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Hi
I'm not really a beginner - I used to play a few years ago (not jazz) then didn't have time then took it up again this year. Now that I've got some callouses back on my fingers and loosened my wrist somewhat I bought the famous Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar book. Unfortunately I've come unstuck on page 2 Lesson 1: Chords.
He suggests that one practices the chords shown but I find one of them to be either a misprint or just plain impossible for my normal size hands. It goes like this:
Chord 7. Gma7: G - D - X - B - F# - B That's a five fret stretch!
Now I guess it must be possible but if so then I wasted my money since unless I get finger extensions there's no way I can fret that.
I've scoured the net looking for a pic or vid showing someone doing it but no luck so far.
Should I give up my quest to play some jazz?
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02-01-2016 07:18 PM
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If I remember correctly, that one doesn't make a lot of sense by itself. Go ahead and look ahead a little bit, and see which chord precedes it in the lessons. I think it's usually a dominant voicing which is nearly the same and then it just kind of stretches out to that voicing. Makes more sense in context.
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It is possible to play that chord, but it is a stretch. I don't think it's used that much. Just learn as much of the other chords in that book as you can. Most of them are easier and used more frequently. I'm a fan of the Mikey Baker book.
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our own rob mackillops great mickey baker tutorial vids might be of some aid
cheers
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That's probably the least essential and useful chord fingering presented by Baker. Don't worry if you have problems with it.
Try it around the eighth fret, C Major 7 rather than G Major 7.
You can substitute the easier GM7.
When Baker uses this chord, it follows his second most difficult chord-- a Dominant 7 (actually 13) with a flat nine (on 5th string) and flat five on the sixth string. The root is implied on the fifth string. The pinky finger bars the first and second string. This is followed by the GM7. The pinky stays put and the other three strings move down one fret.
Practice them in sequence D13b9b5 -->GM7. And, again, preferably higher up the neck.
If you find this chord near impossible when you come to it in a progression in a later lesson, a possible work around would be to forget momentarily about the six string note.
There's a very valuable site on the Baker book==here.
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no don't worry , no-one plays that
damn chord anyway , its feets is too big ...
carry on there's loads of good stuff in there
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Phew! Thanks. I'll just leave that one for now then.
There's some real nice chords there. For a non-jazz guitar player they're the kind of fascinating chords I've heard many a time without knowing what they were.
Thanks for the links as well. The Advanced Guitar Study Group looks like a mighty interesting resource and Rob MacKillop's videos are great. It's so much easier to learn these days than it was some 40+ years ago when I taught myself.
I shall plough on.
Thanks for your reassurance.
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It gets easier with practice.
You can hear Jimmy Raney use that voicing on his intro to "Autumn In New York" from the "Momentum" album, he plays it on a Bb root (preceded with a B7#9).
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This guy played it (around 50 sec. in), fits perfectly!
Originally Posted by pingu
Robert
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Strewth! What a boy.
Thanks for that.
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I don't have huge hands. I've never had trouble playing that chord. Just finger a regular old rock and roll G7 bar chord and reach out with your pinky and grab the top notes. But you only have to press on the low G with your index finger, which helps with the reach. You want to have your thumb on the back of the neck, not hanging over the top.
I use that chord often, usually for endings.
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OK you got me ! Originally Posted by diminix
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That chord is nothing compared to what Ted Greene wants you to do with your fingers.
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Agreed it is a stretch but try to learn it as best as you can. It will be used in a later lesson. good luck.
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That's Mickey's money shot!
Ab7#9: 46x577
GMaj7: 35x477
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There's a chord I wanted to do, cuz it sounds nice in an arp, an (Add 2) chord:
F(Add 2): 153211
I couldn't quote do it, so I practiced it higher up the neck where it isn't quite such a stretch, then slowly worked by way down, fret by fret.
