The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi to everyone,

    What books/material do you guys like/use when it comes to learning new voicings and harmonic concepts?

    Would be curious to know what everyone is using to get inspired.

    I personally recently discovered this great set of books from a guitar player (I had not heard too much of before) but found on YouTube and some Downbeat articles...Hristo Vitchev is his name.

    He has a few books on awesome jazz voicings and chord concepts as well as etudes.
    Here is a link to a few videos he has on his YouTube channel where you can check out some of the material:





    I really like his approach and bought 3 of the books. The stretches can be a bit hard for me for some of the chords but the sound is really lush.

    P.S. - His counterpoint etudes book is really cool also:


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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by petercr80
    The stretches can be a bit hard for me for some of the chords......
    And for that reason I'm out

    They do sound nice though

  4. #3

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    Thanks for posting those links.

    The videos are very well done. Explanations are clear, you can see exactly what he's playing and the voicings sound great.

    The Oleo video presents his approach in the context of a commonly played tune, which is always a great way to learn something.

    The stretches are daunting and maybe even a little risky if you overdo it.

    He's got quite a few videos.

  5. #4

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    I'm interested in the easy version of those chords.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by takefive
    I'm interested in the easy version of those chords.
    Putting half steps on adjacent strings can be done in two ways. Using open strings and using stretches. Open string chords can be heard, masterfully, in the playing of Guinga and Ian Faquini. Marcos Tardelli too.

    They also use stretches. Hristo seems to have great facility with stretches. In what little I've heard, I didn't notice many open strings.

    None of this is easy. The open string chords have to be worked out separately in every key. Stretches have obvious issues.

    But is there an easy way?

    If you listen to Jim Hall you hear a lot of intriguing sounds. Just to take one example, he uses this shape: xxx232. That's the D major cowboy chord, but only the top three strings. What makes it interesting is that he doesn't use it as a D major triad. One, simple, case is playing it at the 9th fret. The notes are then E A C#. That's an A major triad. If you play it against a Dmajor in the harmony you get a Dmaj9 sound. If you play it, instead, at the 4th fret, you get B E G#, which gives, still against Dmaj, a lydian 69 sound, D6/9#11. You can use that shape against each chord within a ii V I. So, for example, you can play an Ebmaj triad at the 3rd fret as the V chord in Em7 A7 Dmaj7.

    I won't go through more examples, but this is a physically undemanding way to get more sophisticated sounds. And, it works, obviously, with every major triad shape and, as well, with minor, augmented and diminished. The challenge, IMO, is hearing the sounds and relating them to the various triad options. Based on my experience, I'd suggest going slowly -- just picking one sound and applying it to tunes in 12 keys until you can play it without much thought. Then, take another sound. Don't forget to eat healthy food, exercise and get regular check-ups, because this is going to take a while to master.

  7. #6
    Thanks for the comments and information everyone.
    Very happy to join this great family here.
    Be safe.

  8. #7

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    Looks too much like hard work for me lol.

    Some can get around these shapes super quick though.

    TBH increasingly I like little chordal fragments that I can intersperse through my playing rather than big voicings. Also I feel bigger voicings can be very intrusive for the soloist, unless you have good ears and an intuitive command of those voicings otherwise they are half-digested and contrived sounding.

    Most players are not Lage Lund...

    Check out the simplicity yet non obviousness of some of the voicings used by Kurt, Peter Bernstein, Kresiberg etc.
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-18-2020 at 05:25 AM.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by petercr80
    Hi to everyone,

    What books/material do you guys like/use when it comes to learning new voicings and harmonic concepts?

    Would be curious to know what everyone is using to get inspired.

    I personally recently discovered this great set of books from a guitar player (I had not heard too much of before) but found on YouTube and some Downbeat articles...Hristo Vitchev is his name.

    He has a few books on awesome jazz voicings and chord concepts as well as etudes.
    Here is a link to a few videos he has on his YouTube channel where you can check out some of the material:





    I really like his approach and bought 3 of the books. The stretches can be a bit hard for me for some of the chords but the sound is really lush.

    P.S. - His counterpoint etudes book is really cool also:

    Excellent stuff, thanks for posting this.

