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now I know most are going to say to look at bach chorales or tradtional harmony text books, and I have worked through some chorales and done harmony classes at college but I'm interested in harmony books written for guitarists. I've heard great things about the goodchord almanac but that's out of print but I am enjoying looking through that thread. I've got chord books like chord chemistry, creative chord harmony and modern chord progressions and I've looked at the ted greene site harmony stuff a lot. I'm curious if books like George Van Eps' harmonic mechanics offer things that I haven't already seen in other books, especially considering they are a bit expensive.
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03-16-2017 03:30 AM
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The field of harmony and guitaristic sounds is broader and more diverse than it's ever been. On one hand, you'll find many books and teachers that can describe and walk you through the harmonic techniques of Joe Pass and his harmonic kin. At the other end of the spectrum are players like Ben Monder who's concept of what is possible changes with each project he does and quite frankly, it's up to you to try to figure out his mindset if that's the direction you want to go in.
The bottom line is, the more specific a book is, the more it may tell you in the immediate short term, and the more general a source, the greater the possibilities for you to create an application that doesn't follow anybody's preset notions.
Who is it that inspires you?
Honestly, if you understand the foundations put forth in Piston or Persichetti, then pretty much the sky's the limit. The guitar is a problematic instrument; it takes a long time to master its nuance. Jazz harmony is an open book, the limits of which are up to your sensibilities. You like Derek Bailey? Sonny Sharrock? Bern Nix? Then you can certainly know their roots and trace their footsteps, but no book will really tell you how to be them.
There have been many players who have studied with good teachers and come away with very different results. That's a great teacher: Someone who is broad enough to allow you your own synthetic style. Jim Hall is paid tribute to by everyone from Sco to Frisell to Goodrick and Metheny. But his "book" of rules was basic, while his spirit and attitude were broad.
Mick Goodrick has been a teacher to everyone from Emily Remler to Bryan Baker, Lage Lund, Wolfgang Muthspiel to Bela Fleck. His "book" is one of exploration of the basics and some insights into how to transcend them.
There have been a few books that have been really good at embodying a spirit of exploration and guidance. Mick's Advancing Guitarist is an obvious classic. Jon Damian's Chord Factory is a treasure chest of concepts. Dave Leibman's Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony is not at all a "guitar" book but it can take you somewhere that is totally your own. Hal Crook's How To Improvise can give endless insights into possibilities where advance harmonic structures are logically organized (also not guitar specific).
What I'm saying is there is book knowledge, and there is knowing the spirit of innovation. Much of modern guitar harmony and syntax is being written nightly but the fundamentals, the roots are the same. The Van Eps is a great source of fundamentals and possibilities. There's a smaller book on harmonized melody that's not expensive and full of great ideas.
If you really want to learn modern harmony, get your basics down and play, listen and I guarantee, you will teach yourself more than any book. Use your time wisely. Don't underestimate the intrinsic. Don't get lost in the temptation of the extrinsic. Find the players you find compelling and ask them questions. THAT's the spirit of jazz and that's what guides the players that people will sell books about a generation from now.
But that's just my opinion.
David
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Have a look at the Barry Harris Workshop book/dvd packages and Alan Kingstone's The Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar, all available at Howard Rees' Jazz Workshops
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Maybe it sound hard but you could learn how to read continuo (I did it, easiest than it sounds) then you have access to centuries of harmonic movements including Bach but also lot of didactic material ( harmony at the keyboard type and partimentos) that will automatically arrange itself for guitar, bypassing the "reading notes" part. As a bonus it makes you understand how harmony is used to build form.
Then ( when you have learn continuo) you can take a piano part, write down the figured bass ( the "numbers) and voila! You have a guitar arrangement you can even improvise on. I did that on several Italian opera songs and it works beautifully. Good luck
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Leavitt's modern method volume 3 has some really fundamental work on harmonizing melody using basic shells and building from there. Open voiced/closed voice etc. etc.
Originally Posted by nick1994
Not "harmony" so much as guitar-specific considerations for building beneath a melodic voice.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-16-2017 at 10:23 AM.
