The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I have searched around this forum about this topic, and found some good tips, but since things change with time, I wanted to ask what the preferred approach is? I have just learned Drop 2 voicings on the three string sets, and also shell chords on 5th and 6th string. To you who have studied with a teacher, or at university, how did the teacher make you tackle this? Is there a good book to use for this topic? I find that many of the online articles, from some well known “bloggers” on jazz, are not very good written. They touch upon so many subjects in one article, that it gets more confusing than clear. I have a teacher, and what he wants me to do(which I do), is to play jazz standards. Well, I have only tackled autumn leaves and so what, for now. Luckily I understand music theory, to a degree, and I also practice arpeggios. Unfortunately, I don’t find myself evolving my vocabulary of chord shapes too much by using this approach, since I mostly play 7 chords, and either use shell or drop 2 voicings. I plan to study drop 3 also. Luckily, when you understand the concept of drop 2, that isn’t the biggest task.

    I am very up for using loads of time on this, so I just want a good approach. Unfortunately, I find that there are very few written out approaches on how to tackle this. It's much easier to practice something, when you have a clear road ahead

    I also bought The Jazz Theory Book, but after reading around on this forum, I understand that following that book, perhaps isn’t the best approach, as it is written for piano players.
    Last edited by znerken; 09-21-2018 at 09:03 AM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I would recommend The Chord Melody Assembly Line which is a book with a DVD by Robert Conti for a number of reasons.

    First, he teaches you ALL of the jazz chord voicings that he uses (and there's a lot of them) when he does chord melody arrangements of jazz standards.

    Second, he teaches you how to harmonize numerous melodic phrases for practice and at the end of the book he teaches you a chord melody arrangement of Danny Boy where you are using a different chord for each melody note as well.

    This all makes memorizing lots of usable chord voicings relevant, fun, and motivating as versus just going through a chord dictionary.

  4. #3

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    Find all the possible uses of each interval structure/shape you learn, practice inverting them and changing individual notes and fixate and the sounds you really like, and move them to all strings groups.

    Also, listen to Pianists.

  5. #4

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    I didn't learn this from a teacher but I found this idea very useful for learning more chords. Take a 3 string set (ideally the top 3) and draw (draw only dots of the shape) all the possible chord shapes within 4 frets of that 3 string set. Disregard the shapes that have octaves for now. You'll have 33 chords drawn out. Figure out what they are and how you can use them. Draw the chords again but organize them into the possible inversions of that string set. Stick with them for a long time until you are absolutely sure that you can play with them with no qualms. (May take months to a few years).

    Once you have the chords shapes burned in your head then do the same for string set d-g-b and then a-d-g

    I don't play standard tuning but i have done the drawing exercise for it a long while ago (just the drawing), I still remember some of the chords there! Good luck

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by znerken
    I have just learned Drop 2 voicings on the three string sets, and also shell chords on 5th and 6th string.
    Do you mean for dom7 chords, or for all chord types? Do you know Maj7, min7, min7b5?

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Do you mean for dom7 chords, or for all chord types? Do you know Maj7, min7, min7b5?
    I know all the chords you mentioned, yes. Playing autumn leaves i.e. without them, would be hard How to build a great jazz chord vocabulary?

    I would like to expand my vocabulary of shapes, also on altered chords, 7(+5) for example. Basically, I want a jazz chord vocabulary, and a good one too! I realize this is a long term project, like arpeggios, but I would still love a road ahead.

  8. #7

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    I find the best way is to learn lots of tunes...chord melody is good but even just 'partial' chord melody like you might play in a trio setting will teach you a lot of common and useful voicings.

  9. #8

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    My first teacher, Sid Margolis, did it this way.

    He wrote out some basic comping chords on chord grids and circled the root. It was my job to move the chord up and down the neck and learn the name of the chord at every fret. These were the chords you see in older books on swing guitar. He called them "muted string chords" because the A and high E strings were generally muted. If you're interested, let me know and I'll detail them.

    Then he picked a tune. The first one was Don't Blame Me. Then he taught me a chord melody. Some were chords had learned from the chord grids. The next one was Moonglow. Same thing - a few new chords. Each new chord went on a grid with the root circled. I think the third tune was Stars Fell On Alabama.

    In every case the chords linked to each other nicely. Years later, I found out this was called voice leading.

    My second teacher was Carl Barry. Carl showed me Chuck Wayne's system of four note chords on three sets of adjacent strings. And, we applied them to tunes.

    I found that I learned the material much better when I applied it to a tune.

