The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Here's a short video I made on these shapes in as streamlined a way as I could. Not as much explanation as most videos, but why not try something a bit different? As I recall, this was about 50% of Berklee's Guitarmony course... in just over 3 minutes!


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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Yes, the exploration of enharmonic substitutions of Maj7b5 inversions as rootless voicings is also a big part of Brett Wilmott's harmony book (which I believe is a Berklee text).

    Nice guitar BTW.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 01-01-2023 at 04:01 PM.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Yes, the exploration of enharmonic substitutions of Maj7b5 inversions as rootless voicings is also a big part Brett Wilmott's harmony book (which I believe is a Berklee text).

    Nice guitar BTW.
    Spot on re: Bret. I spent a lot of time w/ him, and would argue he had a tremendous amount of influence on a lot of good players in his time. He doesn't get the same name recognition as Mick, but I felt his approach was in a similar, very open-minded vein. His rhythm book is very good as well.

    Thank you on the guitar. I really like it.

  5. #4

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    Reminds me of this article I kept from 1998 Just Jazz Guitar by Roy Patterson on Majb5 voicings

    It was too advanced for me at the time but I knew that one day it would
    be very useful and stimulating

    found it !
    I’ll post it here ....
    "Maj7b5" - must know "shape" to access rootless dominant voicings-9e95e11a-228f-42e6-8744-5e53d301a0c0-jpg
    "Maj7b5" - must know "shape" to access rootless dominant voicings-a2cd6b07-5299-4735-9cb1-942539b31190-jpg
    "Maj7b5" - must know "shape" to access rootless dominant voicings-edea3f32-4056-4020-bbb8-e4d696bccb75-jpg

  6. #5

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    the voicing
    xx9866
    is pretty hip for Galt huh ?

  7. #6

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    Barry Greene details his use of this chord voicing, but he's never hinted at it simply being a maj7b5 chord:



  8. #7

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    Is enharmony a joke to you people???????

  9. #8
    Great finds!

    xx9866 for Galt - I don't think I've studied this one (and certainly don't use it in my playing... maybe I should). From bottom to top:

    - B (3rd)
    - Eb (b13)
    - F (7th)
    - Bb (#9)

    Where I'd go next with that is to see if I can move it around diatonically within the altered scale and see what else it yields. Sometimes shapes that go "diagonally" that way (up-left, vs up-right) get too stretchy when you do that. Moving down:

    xx8644 - definitely practical!

    - Bb (#9)
    - Db (#11)
    - Eb (b13)
    - Ab (b9)

    Down again?

    xx6423 - terrible! what about the middle 4 strings?
    x(11)968x - also terrible!

    First one up?
    xx(11)(10)87 - maybe... hard stretch btw 2nd and 3rd finger. This is two major thirds separated by a whole step. Would probably be fine on middle 4 strings since the upper third can be played by one finger:

    x4300x or x(16)(15)(12)(12)x - easy to play, more practical in another key:

    - Db (#11)
    - F (7)
    - G (1)
    - B (3rd)

    ...and so on. I would also map these to subdominant minor (IVminmaj7), static dominant (i.e. any 7#11), and half diminished (which if II-7b5 uses the same notes as IVminmaj7, by the way).

    So from that one altered voicing it's fairly easy to get 3+ practical voicings not only good for altered sounds but at least 3 additional melodic minor contexts.

    You can do the exact same thing for the Maj7b5 shapes. I have done this and it's become a major part of my chordal vocabulary. Michael Brecker talks a lot about this approach with melodies.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by RunningBeagle
    Great finds!

    xx9866 for Galt - I don't think I've studied this one (and certainly don't use it in my playing... maybe I should). From bottom to top:

    - B (3rd)
    - Eb (b13)
    - F (7th)
    - Bb (#9)
    yes I gonna try to incorporate this voicing
    into my playing too ....
    its a new sound for me

    (I find I can only absorb one small thing
    at a time so i’m gonna ignore all the other good stuff on here RB
    no offence man it’s just me !)

  11. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    yes I gonna try to incorporate this voicing
    into my playing too ....
    its a new sound for me

    (I find I can only absorb one small thing
    at a time so i’m gonna ignore all the other good stuff on here RB
    no offence man it’s just me !)
    No offense taken - I don't write these types of rambling posts with any expectations. I know the feeling of trying to absorb too much - my rule, if I get ONE THING into my playing from a $20 book, the money is well spent.

    I did practice a few of these voicings today and tried to get them into a solo. No better tune to try out a bunch of G altered voicings than "Softly"! I did get a few of them in, as well as on V of II (C7 alt) in the Eb major section.


  12. #11

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    One favourite voicing for the G7 altered chord is this

    3 2 1 3 x x

    or this
    3 2 x 3 4 x
    or

    Which from the perspective of Bmaj7 doesn’t have a ‘5th’ in but if it did it would be ‘flat’ or maybe sharp. Anyway maj7 shell voicing on bass note reaps a few nice voicings of which

    x x 5 4 4 6

    is probably the most familiar.

    one nice thing is that none of these voicings have the 7th in. I like altered dominants that miss out one of the guide tones, they sound more colouristic and less ‘resolvey.’ It’s nice to hear the altered scale sound outside of the context of voice leading. Get rid of the tritones
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 01-03-2023 at 05:45 AM.