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This isn't guitar specific, but it's a great book on really understanding changes:
Hearin' the Changes: Dealing with Unknown Tunes by Ear: Jerry Coker, Bob Knapp, Larry Vincent: 0805095142709: Amazon.com: Books
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I have a shelf full of books and didn't get much out of most of them.
Here are the exceptions.
Almir Chediak wrote a series of songbooks of major Brazilian composers. He included the original guitar grips. I'd suggest maybe starting with the Jobim books. You're likely to know some of the tunes, but I think most guitarists would learn something from the chord diagrams.
Nelson Faria has a book called Brazilian Guitar Styles. It is far from a comprehensive book on harmony. In fact, it's not really intended to be. But it contains a lot of interesting ideas.
Joe Pass has a guitar method which includes written out chord melodies. Lots of great ideas, but very hard to read. I consider myself a decent reader (as guitarists go), but Pass' book was tedious.
All of the above teach harmony in the context of songs. That's the only way that ever worked for me.
Beyond that, I'd suggest looking at youtube videos of players doing stuff you like and cop their ideas. May seem intimidating at first, but it might prove more efficient than a book, unless you're at a stage where you just need the basics of how to construct chords and find obvious ones on the neck.
Place to begin: Susanna Raya's version of Manha De Carnival which is on youtube. Incredible harmonization and you can see her left hand very clearly.
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as you have noted there are many books on harmony/chords that are guitar centric..
the ted greene works..his site..has many Bach chorales..and his books "Modern chord progressions" uses many voice leading techniques of Bach..also Ted studied with Van Epps so a lot of his approach is in teds playing..
It really is an intense study..for example any of Teds progressions..if you break them down line by line and actually see the voices relate to each other..as he moves one note higher it may become a major chord with a Bb in the bass or he moves two notes lower it may become a dom 9th chord going into the tonic..the amazing thing of course is..he KNEW each line and where it was coming from and going to..and how it would SOUND (I studied with Ted for two years) at any given point in his playing you could ask him why he is voicing a chord a particular way an he would show you in slo-mo his reason and what chords are produced in the process..so his progressions of iii7 vi7 ii7 V7 I are not a random selections of chord voicings..he knows the voicings in each of the chords in different positions on the neck.. the soprano bass alto and tenor and what they are going to sound like in any arrangement..its very humbling to be in the presence of such a master..and a very nice guy fully aware of his gifts...
.. my take: no matter what books on harmony you may choose to study from they all are going to use basic harmonic principles that Bach employed..and are being used today by players like Monder..the ear likes to be challenged-ahhh where is this melody going and it brings a smile to many faces at the twists and turns of several voices criss-crossing each other seemingly going in different directions and all ending at the same place..
this is from a post on this site of Julian Lage using a lot of the harmonic voicing etc
Last edited by wolflen; 03-16-2017 at 11:29 PM.
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The best two books I've studied: Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book (any instrument); Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry.
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Context please. Originally Posted by nick1994
Whose harmony do you like as a listener?
I say this as there is enough info for several decades work. It's good to get started on something that appeals right away.
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I have such a broad range of people I want to sound like. I love guys like tim miller, john stowell, ben monder, allan holdsworth, peter bernstein ted greene joe pass barney kessel gilad julian lage kurt metheny. it's sort of all over the place, I just want to explore all sorts of different approaches. Originally Posted by christianm77
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So basically you love everyone! Originally Posted by nick1994
(And this Kurt Metheny guy sounds serious :-) Some serious mad science has gone on in the jazz guitar world. I blame Ben Monder, as I reckon he shrunk Mike Moreno as well.)
OK, that's a wide reference. Which is great! But also, how do you prioritise?
It can be overwhelming. My advice is then to browse, and choose one thing to really master. Just choose what appeals to you.
Jordan is a good example of this - he has a few simple ideas that he explores in some depth. He says that he's never bothered with drop 2 chords for example, but all members here can attest to his harmonic knowledge and skill. Developing your art is as much about what you don't learn as what you learn.
The idea of mastering everything is completely overwhelming, not to mention impossible, so my aim is to try and focus on one thing at a time. That do you focus on? Well provided you are basically able to play tunes etc on gigs, it's really up to you hence my question was to try and narrow the field down a bit.
