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Hi Everyone,
I am a beginning jazz guitarist. I have taken 4 or 5 lessons, but find I don't really have enough time to get to the teacher. Plus, I tend to work well with a self-study approach. I know a few variations of the major chord types (7th, 9th, Maj7th, Min7th), and am trying to find a good course or book/CD combination to help me improve my comping skills in various styles and rhythms. Could someone recommend something for this purpose to me? For example, has anyone here worked through Jamie Holroyd's "30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar Comping"? What about Mark Boling's "Creative Comping Concepts for Jazz Guitar" or Andrew Green's Jazz Guitar Comping book? Ideally I would pick one book/course and stick with it all the way through
. Any recommendations you could provide would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
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01-06-2014 08:39 PM
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Guitar Comping by Barry Galbraith
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Check out Fareed Haque's comping video on True Fire. I found it very useful.
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Carlton Johnson has an excellent book on 4 to the bar comping that you can find at amazon.com
that plus the two recommendations above should help you build a very solid foundation. I have all three plus the Andrew green book. (Shit I have evey book)
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this is a good prep for the above (although not absolutely necessary):
http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/merchan...oduct_Code=EJG
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These look like exactly what I need - thank you, everyone!
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Careful with some of those recommendation. They're all reasonably challenging.
Originally Posted by bharris22
One great way to start is with a Jim Furguson book called All Blues For Jazz Guitar.
Although he uses a blues form to teach, all the concepts taught are applicable to any tune.
Jim takes a chronological approach.
The first part deals with tradition Freddie Green style 'four to the bar' comping using fat voicings.
Then you move on the Swing, Bop and small group comping.
Finally you finish with a look at walking bass lines.
It's all very manageable and stuff you can use right away.
The Aebersold books are great but don't give explanations about what is going on. You just learn the tunes and a bunch of (very) cool ways to navigate some standards.
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Thanks, Sean!
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Go on youtube and find the Emily Remler lessons. They are free and very practical lessons for jazz students.
wiz
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I learned a lot with a notebook, a pencil and the time to find chord inversions. As far as the rhythms I'd suggest listening as much as possible.
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I would suggest that you stay away from the Andrew Green book on "Comping". If you look carefully at the chords that he recommends you learn [re. pages 10-11] , on the bottom of page 11 that he has a chord diagram of the Bb diminished. The diagram is notated incorrectly. I found similar errors on other pages. I wrote to Andrew Green advising him of other errors similar to the one above. His reply was that these are "typo" errors. I have guitar music published by Lathkill Music in the UK and know that the object of proof reading is to carefully review the music before it goes to press. All in all, Andrew Green could have done a much better job at making corrections befor his book went into final print !
I would suggest that you look at the Barry Galbraith book on comping. Barry was a fine guitarist as swell as musician. I know people who had the good fortune to study with Barry Galbraith. They told me that he was a superb teacher and perfectionist in his approach to guitar and music in general.
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I have to agree about the Andrew Green book. It's a shame because It's nicely organized and covers voice leading and rhythm figures but there are enough errors in the book to frustrate the beginner.
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- Robert Conti The Source DVD
The Comping Expo
is excellent,maybe his best book so far.
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A practical hint - You can get lots of input by going to scribd.com.
Last edited by Philip Goeth; 02-08-2014 at 04:37 PM.
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I own the books mentioned in posts 2, 4 and 5 (Galbraith, Johnson and DiLiddo).
As I see it, basic comping can be divided up into a few approaches:
Straight quarter note style, with appropriate voicings - I'm finding the Charlton Johnson book definitely helps lay the foundation for that.
2,3 or 4 note chords with a variety of rhythms, on different string sets - this is a (life?) long term project, but pretty much as described in post #11. A number of books can help with this. The DiLiddo book mentioned in post 5 focuses on voicings on the high strings, appropriate when adding more color to voicings and avoiding a bass players range. That book does not however address the lower string voicings.
Then there is the chord/bass line approach, maybe useful if playing solo or with another guitarist. For swing style tune simply voice chords with the root in the bass on the 5th or 6th string and connect them with good sounding quarter note bass lines. Play the chord with the root in the bass on the 1 (or the bass note on the 1 w/ the rest of the chord on the "and" of 1) then fill out the other beats with bass notes leading to the next chord. For 2 chords per measure, you only need connecting bass notes on the 2nd and 4th beats. Chords can be approached by diatonic notes or half steps away from the root. Use your ears to work this out. Finger-style is generally the way to go with this approach.
For stuff like bossa, it's a different rhythmic approach, but similar technique-thumb playing bass notes (usually alternating root-5th) and fingerings handling the other chord tones.
There's still other approaches, but I think that covers the sort of basic areas to think about.
