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Hi all!
Lately I’ve been trying to expand my chord vocabulary a bit. At this point I’m comfortable with chords and their inversions on the first four, highest strings.
I learned drop 3 voings and shell voicings. I mostly use shell voicings to play standards and to make a litttle simple chord melody by adding the melody notes to the shell chord.
Which type of chords would be the next logical step? Other drop voicings? Rootless voicings? I would like to learn chords with extensions but I’m not sure how to start because adding for example the flat nine to a shell voicing doesn’t really work.
Best wishes
Bart
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05-16-2025 12:49 PM
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rootless shells a la Ed Bickert.
Originally Posted by BartLutsch
But, then again, that's my answer for everything.
Sure does.I would like to learn chords with extensions but I’m not sure how to start because adding for example the flat nine to a shell voicing doesn’t really work.
C7 ... play E on the 4th string, Bb on the third string, Db on the second string, et voila.
You could also play Bb on the fourth, E on the third, and skip the second to play Db on the first.
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OK move all the chords and inversions to the middle four strings A D G B .. then the E A D G Originally Posted by BartLutsch
you may know more chords than you think..
Ami9 = CMaj7=Eb13#5b9
Emi7b5=C9 =Gmi6=F#7#5b9 (no root)
this kind of thinking takes time to digest and apply but well worth the effort
hope this helps
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I would agree with your last suggestion and say practice adding different extensions in for variety since you have already built some good facility.
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Start substituting chords with the chord you get by omitting the root.
Instead of C Maj. play Emin7
C7 is Em7b5
C- can be Eb6.
There’s some diminished stuff you can add in too. It still confuses me, honestly.
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Yes but knowing the chord synonyms as wolflen suggested will get you a long way there, e.g., a rootless C^7 = Em (triad), and rootless C^9 = Em7. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Diminished is actually an easy one: a rootless 7b9 chord = dim 7th chords built on the 7b9 chords 3rd/5th/b7th/b9th, e.g., C7b9, Eb7b9, Gb7b9 & A7b9 (no roots) = Db, E, G, Bb, and Dbo7 chords (Db-E-G-Bb).
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All very good advice so far, and certainly enough to keep one busy for quite some time.
To add my view, for what it's worth, a chordal turning point was discovering Jim Hall and his approach when working with horn players in a piano-free trio or quartet. He seems to use a variation on shell voicings. For example, I once noticed in a video of Hall comping for Art Farmer in which he played dominant chords with the 3rd and 7th on strings 5 and 4, muting string 3 and adding upper extensions and little lines on strings 1 and 2. I've only used it on dominant chords, but I think the approach is flexible and transferable.
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So Db° for C7. But what about Cmaj and C-? Originally Posted by Mick-7
I like chord for chord substitutions. I can think of the substitutions as more grips for the parent chord instead of this cloud of information you are proposing. And I only have to learn one or two then I’m off to the races for the next few months.
I’m not into music theory completionism. Just a little here and a little there.
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There isn’t a straight sub for Major or minor*, but I think yall are probably talking about two things. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Micks talking about what diminished to sub in for a dominant chord.**
It sounds like you’re talking about diminished passing chords to embellish a stretch with one chord?
In that case, you want leading tone diminished.
So for C7, Cmaj, Cm, you’d put Bo7 on the weak beats or non chord tones or whatever you’re doing. Thats that mechanical harmony, Barry Harris 6th dim, sax soli, close vocal vibe
*Common tone diminshed sounds beautiful over a major chord … so that’s Cmaj7, Cdim(maj7), Cmaj7. It’s not a sub but more of an “off” chord when you have a long stretch of major. Think Corcovado, or the first bars of Meditation.
** you’ll notice that Bo7 in that scalar case would be what mick is suggesting you sub in to make a G7b9, so it’s that alternating tonic dominant sound you’re getting when you use that diminished 7 chord.
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For what it’s worth (if that’s what you were talking about) I would say some simple side slipping devices would be the move before diving into all that stuff. Cool though it may be.
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I was talking about substitutions, maybe I got it mixed up with passing chords along the way, they kind of merged when I started thinking of 2 bars
|C6 |C6 |
as something like
|Dm Bm7b5 | Dm Ebm Em C6|
I think that Ebm could also be Eb°?
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Iirc, Warren Nunes' book "Chord Bible" organized the material in terms of ii V I progressions. All useful. Maybe Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry too? Although as I recall, Ted's stretches were difficult.
