traditional samba group where there is no bass player, then you do the thumb. That and a big fat hand drum takes care of bass.
    Charlie Byrd? An American???

    Strumming isn't AFAIK what the Brazilians do even with a bass player... I can make it work sure, but .. yeah...

    Ties into the same debate...

  16. #40

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    Interesting topic. I do play my bass notes, no bass player complained so far. Though I admit, I never played with an A-list bass player. People I play with are occasional giggers with day jobs and not so big egos
    Theoretically there are three considerations:
    1- Potentially incompatible notes are more likely to clash within the same octave than further apart.
    2- Counter melodies/counterpoint work best when played in different voices.
    3- Bass lines played with a bass instrument sound better then the bass range of guitar or piano.

    On the paper these are good reasons for staying out of the bass players range. No one wants to hear a piano player with two left hands. But I guess devil is in the details here. Busy comping with a lot of movement and inversions where altered notes are played in the bass range would require more awareness then stabbing chords here and there in rhythmically interesting places. I don't see root position or second inversion chords clashing with bass lines either.

    On the other hand I wouldn't imagine any composer deliberately writing a bass part for one instrument and another bass part where 1st's and 5th's are played in random places. But then this is jazz we are talking about not symphony music.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 05-22-2019 at 06:19 PM.

  17. #41

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    Well as I say, useful guidelines for players starting out.

    A lot of these jazz education tropes outlive their usefulness though. Things like:

    - Don't have an altered and unaltered version of the same chord extension in a voicing
    - Guidetones (3rd and 7th) are the most important notes of a chord
    - Play the minor II-V into a minor chord
    - Don't give away the sound of the dominant on the ii
    - Play the notes of this mode on this chord
    - Build chords on 1 3 5 7
    - Don't play a major 7th on a dominant chord
    - Analyse melodic lines with vertical relationships to the underlying chord
    - Stay out the soloists way when comping
    - Don't use a major seventh chord when the 1 is in the melody
    - We learn to solo by by basing our lines on the chords of the song
    and so on...

    Some of these (not all IMO) are all useful things for education, but they are all at best simplifications, at least when compared with the actual reality of the recorded music. Real world is more complex.

    Ethan's a great and important counter to a lot of this stuff that we learn unquestioningly, there's a lot of baggage I haven't succesfully unloaded... Stuff which I understand I can effectively now forget, but on the bandstand still find myself preoccupied with...

    Bottom line is, check out the music, use your ears...

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Charlie Byrd? An American???

    Strumming isn't AFAIK what the Brazilians do even with a bass player... I can make it work sure, but .. yeah...

    Ties into the same debate...
    Yea, but then Brazilians don't exactly play electric archtops or telecasters, do they now? Do you carry a nylon string with you to every gig to just play a few bossa tunes? Point is, too many rules. And you already break some. I found strumming works great in some settings. And no stepping on the bass player shoes happens then.

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Yea, but then Brazilians don't exactly play electric archtops or telecasters, do they now? Do you carry a nylon string with you to every gig to just play a few bossa tunes? Point is, too many rules. And you already break some. I found strumming works great in some settings. And no stepping on the bass player shoes happens then.
    Bossa Nova players play nylon. I can't think of a well known exception, but probably somebody else will.

    But, there are other Brazilian styles and you do sometimes hear players using steel strings on all kinds of guitars. Of course, lots play nylon.

    Toninho Horta: Strat style among other guitars
    The guitarist in the Spok Frevo Orquestra plays an archtop.
    Chico Pinheiro plays a Benedetto archtop.
    Nelson Faria plays an archtop. I don't know what else he uses.

    I had an opportunity to study with Kleber Jorge (Sergio Mendes) who said something like "every guitarist in Brazil strums when the tempo is fast enough". I don't know if he meant that they're hitting the strings on every 16th (2/4) or just moving the wrist in 16ths while striking accents only. It is certainly possible to mute all but the accents with left hand pressure and release. When I do that, it's usually too busy sounding, but it depends on the group.

    Aside: I've recently started playing with an excellent drummer and I've noticed that his energy and groove have made me change the way I comp. Stuff that didn't work so well with a less driving drummer suddenly works better. I've been ruminating about this a bit. I guess I didn't appreciate the extent to which context influences technique. And, I'm not talking about bad drummer vs good drummer. These are both experienced pro players.

    Back to strumming: The problem with strumming is that it's easy to make too much sound, losing crispness. I think that's why some players go to all downstrokes at high tempo. Which, btw, is not so easy to keep up.

    On sound: When playing with my octet, I actually prefer comping on a Strat style with a lil 59 HB. Less low end energy. Sounds crisper. Sits in the mix nicely. But, I can't quite get my solo sound out of the strat type. There's a Roland 40XL in the rehearsal room which I use occasionally. It has a 10 inch speaker. I prefer my Little Jazz with its 8 inch speaker. And, before that, I preferred my JC55 with 2 eight inch speakers. I can't be sure the speaker size makes the difference, but for band playing I'm always trying to control lows. OTOH, I used a HRD a few years back with a 12" speaker and liked it.

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Yea, but then Brazilians don't exactly play electric archtops or telecasters, do they now? Do you carry a nylon string with you to every gig to just play a few bossa tunes? Point is, too many rules. And you already break some. I found strumming works great in some settings. And no stepping on the bass player shoes happens then.
    Some Brazilian players play archtop, in which their aim is to try and get it to sound a little like a nylon string.

    Again, it’s just about being aware of your EQ and volume levels

  21. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Some Brazilian players play archtop, in which their aim is to try and get it to sound a little like a nylon string.

    Again, it’s just about being aware of your EQ and volume levels
    But of course it's about your EQ and volume levels, it's been said here many times by many peoples on this thread.

    ...And how much percussivness you have in your rhythm technique. That's my personal input. Fingerstyle or strumming, all good as long as it's there.

    And if you it's not there, if you can't treat your guitar as a drum, you can follow the tradition and still sound muddy, have your bass player giving you an evil eye, get vibed by the musicians in the audience, etc.

  22. #46

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    Nothing. Shouldn't be an issue; if it is get a new bass player.