    I got a few things here and there from books. The best were probably Almir Chediak's books on Brazilian tunes which show the composer's own grips.

    Doing it this way had the added advantage of including good chord movement - which studying chords in isolation doesn't provide.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    My first teacher, Sid Margolis, did it this way.

    He wrote out some basic comping chords on chord grids and circled the root. It was my job to move the chord up and down the neck and learn the name of the chord at every fret. These were the chords you see in older books on swing guitar. He called them "muted string chords" because the A and high E strings were generally muted. If you're interested, let me know and I'll detail them.

    Then he picked a tune. The first one was Don't Blame Me. Then he taught me a chord melody. Some were chords had learned from the chord grids. The next one was Moonglow. Same thing - a few new chords. Each new chord went on a grid with the root circled. I think the third tune was Stars Fell On Alabama.

    In every case the chords linked to each other nicely. Years later, I found out this was called voice leading.

    My second teacher was Carl Barry. Carl showed me Chuck Wayne's system of four note chords on three sets of adjacent strings. And, we applied them to tunes.

    I found that I learned the material much better when I applied it to a tune.

    I got a few things here and there from books. The best were probably Almir Chediak's books on Brazilian tunes which show the composer's own grips.

    Doing it this way had the added advantage of including good chord movement - which studying chords in isolation doesn't provide.
    Could you elaborate on that Carl 4 note system? Or perhaps link somewhere it is explained good enough? Sounds like drop chords?

  11. #10

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    I found Jazz Guitar Chord Thesaurus- Kirk Tatnell great to begin with. He lays out chord voicings on string sets 1234/2345/3456 as Drop 2 major 11-V-1/ so m7, 7 ,maj7 and Minor 11-V-1 so m7b5, V7#5 and m7 and also Dim7 chords . He covers linear movement , diagonal movement and melodic patterns . The last part of the book looks at applying the above to a few tunes including Autumn Leaves amongst others

    Will

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by WillMbCdn5
    I found Jazz Guitar Chord Thesaurus- Kirk Tatnell great to begin with. He lays out chord voicings on string sets 1234/2345/3456 as Drop 2 major 11-V-1/ so m7, 7 ,maj7 and Minor 11-V-1 so m7b5, V7#5 and m7 and also Dim7 chords . He covers linear movement , diagonal movement and melodic patterns . The last part of the book looks at applying the above to a few tunes including Autumn Leaves amongst others

    Will
    That sounds very good!

  13. #12

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    Forgot to mention he covers Drop 3 voicing in the same way as Drop 2

    Will

  14. #13

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    nobody hipping this kid to barry harris? wtf guys. This is the best chord/harmony book:

    Jazz School Online - Harmonic Method - Guitar

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by joe2758
    nobody hipping this kid to barry harris? wtf guys. This is the best chord/harmony book:

    Jazz School Online - Harmonic Method - Guitar
    I’m not a kid, haha. Isn’t he a piano player though?

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by znerken
    since I mostly play 7 chords, and either use shell or drop 2 voicings. I plan to study drop 3 also. Luckily, when you understand the concept of drop 2, that isn’t the biggest task.
    sorry if this is already obvious to you, but a cool trick is if you play a drop 2 on the top string set you can take the note on the high e and put it on the low e-- then you have a drop three

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by znerken
    I’m not a kid, haha. Isn’t he a piano player though?
    he is but he teaches everyone. that particular book takes his concepts and applies to guitar

  18. #17

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    The thing that forced me to assemble a formidable chord vocabulary, was reading/playing advanced big band guitar charts at tempo. We're talking about 50% of the chart having 2,3,or 4 chord changes per measure...

    You can learn the dumbed down versions of the chords, which work and sound very good, but I forced myself to create actual voicings of the charted chords, and since the reading is so challenging, you can't really even glance at your neck, so you put together chords with incredible voice leading to keep your left hand from jumping all over the place. The best thing I ever did.

    Necessity is the mother of invention, nothing works better than using the music as your teacher.

  19. #18

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    Here's a capsule version of how Carl taught it.

    For the top 4 strings, start with G7 xx3433. Now, change one note to make it Gm7. xx3333.
    Back to G7 and then change one note to make it G6. xx2433. From there, you can change one note and make it Gm6 xx2333.
    So, what you're doing is starting with that G7 and finding a bunch of other chords by changing a note or two. You end up with Gmaj7 Gmaj6, Gm7, Gm6, Gminmaj7, G7#11, G7#5 etc.