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It's a cool chord ... nice to have in your arsenal, but not absolutely necessary
I'll second the advice to move up the neck to where the stretch is smaller ... master it at the higher frets and then move down
and a key part in my opinion is to not wrap your thumb around the neck, but to place it on the back of the neck like a classically trained guitarist
good luck
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And he calls that Ab7#9 a D13b5b9... if I remember correctly. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
A cheater way to finger the chord and retain most of the voice leading:
Gmaj7 (no root) x5x477
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Yep, and here's the other little secret of people who've studied Mickey Baker's book: Apparently some people don't play all of those chords in lesson 1 very much before moving on to the "real music" lessons, where you might arrive at them one-at-a-time.....in context. Just sayin'..... Originally Posted by Al Br.
Keep that on the down-low. Don't tell anyone. ;-)
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I use that chord, like the BK video in TSOYS, but from an arrangement that I got from Rich Severson. I don't have large hands so it was a challenge. Then I heard someone, maybe Rich say - "if you are having problems with a stretch, pretend that the stretch is actually one fret bigger than it is and try it like that for a while". It may sound silly, but it actually works for me.
On guitar, I am primarily a flat top fingerstyle player of Celtic, Old English, Scottish etc. tunes.
I am doing rolls and arpeggiating chords all the time, so another thing I do is when a chord is difficult for me it's because of either the stretch is big, or the notes are too close and the fingers jammed too tight.
When encountering either, I'll often just roll through the chord in a fashion that dispenses with the need to finger all notes at the exact same time.
In a way it's a bad habit, because it allows me to not have to master the grip. On the other hand it's a nice thing to be able to be musical and continue on with learning the arrangement.
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My hands aren't that big either, but I eventually figured it out. Under lesson 2 with chords 4, 5 and 6 just play the first two measures. After the D13b5b9 simply slide your first three fingers back one fret each and you have that Gmaj7. I love the souund, and as I got used to that one transition going directly to that chord became easy. Good luck!
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On my short scale 24.75" scale length guitar (ES-3x5 style) with 10-48 rounds, I can just barely grip it to let it ring out cleanly. I have small hands. Can't do the thumbover. Holding the guitar John Stowell-style helps immensely. The hand needs to be limbered up.
Not a chord I'd enjoy playing but just to show that it is possible to grip it and play it cleanly.
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For me, the main problem is not to play this chord (which was hard enough with my small hands and stiff knuckles from arthritis) as such. If I was standing on a stage, curtain rises, grab and play the chord once, curtain goes down--well, then everything would be fine. But usually the chord is integrated into a progression of other chords within a piece of music, and going from something into this (or any other) difficult grip and from there to the next in due time, that is the big problem. I can do it pretty good in the Mickey Backer lessons. But I struggle hard to play what Barney Kessel plays in the video I linked above. I tried to transcribe this chord melody and learned to play it. There are several hard to play passages, some impossible. At sec. 50 the change from Gmaj7 to the next arpeggiated chord (I play it as 4x3344, don't know what exactly Barney is doing, and no idea what that is, kind of G6/9 with third missing?).
For the first chord the forearm is thrust forward, left hand is flexed fully and fingers stretched to an extreme, in the next chord forearm is pulled backward, hand is extended fully with thumb pushed over and fingers cramped together. That move is for me really dangerous, sometimes from the extreme stretch my hand gets kind of "locked in", and the attempt to grab to following chord is almost impossible, prevented by a stinging pain in the back of my hand while changing the grip. Let alone the trill on g# with the little finger. Seems that Barney had big hands, and something else that I am missing obviously...
That is something I really need to take care of, guitar playing shouldn't hurt me.
Robert
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One possible 'cheat' is to play the bass note first, release it, and then play the chord.
It is also fine to just play the top four strings. It's good to be able to make the whole chord but if one can't, one can't. (Or at least can't yet.)
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A fourth way is to take a leaf from Alexander Vynograd and use your chin to fret G2. I don't know how you feel about a calloused chin though...
Robert, I'd drop the G2 and let it be implied. Perhaps there a place for a seven-string after all...Tune the 7th to G2 just for this bit of nastiness.
How about dropping the E2 to Eb2 or D2? That could be a workaround.Last edited by Jabberwocky; 02-05-2016 at 01:10 PM.
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