I learned some basic chords from diagrams when I was a kid and then went into learning chords when they were needed for chord melody. That's a haphazard approach in a way, but you learn things in the context of songs and you learn the songs.
That said, if I were going to try to learn chords independent of songs, I'd gravitate to the ii V I approach.
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on Ted Greene.com he has many examples of ii7-V7 that are not that difficult to finger. Also the OP may find Modern Chord Progressions by Greene very helpful. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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It would depend on the function of the C6, most likely it's the I6 chord at the end of a section, so the second bar of it would be a turn-around to the next section. C6 = Am7 (the VIm7 chord in C major), so you'd probably want to build on that, e.g., VIm7 > IIm7 or II7, etc. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
If it is a Cm6 rather than C6, you could think if it as Am7b5 and take a similar tack, or as a F9/B7#5b9 chord, which is one chord tone away (9th instead of b9th) from Co7/F7b9(no root), and go from there.
That's how knowing chord synonyms can help you find appropriate chord substitutes.
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Eh … that’s pretty busy for a lot of situations I would think. You’d also probably want to land the actual chord on a strong beat somewhere. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Nah. When you have shell voicings with no fifth, there’s some overlap, but that’s a coincidence of the voicings. The chords themselves with the fifth present aren’t the same thing.I think that Ebm could also be Eb°?
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[QUOTE=Mick-7;
Diminished is actually an easy one: a rootless 7b9 chord = dim 7th chords built on the 7b9 chords 3rd/5th/b7th/b9th, e.g., C7b9, Eb7b9, Gb7b9 & A7b9 (no roots) = Db, E, G, Bb, and Dbo7 chords (Db-E-G-Bb).[/QUOTE]
OP:
The diminished chords and their scales can be a bit of a mystery..but with some study they can reveal many useful tools.
example: using the Db diminished scale: Db Eb E Gb G A Bb C
quite a few chords and implied chords can be extracted from the above scale
A maj
Amin
A13 (no root) G C# (Db) F# (Gb)
A7#9 =Eb13b5
A7b9
These are just a few..BUT because the diminished scale is symmetric the chords can all be moved in minor third intervals
so Amaj Cmaj EbMaj GbMaj are all in the scale as are the rest of the noted chords.
There are other chords and partial voicings of chords you can find also..but just these examples gives
you 24 chords within ONE diminished scale.. NOTE--There are ONLY three diminished scales C Db and D.
I know it will take some time and work to digest and apply some of this stuff but it may be helpful in your musical explorations.
Hope this helps
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You could experiment with chords built on 4ths. For example: E A D G. They lay well on the guitar and have an interesting, ambiguous sound. Jim Hall used them a lot, especially in chord-melodies.
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Simple chords (major/minor) are such that as soon as you hear a lone chord (e.g., like D major played on the guitar), you recognize popular tunes that use that chord, and you understand somewhat how it is used in particular of those tunes.
With more complex chords comprising inversions, extensions, and alterations, with less exposure to hearing them in an immediate context a lone complex chord may be hard to recognize, hard to place in a tune, and hard to understand how and when to use it effectively applied to a tune.
This is one of the most important reasons for always working within the context of particular tunes when working on the development of jazz chords. Basically, the context of a tune's harmony is the real test for whether a chord's sound expresses the harmony of the tune the way you want. Sound testing of chords in tunes is how you learn the way they work by virtue of their structures and relationships.
There is nothing wrong at all in a campaign of experimentation. Start with a constraint to limit the possibilities by selecting a string set (e.g., 4321, 5432, 6432, etc.) and a few tunes you like and know well.
One way to start is take a string set like 4321 restricted to five frets and play every possible combination... there are 5^4 of these - 625 chords all ready for testing and examination. A few you will recognize instantly, many others won't sound good until placed in the right harmonic context, some will sound right in multiple different contexts(!), and some may never be really useful. You would be listening for the tune contexts where the ones that "sound funny, quirky, or just off" played alone by themselves suddenly sound just right in various harmonic contexts in tunes.
I would advise doing this primarily by listening, then by examining their construction; it is very good for your ear to learn to hear and recognize chord sound relationships directly and follow-up back filling open mysteries to guide a working knowledge of the corresponding theory concepts - they get their power from how well your ear hears what's going on.
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