    Then, you move up the neck to the next G7. You do this by starting with xx3433 and moving each note up the string to the next note in the G7 chord. So, that F on the D string becomes a G, the B on the G string becomes a D etc. You end up with xx5767. And, you use that grip as the basis for all the alterations. Then, you move it up the neck and do this twice more.

    You then do the same thing on the inner 4 starting with x2303x. Then the lower 4 strings.

    Of course, you can accomplish the same sort of thing with any G7 voicing, but those are the ones Carl showed me.

    Then, learn it in 12 keys.

    For many of the voicings, it's possible to finger them while leaving your pinkie free -- which gives you the opportunity to add a note -- very helpful in trying to play chord melody on the fly.

    But, this is just the basics. The music comes from applying this approach to tunes.

    I don't recall ever hearing the term drop 2 (or drop 3 etc) until decades later. I don't think about that terminology, but I think that many of these voicings are drop 2.

    Here's one more thing I have found helpful. Know all the chord tones by name of the chords you play -- and certainly know every place the notes occur on the fingerboard. That can help you to find voice leading in situations you haven't encountered before and don't have a pre-learned solution to.

    All of this requires some work. I'd say the chord grips are months of work, but not years. Knowing everything by name may be longer than that, and, frankly, I'm not sure it's the most efficient way to acquire the skills. That's how I did it. Certainly there are better players who did it some other way.

  20. #19

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    Alan Kingstones book on Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar will sort you right out. Like Joe said!

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by znerken
    I’m not a kid, haha. Isn’t he a piano player though?
    Check out Roni Ben-Hur and Pasquale Grasso. Disciples of Barry Harris and both guitarists. They can chord like MFs. Also Barry Harris once told me, "I think guitar is the perfect instrument" so him being a piano player doesn't matter! The piano players are the best at chording. Why do you think they get the gigs? 9/10 times it's because they are good at accompanying.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by don_oz
    Alan Kingstones book on Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar will sort you right out. Like Joe said!
    I have read quickly through this book now. Don’t really see the value of thinking of all chords as 6th chords, instead of 7s. Wouldn’t that be going against the status quo?

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by znerken
    I have read quickly through this book now. Don’t really see the value of thinking of all chords as 6th chords, instead of 7s. Wouldn’t that be going against the status quo?
    It might seem weird at first, but once you check out some of Barry's videos on YouTube about his harmony and listen to his recordings of him comping you'll hear that he knows what he's talking about. After all... Am7 is the same as C6, Am7b5 is the same as Cm6, F9 is the same as Cm6 once you can see these it will all start to make sense.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Here's a capsule version of how Carl taught it.

    For the top 4 strings, start with G7 xx3433. Now, change one note to make it Gm7. xx3333.
    Back to G7 and then change one note to make it G6. xx2433. From there, you can change one note and make it Gm6 xx2333.
    So, what you're doing is starting with that G7 and finding a bunch of other chords by changing a note or two. You end up with Gmaj7 Gmaj6, Gm7, Gm6, Gminmaj7, G7#11, G7#5 etc.

    Then, you move up the neck to the next G7. You do this by starting with xx3433 and moving each note up the string to the next note in the G7 chord. So, that F on the D string becomes a G, the B on the G string becomes a D etc. You end up with xx5767. And, you use that grip as the basis for all the alterations. Then, you move it up the neck and do this twice more.
    Pat Martino reverses this process by starting with the symmetrical, diminished form and successively raises each note in every inversion to produce the other seventh chords. It makes sense really, especially on guitar where the diminished shapes are replicated; it's just that we're so used to regarding either major or dominant 7ths as fundamental. Here's how the process looks when applied to the five most common 7th chord types:

    How to build a great jazz chord vocabulary?-progressive-7ths-jpeg

    Pat follows a similar procedure with the symmetrical, augmented form to derive the inversions of the major, minor and diminished triads. Seen this way, it's no wonder Barry Harris views guitar as the ideal chordal instrument!

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Pat Martino reverses this process by starting with the symmetrical, diminished form and successively raises each note in every inversion to produce the other seventh chords. It makes sense really, especially on guitar where the diminished shapes are replicated; it's just that we're so used to regarding either major or dominant 7ths as fundamental. Here's how the process looks when applied to the five most common 7th chord types:
    These are the same voicings that I learned from Carl.

  26. #25

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    Play 3-voice chords as you would play a scale.
    chordsexample.pdf - Google Drive
    All comfy. Those become usable as "bridge" between the main chords.. the anchors.. the function chords. Can be used to raise tension or even mimic the soloist's licks or add "chord-lines".