Furthermore, a lot of my favourite guitarists play really boring voicings but still sound great. IF you are interested in becoming a distinctive harmonist, I think learning a few key sounds can go a long way towards defining a style. Just choose the sounds you like.Last edited by christianm77; 03-19-2017 at 08:17 AM.
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Also, if you are serious about *understanding* harmony, get a keyboard, pref a piano.
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As someone who's obsessed with the practice and application of harmony - and it's implications on and relationship with melody - I would have to agree with what several people so far have said. In terms of the basics of simple theory and understanding of triads and 7th chords construction and things of that nature, really any basic theory book will give you what you want and need. But it sounds like you're beyond that and looking for more depth into the topic, and it really is important to pick and choose which part of the field you want to burrow down through. There are many approaches and ways to work at it... not just tradition vs modern... because even within that basic framework, there are so many different players and styles. And are we attempting to emulate piano players? Guitar players? Big band arrangements? Specific people? etc etc
There's no right or wrong answers to the question of what we want to get out of something, but it is super helpful to have some kind of preference to guide our growth. It's always possible to change course later. I studied straight up Joe Pass stuff when I started, then I went into a short Barry Harris period, then I did some self-directed 'modern' explorations, then I tried out the Monder ideas, then Peter Bernstein's, then Shepik stuff (more or less the same ideas that are in play in Monder's approach), and eventually stumbled into my own little world of just utilizing triads as it's proven to be the most in-depth, chameleon-like approach that helps me fit in with just about any situation, and it helps me create the sounds that I ultimately have been searching for for the last couple of decades when it's my own projects.
So ultimately, I think it's good to pick a direction, but understand it's never a prison sentence. That said, the more time you spend with any particular approach, the more depth you'll get from it. Like others have said, I don't necessarily think that mastery comes from knowing a little bit about every approach (though that has its place), but rather from really digging deep within a given approach. So then the question is, what do we want to sound like and where do we want to put our energy? I think that would be a helpful approach to finding the right book(s) and/or teacher for anyone.
Also, two quick points of clarity...
-I definitely don't bother much thinking about or practicing drop 2s or drop anythings at this point... but I certainly have. I just see a lot of people fall into the trap of getting stuck on them thinking that mastering all the inversions of them will yield the ability to play masterfully. And while they can be helpful... it's not necessarily the magic bullet, nor does it, alone, guarantee much. And I've found other things that yield much more musical results for myself that help simplify everything else and circumvent those issues. So I wouldn't say that I've never bothered, but it's true that I don't bother. I can't play all inversions of all 14 basic chord types on every string set in every drop variation. I also don't really care. But again, if you want to play like Monder and you're not working on those types of things, you're not going to find much success.
-Christian, if you're not hip to Kurt Metheny... you ain't living!!!
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Jordan: "..But again, if you want to play like Monder and you're not working on those types of things, you're not going to find much success.
-Christian, if you're not hip to Kurt Metheny... you ain't living!!! .."
Well first...Kurt Metheny makes that other guy look like an beginner..
in terms of the inversions on all string sets..as I have learned..this is a very intense and time consuming study and should have some guidance ( a teacher preferred) or a book that is very detailed in the application of such a study..
for me the end result is not just knowing a chord and its inversions..but the inner voice movements..move any ONE note in an inversion and you have a different chord which may connect to another chord or series of chords one or two notes (frets) away and so on.. perhaps creating another melody with the inner voices of the chords..
and this type of movement does not end...you begin to gain insight into the workings of classical music masters and "four part harmony" flowing from one key to another becomes a magical journey..worth every hour of study of chord inversions on all sets of strings..
when Monder says a C Major7 chord can also be seen as an Eb altered dom and an AbMajor altered chord..your head may begin to spin..but dive deep and see the possibilities of such thinking .. it truly is a revelation in the harmonic adventure of music
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As noted in a discussion on improv recently, chords are just a map. Just as maps show multiple possible routes to a destination, chords show multiple routes to a tonality. Originally Posted by wolflen
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Enough already with the "kurt metheny" gag. Clearly the guy was referring to several different guitarists and just using a first name for some of them.
