Creative Chordal Harmony for the Guitar

[Sandy Shalk]

Hello All, I've been looking through Creative Choral Harmony for the Guitar (Goodrick, Miller) having learned of it on this forum. I don't know how systematic I'll be with it, but just playing through some of the voicings has offered up some new colors for me. Since I concentrate more on fingerstyle these days I'm adding the root in the bass. Consequently some of the open and closed voicings are a stretch, but many work great for my skills and will find their way into some of my arrangements. I find myself just thinking (and noting)some of the voicings as a major, minor chord with a specific root in the bass such as Bb/E, much like Goodrick notes in the Advancing Guitarist. I'm not sure if I'll move forward with working with the GMC permutations in the later part of the book, but I believe I understand where the authors are going with it. Although I've struggled with the explanations about system, overall its a rich source of material for which the authors deserve much credit for unlocking some wonderful sounds on the guitar. Good stuff! But I'm curious as to how you might be using the material? Thanks! Sandy

[dasein]

i love how that book uses "Stella" as its tune example. maybe Mick and Tim can comp/solo with this material right off the bat, but for the rest of us mere mortals, i suspect simpler harmonic structures are needed to grasp the material.

so first, i would start with modal vamps. the vamps in "The Advancing Guitarist" are a great place to start out. i'd emphasize using the vamps to practice, because in my experience, the harmonic context makes a huge difference with this stuff.

if you play E minor and F major triads just by themselves, they don't sound particularly special. it's only when you are playing them over D dorian that you start to hear it how they were meant to be heard

so get some vamps going. i like to practice them moving up their respective scales to get a feel for them, then i just play around with them and come up with different sounds

after you start getting really comfortable with vamps, you can try simpler tunes: blues, harmonically simple standards. then you can try things with lots of changes.

[jtizzle]

The reason they use Stella is because it has most chords and chord movements that you could use as an example.
Minor ii-V's, major ii-V's, bvii7-I, altered dominants, cycles, ect... A close second they could have used could have been Cherokee, has these as well, although more ii-Vs, less of the rest.

They could have used a tune like Satin Doll, but then all they would be showing us would be how to do it over a major ii-V. Part of the good thing about the book is seeing how they use it over half diminished chords, altered dominants, and other types of chords in Stella.

I also think that the concept in the book is quite complicated, so they're probably assuming that by the time you want to dwell into this topic, you have a good grasp on playing on changes such as Stella.

It's a great book. I've only worked on the first few examples and already have learned a lot.

[Chuck]

___ Just a quick question about these Goodrick books, specifically The Advancing Guitarist and Creative Chordal Harmony. Would these concepts be of any use or benefit for solo (i.e. chord melody) guitar, or are they mainly directed toward the group player who is soloing within the context of a bass line and/or comping support?

Thanks
Chuck

[TH]

___ Just a quick question about these Goodrick books, specifically The Advancing Guitarist and Creative Chordal Harmony. Would these concepts be of any use or benefit for solo (i.e. chord melody) guitar, or are they mainly directed toward the group player who is soloing within the context of a bass line and/or comping support?

Thanks
Chuck

Good question. It would depend a lot on how you hear and what it is you're going after when you play. There's a huge amount of aural inventory available through working through this material, much of its use is in training your ear to hear things that are beyond "Root in bass, strict melody on top and drop 2 in between" approaches.
As a chordal solo instrumentalist, your solo space can be limitless, and superimposing these sounds in a tonal, changes based situation can be strikingly beautiful and full of surprise, but you've got to really practice it WITH IMAGINATION and the role of your ear is enormous. You can't just grab and plug a lot of this material. Its convergence with conventional harmony is where it becomes really useful.
People have told me that it takes a while for the material of Mick's to soak in, but once it starts to appear in one's playing, it opens up avenues and different ways of hearing.
Personally, I think the more broadly you envision a song form, the greater the opportunities of using these (alternative?) harmonies are. You might take a voice led passage in cycle and if it leads you to the turnaround at the end of a section and you do it in time, the effect is compositional and beautifully elegant. But you have to internalize these sounds and they need to be able to come out of you as part of your own vocabulary. Then of course, it's material you can use in a solo situation, and it's totally your own.
Does this make any sense?
David

[Chuck]

........much of its use is in training your ear to hear things that are beyond "Root in bass, strict melody on top and drop 2 in between" approaches.

David, Thanks very much for your thoughtful and articulate answer to my question. From the very first time I heard the way Jim Hall had of interpreting tunes, I was intrigued, but also clueless as to how he did it. The magic was that he could build elegant harmonic abstractions on any tune, yet their relationship to the original tune and its changes was never in question or "lost" to the listener. So yes, my goal is to somehow begin to find those harmonies. It's like Navdeep (NSJ) put it in another recent thread, wherein he expressed the desire to get away from the shackles (lead boots, I think he called them) of root, middle harmony, and melody on top.


Would you recommend starting with The Advancing Guitarist, or with Creative Chordal Harmony, or both? Or perhaps something else?

Chuck

[TH]

From the very first time I heard the way Jim Hall had of interpreting tunes, I was intrigued, but also clueless as to how he did it. The magic was that he could build elegant harmonic abstractions on any tune, yet their relationship to the original tune and its changes was never in question or "lost" to the listener. ...