  13. #12

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    A bit OT, but the funniest (to me) altered chord voicing would be

    x 10 13 10 11 x

    Which is of course Gm7#5

    or Ebadd9/G

    It’s not an option one would think of naturally as altered, but it’s a cool thing to use if you want to have a modern sound. This voicing includes the 7th but excludes the 3rd, instead we have a b10 or “#9”

    I like resolving the #9 on a V into the 7 on the next chord; sounds so much cooler than having the 7 just be a held over tone from the V which is fine for a backcycling sequence but weak counterpoint for a cadence.

    You also have an Fm7#5 (Db add 9) in there to play with

  14. #13

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    Oh and then there’s the inversions of Bmaj9 on G

    Probably need a G drone for this. Again no ‘b5’ (F)

    (3) 2 1 3 2 x
    (3) 4 9 4 4 x
    (3) 6 x 4 2 6
    (3) x 8 6 4 7
    (3) x 9 8 11 9

    nasty. I’d probably play these as incomplete voicings, miss off one of the strings

  15. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    A bit OT, but the funniest (to me) altered chord voicing would be

    x 10 13 10 11 x

    Which is of course Gm7#5

    or Ebadd9/G

    It’s not an option one would think of naturally as altered, but it’s a cool thing to use if you want to have a modern sound. This voicing includes the 7th but excludes the 3rd, instead we have a b10 or “#9”

    I like resolving the #9 on a V into the 7 on the next chord; sounds so much cooler than having the 7 just be a held over tone from the V which is fine for a backcycling sequence but weak counterpoint for a cadence.

    You also have an Fm7#5 (Db add 9) in there to play with
    Nice post! I like this one a lot too. Moving it down diatonically gives you some nice chords. First, you can just slide the same shape down a whole step (and resolve it a half step from there to Cadd9). Sticking w the altered scale and moving it down again, you get:

    x 6 9 6 8 x

    which sounds wonderful. It has a tritone, but not btw 3rd and 7th, rather #11 and root. Root is on top, which is nice and easy to find, you have a major 2nd for some nice color, and a minor 6th and major 10th. It feels thick.

    Back to your chord, this is one of my "go-tos" for II chords with the tonic in the treble. For the V, if you want it, the leading tone is accessible by lifting the middle finger. In C, that is:

    E-7: x 2 5 2 3 x (i think of this as G major subbing for E minor)
    A7: x 2 5 2 2 x (just an unaltered dominant sound with the natural 9 in bass)
    A7alt: x 4 5 5 6 x (what we've been discussing)
    D: x 5 4 4 5 x

    To your other point, I also like the #9 to maj7 resolution. To extend the above example, I like playing this type of thing, dragging out the dominant to get to the tonic resolution I want:

    E-7: x 2 5 2 3 x
    A7: x 2 5 2 2 x
    A7alt:
    x 4 5 5 6 x
    x x 10 6 8 x
    x 8 11 8 10 x (mentioned above)
    x 10 10 10 11 x
    x x 11 12 13 x
    Dmaj7: x x 12 11 14 x

  16. #15

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    [QUOTE=RunningBeagle;1240002]Great finds!

    xx9866 for Galt - I don't think I've studied this one (and certainly don't use it in my playing... maybe I should). From bottom to top:

    - B (3rd)
    - Eb (b13)
    - F (7th)
    - Bb (#9)

    Where I'd go next with that is to see if I can move it around diatonically within the altered scale and see what else it yields. Sometimes shapes that go "diagonally" that way (up-left, vs up-right) get too stretchy when you do that. Moving down:


    make it simple..

    9866..how about Db13 no root..voice it this way B F Bb x x 9 10 11 x then Db triad Db F Ab x x 11 10 9 x

    then..think symmetric Bb13 no root x x 6 7 8 x then triad Bb D F x x 8 7 6 x

    resolve into a nice Cmi7 inversion Bb G C Eb 6 x 5 5 4 x

    many alt dom chords can have tritone traits thus Galt and Db and so on and experiment using symmetric harmony can give surprising results
    Last edited by wolflen; 01-03-2023 at 08:52 PM.

  17. #16

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    [QUOTE=wolflen;1240277]
    Quote Originally Posted by RunningBeagle
    Great finds!

    xx9866 for Galt - I don't think I've studied this one (and certainly don't use it in my playing... maybe I should). From bottom to top:

    - B (3rd)
    - Eb (b13)
    - F (7th)
    - Bb (#9)

    Where I'd go next with that is to see if I can move it around diatonically within the altered scale and see what else it yields. Sometimes shapes that go "diagonally" that way (up-left, vs up-right) get too stretchy when you do that. Moving down:


    make it simple..

    9866..how about Db13 no root..voice it this way B F Bb 9 10 11 then Db triad Db F Ab 11 10 9

    then..think symmetric Bb13 no root 6 7 8 then triad Bb D F 8 7 6

    resolve into a nice Cmi7 inversion Bb G C Eb 6 5 5 4

    many alt dom chords can have tritone traits thus Galt and Db and so on and experiment using symmetric harmony can give surprising results
    thanks Wolf , could you write the chords
    like this please ?

    xx9877 rather than 9877

    thanks man

  18. #17

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    [QUOTE=pingu;1240290]
    Quote Originally Posted by wolflen

    thanks Wolf , could you write the chords
    like this please ?

    xx9877 rather than 9877

    thanks man
    fixed !!

  19. #18

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    [QUOTE=wolflen;1240297]
    Quote Originally Posted by pingu

    fixed !!
    great thanks Wolf