    He has some example pdfs for download here:
    Publications – Hristo Vitchev – Impressionistic Modern Jazz Guitarist/Composer

    This is the way modern Jazz guitar harmony is heading.

    I play a lot of these type of voicings already, some have big stretches, but the majority don't. If you can't make the stretch play it higher up the fretboard or miss out playing the top note.

  10. #9

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    Here's is a link to his example pdf:

    http://hristovitchev.com/en/wp-conte...ring_set_1.pdf

  11. #10

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    Half the time I'm playing a guitar with 25 1/2 scale and if I try those stretchy chords I feel the tendons popping in the back of my hands and I'm screwed. I can't hold the guitar like John Stowell, nor do I want to, so I'm out.


  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    Half the time I'm playing a guitar with 25 1/2 scale and if I try those stretchy chords I feel the tendons popping in the back of my hands and I'm screwed. I can't hold the guitar like John Stowell, nor do I want to, so I'm out.

    Yes, the chord voicings reminded me of John Stowell too, I've been a Stowell fan since I saw him play back in late 1990's. You don't need to play all of the stretches, forget playing the top note.

  13. #12

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    This would be a suitable occasion to use a sustain pedal (EHX Superego ?) and play the voicings as quick arpeggios. Safer for the tendons but still lush sounding.

  14. #13

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    Sometimes with stretchy voicings I just cheat them a bit.

    TBH, I find intervals often to be enough... Things that sound good in isolation can be a bit much in ensemble anyway.

    Music fluency is always more important, you can sacrifice elements and then incorporate them as you get better technically...

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    TBH, I find intervals often to be enough...
    I've transcribed some solo monk this past year and I'm surprised at how spare his voicings are. they sound bigger and more complex than they are!

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by petercr80
    Hi to everyone,

    What books/material do you guys like/use when it comes to learning new voicings and harmonic concepts?
    Bach Chorales are the well that I always return to.

  17. #16
    Thanks everyone for the great tips.
    I agree. I love trying to sightread and work on Bach chorales as well. They are pretty, enjoyable to practice and can give us some great ideas for jazz harmony as well.

    As for the stretches I agree. Unless you can fluently execute them they get in the way of the music in my opinion.

    As for Hristo’s material I also found this great free material he has called “Chromatic ii-V7-I voicings” which was very accessible and pretty interesting.
    If you email him he gives you the pdf of all the voicings presented in the video for free.

    Part I:

    Part II:

    Part III:


    Thanks again everyone for the great hang here.


    Peter

  18. #17

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    I mainly use these type of stretchy voicings as specific to compositions, not "Go To" chord grabs.

    I agree, they are not in my bag of ready to use chord grabs and take a lot of practice to be fluent in a composition.

    But, maybe with practice and frequent use they could be chord grabs.

  19. #18

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    It takes a while...

    there’s a bunch of chords I’ve been learning for about 2 years, slowly starting to become more integrated.

  20. #19

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    Dick Hyman wrote a book showing reharms of standards. I think this sort of approach might be reasonable to work on before risking tendonitis on the stretchy stuff.
    I think Mimi Fox's book on arpeggios in standards covers some similar ground, although it's structured very differently.

    The idea is to develop some vocabulary for how to embellish harmony in the jazz idiom - applied to tunes. And, starting with the more obvious voicings that don't hurt.

    Sorry! Something went wrong!

  21. #20

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    Excellent lesson

  22. #21

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    Vic Juris - 'Modern Chords'

    Published by Mel Bay: Modern Chords Book + Online Audio - Mel Bay Publications, Inc. : Mel Bay

    Great books for modern jazz guitar voicings/chords-20440m-jpg

    Chapter one: harmonic syllabus

    Chapter two: triads & stock seventh chords
    Root position
    First inversion
    Second inversion
    More root position
    Triad applications: voice leading
    Spread triads
    Compound triads
    The big five / stock seventh chords

    Chapter three: intervallic structures / modal chords
    Structure 1
    Structure 2
    Structure 3
    Structure 4
    Structure 5
    Structure 6
    Structure 7
    Creating three-note structures

    Chapter four: pedal point comping

    Chapter five: chords containing open strings
    A chords
    E chords
    Other chords
    Comping and soloing tips

  23. #22
    Thanks so much for the advice everyone.
    I love the Vic Juris book. Had a teacher show me that a few months ago.