Would you recommend starting with The Advancing Guitarist, or with Creative Chordal Harmony, or both? Or perhaps something else?

Chuck

Yes! Jim had the ability to see improvisation truly as composition, soloing as more than running the changes. Well, for me Advancing Guitarist is always a great place to begin, and there is no end to the uses of this book, as a guidebook to the guitar, as a philosophical perspective, as a springboard to the most far reaching ideas. I don't think it's an either/or choice with these books, they're quite different. Advancing is a catalogue of possibilities, a reminder of what the instrument holds for those who keep their minds open. Creative Chordal Harmony is a very focused vehicle for opening up your ears and hands to the complexities of harmony/melody through triadic interplay. It's a reminder of things you can get for those who apply their time with intent. It's more of a tool.

Check out some of the other threads within this forum, there are several that have some really good discussions on these things. A long running Goodchord Almanac thread, and some on the Creative Harmony topic.

That "something else" is seeking out, listening to and playing with others who are also searching for something beyond "running the changes". In your own playing, your solo playing that you're looking to realize, learn to hear music not as an obligation to a set of chord structures, but rather the most elegant way to get from one silence to another.
All you learn as music keeps perspective if you keep this in mind.
Or I think so anyway.

David

[JazzVocab]

I should have a good look at this book again as I think it has got some great ideas, I just couldn't employ them well enough when I tried before!
The thing that always got in the way for me was the use of the 4th degree in the chords, always made it sound like it was restless (and a cuckoo in the nest!) which I know is part of the sound of it. I wondered but never got round to trying out some chords with the root reinstated and dropping the 4th instead. This might be an interesting variation.

[yotsn]

Hi all,

When Mick says "I was still wondering if it was possible to find an approach to teaching all five 3-part chord families somewhat systematically and simultaneously" it sounds like he is referring to:

Triad
7th no 5
7th no 3
Sus4
Cluster


My question is where did his interest in the 7th no 5/7th no 3 come from? Is this a chord that he was teaching in another way before this concept? If so, how?

I'm just wondering why he was looking for a way to teach these chords systematically in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I like the concept and the ways these chords can sound, just trying to absorb more of the back story on why it was a puzzle he wanted to solve to begin with.

[dasein]

Because those five families (with all their inversions, open versions, etc.) contain every three note voicing you could play in a major scale (or melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic major)

Try it. Pick any three notes in a major scale at random. It'll invariably be one of those chords.

[yotsn]

OK, I get it.

I think I know the answere here, but going to ask anyway:

Did he have a system for where to use the 7th no 3/5 chords, or are they just possibilities for us to work with?

I've not used this chord type in the past, so I'm curious about it.

[TH]

Did he have a system for where to use the 7th no 3/5 chords, or are they just possibilities for us to work with?

I've not used this chord type in the past, so I'm curious about it.

Hi yotsn- It's often an initially frustrating question to ask Mick the application or origins of specific harmonic voicing or approach, especially in regards to these almanac type books. Because they're comprehensive, many of the options are not personal preferences, but possibilities.
There are a lot of very able and adventurous students in this town and even given the same chord family, the time spent truly exploring the possibilities will undoubtedly yield very different, and personal vocabularies, and even different syntaxes. That's the beauty of this approach: Often it requires that you go beyond the assumptions of how you'd use a chord, hear a harmonic progression and even how to approach improvisation.
Any time I've told Mick that students want to know how things are used, he'll say "That's your job. I just found it". Then I'll hear him using it in his playing.
There's something enormous to be said for wrestling with an incomprehensible or impossible task. The more one really works with it (and you have to want to), the more personal the result is.
Remember too, that these chord structures are also there for embellishment, rhythmic displacement, combination and recombination with other voicings and when you create your own system, it'll sound convincing in a way that only you can play.
That's the beauty I see in it, anyway.
have fun
David

[matt.guitarteacher]

Hi yotsn- It's often an initially frustrating question to ask Mick the application or origins of specific harmonic voicing or approach, especially in regards to these almanac type books. Because they're comprehensive, many of the options are not personal preferences, but possibilities.
There are a lot of very able and adventurous students in this town and even given the same chord family, the time spent truly exploring the possibilities will undoubtedly yield very different, and personal vocabularies, and even different syntaxes. That's the beauty of this approach: Often it requires that you go beyond the assumptions of how you'd use a chord, hear a harmonic progression and even how to approach improvisation.
Any time I've told Mick that students want to know how things are used, he'll say "That's your job. I just found it". Then I'll hear him using it in his playing.
There's something enormous to be said for wrestling with an incomprehensible or impossible task. The more one really works with it (and you have to want to), the more personal the result is.
Remember too, that these chord structures are also there for embellishment, rhythmic displacement, combination and recombination with other voicings and when you create your own system, it'll sound convincing in a way that only you can play.
That's the beauty I see in it, anyway.
have fun
David

Great to see you back around btw, David. :-)

[yotsn]

thanks Truth- great post!

I love the open-ended nature of Mick's stuff.

2 things inspire me:

free of dogma

and it's a complete system, you're not missing anything

[yotsn]

pg. 8 measure 6

is he advocating switching scales or chord tones mid way through a measure, or is this just a typo?

I've got a D# and a D, a C# and C natural

[yotsn]

also some pages have an Ebmaj #11 in the second line and some do not. Wondering why?