Ed Bickert chords and diatonic cycles

[pamosmusic]

Peter, have you found that you practically have to get these chord patterns into muscle memory to integrate them into your playing?

If you exclude solo guitar gigs, they’re like 90% of what I play … the rest is kind of a grab bag of miscellaneous shells and diads and quartals.

I posted this elsewhere … but it’s the only one I’ve posted where I’m chording a lot with a view of my hand at all. Literally almost everything is these little Ed Bickert shells. Occasionally with 4 notes, but mostly just 3.

[Mick-7]

If you exclude solo guitar gigs, they’re like 90% of what I play … the rest is kind of a grab bag of miscellaneous shells and diads and quartals.

I posted this elsewhere … but it’s the only one I’ve posted where I’m chording a lot with a view of my hand at all. Literally almost everything is these little Ed Bickert shells. Occasionally with 4 notes, but mostly just 3.

But were you a 4 note chord defector? (a drop chord drop out?) - learned the common chord voicings like most guitarists and trimmed them?

[pamosmusic]

But were you a 4 note chord defector? (a drop chord drop out?) - learned the common chord voicings like most guitarists and trimmed them?

I was not!

Some Peter lore:

I was on this forum under a name for which I lost the password and subsequently forgot anyway, when I was maybe sixteen and Mr Beaumont was preaching the gospel of Ed Bickert and I was like “oh those chords make sense.”

So that’s what I learned pretty much from the get go.

Ive spent countless hours working on drop two inversions and drop three inversions and can play them, but they’ve just never come out when I play.

[Mick-7]

Gee, I wish I could blame someone else for my harmonic decadence.

[pamosmusic]

Gee, I wish I could blame someone else for my harmonic decadence.

I wouldn't mind having a little harmonic decadence of my own to blame on someone.

[Cunamara]

LOL! Peter, you are right on: Ed Bickert's chords make a tremendous amount of sense to the ear. When you look at them on paper, they take some figuring out- but the sound of them is sublime. Ed, given the harmonic choices he makes, can get an amazing amount of mileage out of rather ambiguous clusters of notes, which can serve many different harmonic purposes. He can take a half a dozen chord grips and do 50 different things with them. In an interview in Guitar Player Magazine, he stated that a lot of his harmonic concept was inspired by Stan Kenton Band arrangements. Harmony was what really interested him which is true for me as well. I'd much rather play chords and harmony than single note lines on the guitar. There are enough other instruments playing single note lines, I guess.

What a thing to get exposed to right off the bat! I had probably been playing guitar for 30 years before I ever even heard of Ed Bickert, but he rapidly became my favorite jazz guitarist. My other favorite is Peter Bernstein.

Ed is why I bought my first Telecaster (and my second and my third). I don't play them exclusively, but I do love playing them. When I first heard him, I was astonished that it was possible to get that sound out of that instrument.

[Mick-7]

I heard Jim Hall using these sort of chords long before I ever heard of of Ed Bickert. And I heard Jack Wilkins using them on his first album, Windows, released in 1973 -- Windows - Jack Wilkins | Album | AllMusic

[pamosmusic]

I heard Jim Hall using these sort of chords long before I ever heard of of Ed Bickert. And I heard Jack Wilkins using them on his first album, Windows, released in 1973 -- Windows - Jack Wilkins | Album | AllMusic

Ed is the king and deserves the namesake.

Not sure if he was the first (I’m sure I wasn’t) … but it’s pretty much all he plays. Two, three, and four note chords based on those shells.

Also worth mentioning that there is some overlap with drop 2s in particular, but that’s generally pretty high level. Dan Kleijn has some cool stuff altering drop 2s and there are some nice voicings Ed plays too, just coming to them by way of adding notes to the shells. Certainly those were not unique to him. The Wes 13 chord comes to mind …

x 3 4 4 3 x

for D13 for example

[mr. beaumont]

I don't know how I missed this thread for so long, but Peter, excellent work on this stuff.

[pauln]

The Wes 13 chord comes to mind …

x 3 4 4 3 x

for D13 for example

It is a great foundation chord form around which a whole slew of nice middle four strings chord sounds may be developed.

[pamosmusic]

I don't know how I missed this thread for so long, but Peter, excellent work on this stuff.

Thank you sensei.

Ive got more in the document now, working on being freer with the voicings across string sets but thats something I’m working on for myself so it’s taking a bit more time.

I’ll post an update sometime.