    Stay safe.

    Peter

  24. #23

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    if you want some modern voicings, I’ve been working with Jordan/Stephon Harris quadrad idea. I like these a lot because they are basically triads + 1 note and very versatile. There’s a lot of areas of music where I don’t want to be mucking around with modal
    clusters but I want to play interesting and beautiful voicings.

    So it works like this. Say we have a Cm11 chord. We break this down into a shell (1 b3 b7) - so here
    C Eb Bb

    and a us triad (b7 9 11)
    Bb D F

    so far, no big deal, right?

    So now we take one of the notes from the shell and add it in there. In this case we choose the b3. So we get a four note quadrad, which is a Bb triad add 4

    Bb D Eb F

    now what you do is crunch through the permutations and inversions. To make viable guitar voicings, choose two or three note voicings and miss out the penultimate note. So

    Bb D F
    F Bb Eb
    Eb F D
    D Eb Bb

    ill try and post up a vid of this.

    In general I find this type of thinking gives me control over how complex I want the harmony to be.

    One problem with chord scales and intervallic harmony in general is that always adding seven notes can get rid of the specificity of the harmony. Sometimes you really don’t want a seventh in a minor chord for instance.

    this way you get the interesting intervallic sounds without making everything sound like Holdsworth (not that that isn’t cool sometimes!)

  25. #24

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    Some inversions or voicings derived from common shapes may have very modern colour..

    I like how Randy Vincent derived different stuff from shellvoicings and triads by adding notes and making inversions...


    Imho the most important thing is having some musical refernce behind it ...

    I like that having some musical concept behind it I can beuild up realtions even if the voicings are very remote from presumed original harmony - but I still hear the relationship...

    Randy did stuff like

    1) shell voicing
    2) add a new note (melodic extention, altered -whatever works) at the top
    3) drop out the bass
    4) try inversions (close, open on different strings and ranges)

    It throws you quite far from original chord if you do not hear basckground mentally
    and then apply common relationship of original changes and mix
    Simpple but cool..

    I did that thing with triads.. like you play a triad and add some note and then you superimpose and invert ... you still have (and hear) the original references mostly and that leads the voices on... but the colour is different...
    and it sounds convinicing becasue you hear relations behind it

    Also I would not ignore low strings and different kind of drop voicings... I like stack chords on 4-6 strings with melodic voice on the top string...



    PS
    There was a short Scott Henderson book with modern chord voicings vocabulary ... I remember it was cool to work through... he is sort of tradition CST organization - but I like how he puts it on guitar and logics of it (you know harmonizing C major scale D major chord and inversions is something that works fine to kill classical theorisits).
    And there are some really practical guitaristical solutions .

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    if you want some modern voicings, I’ve been working with Jordan/Stephon Harris quadrad idea. I like these a lot because they are basically triads + 1 note and very versatile. There’s a lot of areas of music where I don’t want to be mucking around with modal
    clusters but I want to play interesting and beautiful voicings.

    So it works like this. Say we have a Cm11 chord. We break this down into a shell (1 b3 b7) - so here
    C Eb Bb

    and a us triad (b7 9 11)
    Bb D F

    so far, no big deal, right?

    So now we take one of the notes from the shell and add it in there. In this case we choose the b3. So we get a four note quadrad, which is a Bb triad add 4

    Bb D Eb F

    now what you do is crunch through the permutations and inversions. To make viable guitar voicings, choose two or three note voicings and miss out the penultimate note. So

    Bb D F
    F Bb Eb
    Eb F D
    D Eb Bb

    ill try and post up a vid of this.

    In general I find this type of thinking gives me control over how complex I want the harmony to be.

    One problem with chord scales and intervallic harmony in general is that always adding seven notes can get rid of the specificity of the harmony. Sometimes you really don’t want a seventh in a minor chord for instance.

    this way you get the interesting intervallic sounds without making everything sound like Holdsworth (not that that isn’t cool sometimes!)
    Christian, I'm looking forward to the video on this -- can you apply it to a tune?