Has anyone used, or have, the Wilmott book about guitar harmony?
Maybe Christian's answer contains the information to this puzzle: That this is a vast subject, and the approach one takes, and the understanding/grips/technique (?1) one needs is just very style-specific.
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It's very good. Originally Posted by goldenwave77
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right lots of good posts, my point is that I want harmonic freedom, to be able to play anything I want and harmonize in any way possible.
I think it's something I need to figure out for myself. see you all in the next 50 years hopefully I'll be a chord master by then.
oh and by the way Pat Rosenwinkel is way better than kurt metheny
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Go take a look at some of the posts in the Songs subforum where there is a current thread on "Blue Bossa". A bunch of these posts, Christian and ronjazz, make excellent points.
E.g., comping stuff is just highly contextual. Concretely, playing theoretically correct stuff may or may not fly, in the moment, depending on what other people are doing, and what octave range, they are playing in.
Jimmy Bruno makes a similar point in one of his video clips, where he says that the musical meaning of a chord fragment will change depending on what a bass player or piano is doing.
I am frankly, a little skeptical, about intricate, harmonic approaches on the guitar, that might work in a solo context, but which may result in a train wreck, or a a clam festival, waiting to happen, in a group setting. I just don't see how you get a group to coordinate all this in real time, at least without some people, playing very sparsely.
To think about it another way, oftentimes simple melodies can allude to harmonic complexity. ATTYA, for example, has an almost trivial melody. "Stella", also, has a simple melody. I like the tune...went to pick it out on the guitar, which is simple enough, and then you look at a lead sheet, and say...whoa....what is going on, harmonically. In this sense, "heard melodies, are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter", as the poet noted. (Maybe we need to amend the statement, though, to refer to unheard harmonies, when we listen to the head.)
Conversely, some tunes are called challenging but the harmony is not difficult. "Body and Soul", is just pretty straightforward, with a couple of modulations, up a half step, down a whole step, back to beginning. I don't think it's a difficult melody...not anything like "Stardust", or "Laura", which are much trickier.
I guess this is why I like a lot of hard bop. The rhythm section is free, and loose, and not doing 4 to the bar stuff, the melodies are hummable, and there is a lot of freedom for a good soloist to stretch out.
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As an advanced beginner using Classical/Jazz Harmony for a Modern R&B Originally Posted by jordanklemons
As someone who's obsessed with the practice and application of harmony - and it's implications on and relationship with melody - I would have to agree with what several people so far have said. In terms of the basics of simple theory and understanding of triads and 7th chords construction and things of that nature, really any basic theory book will give you what you want and need. But it sounds like you're beyond that and looking for more depth into the topic, and it really is important to pick and choose which part of the field you want to burrow down through. There are many approaches and ways to work at it... not just tradition vs modern... because even within that basic framework, there are so many different players and styles. And are we attempting to emulate piano players? Guitar players? Big band arrangements? Specific people? etc etc
There's no right or wrong answers to the question of what we want to get out of something, but it is super helpful to have some kind of preference to guide our growth. It's always possible to change course later. I studied straight up Joe Pass stuff when I started, then I went into a short Barry Harris period, then I did some self-directed 'modern' explorations, then I tried out the Monder ideas, then Peter Bernstein's, then Shepik stuff (more or less the same ideas that are in play in Monder's approach), and eventually stumbled into my own little world of just utilizing triads as it's proven to be the most in-depth, chameleon-like approach that helps me fit in with just about any situation, and it helps me create the sounds that I ultimately have been searching for for the last couple of decades when it's my own projects.
So ultimately, I think it's good to pick a direction, but understand it's never a prison sentence. That said, the more time you spend with any particular approach, the more depth you'll get from it. Like others have said, I don't necessarily think that mastery comes from knowing a little bit about every approach (though that has its place), but rather from really digging deep within a given approach. So then the question is, what do we want to sound like and where do we want to put our energy? I think that would be a helpful approach to finding the right book(s) and/or teacher for anyone.
Also, two quick points of clarity...