Hope this helps organize your thinking.
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I took lessons from this one guy specifically because I wanted to learn his comping style. He taught me a pretty simple method, that goes more or less like this:
1. Start by comping in half notes. Every two beats, you want a new voicing. If the chord lasts two beats, then it gets one voicing. If it lasts four beats, it gets two voicings. If it lasts two measures, it gets four voicings, etc. The voicings can be inversions, diatonic or modal substitutes, alterations, or whatever. You can start out by writing them out, but eventually you should be able to find them on the fly.
2. Once you've gotten to the point where you can do half notes with no problems, then you can start playing with the rhythm. You still want to keep that voicing every two bars thing going, but you're not necessarily going to strum on beats 1 and 3. There's no formula for what rhythms to use, you just have to use your ears and feel it. (I find that listening to piano players helps a lot for developing a feel in this department).
That's pretty much it. The voicings he was using were pretty much regular drop-2 and drop-3, and tended to be rootless more often than not. You can also throw quartle voicings in there, too.
The concept is very simple, but it takes a good deal of practice to get it to flow. As always, start with slow tempos and increase the speed gradually.
EDIT: I should mention that this is specifically a modern sounding style. You wouldn't want to comp like this if you were looking for a more swing, or trad kind of sound.
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Hi Michael: I'm glad that you agree regarding the Andrew Green Comping book. However, I really have to disagree with
your assessment regarding the errors in the book. Originally, classical guitar was my main instrument. I had a few minor pieces published in the UK. When I received the proofs before the actual printing of the music, I read and
re- read the proofs over and over in order to insure correct printing of the music.
If the author is well meaning in imparting knowledge to the reader, he should be absolutely positive that
the content in his book [be it music or otherwise] is absolutely correct, especially when it relates to
"method" material.
Thanks Michael for your input and response.
Joe.
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Just one added response: Incidentally Michael, it is more important that the content be absolutely correct, especially
where a beginner is concerned. If the information is incorrect[ wrong notes, misspelling
chords , etc. . ], false information is imparted to him.
An author has the responsibility to impart correct information to insure that the reader
is not misinformed. The truth of the matter is that Mr. Green imparted false information
when he allowed misspelling of chords etc. to be printed ! Joe
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I actually have one of the Andrew Green books and I (a real beginner) found an error that caused significant confusion for me for a while. I pointed it out to Mr. Green in an e-mail, who replied that he hadn't been advised of this particular error before (I think it was on one of the very first pages).
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Imjoe-
I think you misunderstood my post. I was agreeing with you.
Cheers
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Sorry Mike !! I re-read your reply. You did agree with me. I'm so very sorry !! Please pardon my stupidity!! Joe
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Hi bharris22: I know the page that you are referring to. It was at the very beginning of the book [ an incorrect chord
spelling on the grid]. I called this to his attention too. His reply to me was that it was a "typo" error. To
me it sounds like a very poor excuse for being incorrect !!
I don't really know Andrew Green personally. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. However, this may
reflect on a persons' well meaning regarding the imparting of printed information.
I mean no harm or insult to Mr. Green. However, if the book is instructional, the author better be
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT !!There are far to many readers who depend on the material in books,
especially when the readers are beginners and trying their very best to absorb the information.
Imagine a student telling a professor at a university that the moon is green because he read it in a book.
The Prof. would think, " this student is off his rocker!"
I'm sure that you get the picture.
Writing for publication represents a great responsibility, especially if it is instructional material.
You deserve a great deal of respect for writing Andrew Green and calling the error to his attention.
However, his answer that this is the first time a person mentioned the error to him doesn't cut it with
me. He is wrong and you, the reader deserves his apology. Better yet, he aught to return the hard
earned money that you spent for the book.
Best regards and congratulations for speaking up!!
Joe
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Well, speaking as someone who has published a few books, I can tell you that it's really easy to miss an error or two. Yes, there are proofreaders, and yes, I had to review my proofs as well, but by the end of the process, you've looked at the the thing so many times, your brain kind of rebels and tends to see what you meant rather than what's on the paper.
The error could well have occurred in typesetting. Typesetters are not necessarily experts on the material in the books they're setting.
My point is, mistakes happen, and they can happen at any of a number of points in the editorial and publication process. If they did another edition of the book, and didn't correct the errors, that would be really lame, but until then, I'd be inclined to cut the guy some slack.
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y'all are really riding a high horse regarding a few typos.
green's book is an invaluable contribution to the subject, with much information and instruction not found elsewhere.
if one is audacious enough to think one can learn without a teacher, the minimal requirement ought be the ability to think for oneself if confronted with the illogic of some minor error.
sheesh.
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