-I definitely don't bother much thinking about or practicing drop 2s or drop anythings at this point... but I certainly have. I just see a lot of people fall into the trap of getting stuck on them thinking that mastering all the inversions of them will yield the ability to play masterfully. And while they can be helpful... it's not necessarily the magic bullet, nor does it, alone, guarantee much. And I've found other things that yield much more musical results for myself that help simplify everything else and circumvent those issues. So I wouldn't say that I've never bothered, but it's true that I don't bother. I can't play all inversions of all 14 basic chord types on every string set in every drop variation. I also don't really care. But again, if you want to play like Monder and you're not working on those types of things, you're not going to find much success.
-Christian, if you're not hip to Kurt Metheny... you ain't living!!!
Fusion type Music I am not really qualified to teach ( except technique ) but I like how you sort of mentioned skipping over Dropped Voicings depending on what someone is trying to achieve.
But I don't think they( dropped voicings ) are the coolest sounding , most mood inducing, most able to apply different Harmonic Rhythms to ,
easiest or most inspiring to Improvise, Jam over, Compose with etc.
By Contrast the Brazilian type voicings and so many other types...seem to have an Instant 'Vibe' where the dropped voicings seem to be more of a specific Arranging type use maybe for Chord Melody ? or Comping in some specific Style?
Correct me if I'm wrong here...I just think those maybe should be far down the list..
as opposed to Inversions and Closed versus Open voicings- which can have different 'Colors' ...
Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't hear 'dropped' voicings as being colorful distinctive compared to so many great sounding Voicings available on the Guitar.Last edited by Robertkoa; 03-21-2017 at 01:08 PM.
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Dude, Pat is the man. A lot of people don't realize he and Kurt Rosenwinkel are actually brothers. True story. Originally Posted by nick1994
Anyway... relating to harmonic freedom, there are definitely several ways of getting to that point... though I'm personally not familiar with any books that can do it for you. Maybe someone else knows of them. Some Mick Goodrick stuff might help? Maybe? But I don't know, I didn't learn that way.
If you're looking for freedom,
I think the Monder stuff could definitely be helpful for sure.
I'd also still prosthelytize getting REALLY insanely familiar with triads and being creative with them. Not only do they offer an incredible sense of harmony (helping us organize and harmonize any given chord tone/extension in a very cohesive way), but they're also so simple that they're easy to create variations with.
A quick example. If I'm playing over a V7 -> I in the key of D and I want to play off the b9 of the dominant chord, I have many options. One I particular like is the 13b9 with is very common and I get by thinking about an F# major triad over the A7 chord... and maybe I'll resolve that to an A major triad over the D major chord.
Depending on the situation and my role in it, and on how I want to convey the harmony/melody, I have a whole bunch of options...
Big chords
5x5(676) -> 10.9(11.9.10)x *notice the triads in the parenthesis
slightly smaller voicings (get me out of the bass player's way)
xx5(676) -> xx4(655)
dyads
A7
x(0)xx76 x(0)xx89 x(0)xx76 ->
Dmaj
xx(0)x55
Or
A7
x(0)xx76 -> x(0)x68x -> x(0)8x7x -> x(0)56xx ->
D
x5765x
So forth and so on. There's like an infinite number of ways to create variations within all of this because it literally just boils down to an F# major triad moving to an A major triad. It could even be just arpeggiating them. Or mixing and matching between full voicings, 3 note ideas, dyads, and arpeggios... they can all sort of intermingle allowing a huge amount of freedom to convey the harmonies at play. Even adding in chromatic runs or melodic statements within it. And if we're after the benefits of moving through inversions that's there as well...
A7
x10x(11.11.9) -> xx5(676) -> xx5(322) ->
D
xx4(220)
And this is all just with one triadic option to harmonize that b9 with. There are a ton of ways to approach it. Eb major, Bb minor, Eb minor, Bbº, Bbsus2... the list just goes on and on. And in theory, you're right, it will take anyone at least 50 years to come anywhere near close to mastering any of this... or the Monder stuff. But at the end of the day, it also only takes me about 15-20 minutes worth of active exploring to find some really beautiful, applicable ideas. And each idea just leads to 100 more ideas. And because they're all based on triads and I can see all of my triads really easily, it makes it a little simpler for me to learn each new thing than it was the thing prior.
I personally know no books that offer the kind of freedom I've found by doing these types of explorations. They may be out there, and especially since each person is wired differently and learns in different ways I think it could be worth it. But I think finding a way to relate to the harmonic concepts and become playful with them is, for me, where a real sense of freedom has come from.
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I thought he was talking more about using an exclusive drop 2 or drop 3 "system" for working through everything. Originally Posted by Robertkoa
But in the end, most voicings are a "drop" something, whether or not we're worried about what type of "drop" chord it actually is.
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In my own understanding, drop voicings is not a guitar concept. It comes straight out of arranging. It's a classification that arrangers started using to deal with writing out chords for a horn section or a string section. Sometimes the melody went too high and the instruments with the lower ranges couldn't reach high enough to harmonize with the rest of the ensemble. So one of the ways of dealing with that was to take a note 2nd, or 3rd, or 2nd and 4th, etc (depending on the situation) and drop them down an octave so that way each individual instrument (below the melody) would be moved down in pitch a few steps, resulting in putting the instruments with the lower ranges down in a place where they could comfortably cover their notes. Originally Posted by Robertkoa
And the drop concept was not necessarily meant to be used in a way where an entire section was arranged out in a specific drop configuration. I mean, this can happen, and I imagine some people have works where they may have intentionally chosen ahead of time to arrange out a section all in drop 2 or in drop 3 or something. But ultimately, the purpose was to be used when necessary to help the group sound as musical as possible while moving through a section... which has a lot more to do with the architecture of the melody, the instruments being used, etc.
It is quite often that you would see a passage where one melody note is harmonized in close position, the next is in drop 2, the next is in drop 3, the next is close again, and on and on. Again, because it's just about the flow of each individual instrument being used and about making sure that none of the instruments end up outside of their range.
Now obviously the guitar has the physical problem of not being able to utilize close position harmony very easily with anything beyond basic triads. It's a very real problem. So we've adopted the arrangers' technique of the drop configuration. And it's helpful and important... but the way we think about it and talk about it is (at least in my opinion) a sort of slight mutation of the concept... with the goal no longer being to make a passage as musical as possible, but instead, to make specific harmonies physically possible to play.
I don't know if I would disagree that it could be good to hold off on digging deeply into those drop concepts for guitar players. I might disagree with what should be taught first. I think a basic understanding of the keyboard and then some introductory arranging experience would be massively helpful not only in terms of understanding the drop concepts, but also just in terms of helping all of us think less about the physical nature of the fretboard and more about the sounds we're trying to create.
That said, you'll notice in all the examples I listed above (which range from the unwritten out single-note harmonic ideas all the way up to 5 note voicings) I never mentioned drop anything, because it's simply not necessary within the way I think. It does come up every now and then when I'm arranging... but many of the sounds I'm after can be accomplished with different ways of thinking. None are right or wrong... just a little different. I do think about close triads vs open triads sometimes... but that's about as fancy as I take it when it comes to that type of stuff. I find the study of how the notes within the voicing relate to, and behave with, each other, how they affect the melodic architecture, and how to utilize them playfully in as many variations as possible to be more fruitful for me. Due to a hand injury, I have a very limited time frame I can practice within, so I have to be VERY picky about what I do and don't spend my time on.
Hope that answers your question. I think I may have gone off on a tangent or two that felt relevant to me.
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Originally Posted by jordanklemons
Yeah, I always crack up when I see drop two voicings on the guitar discussed. It's not like you've got a choice on the guitar, like you do on the piano and arranging.
I recently used drop two voicings on a sax soli I wrote, and having the second tenor double the melody line of the 1st alto sounded so much stronger than the block writing I was doing (I wasn't even doubling the melody with the Bari down an octave), the resultant clarity was much stronger.
There's no greater thrill than hearing your chart performed for the first time, and it comes out just the way you wanted it to come out.
Monday night the jazz big band I play in is going to play a new original composition I just finished, and I can't wait to hear it!
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