A month of Rhythm Guitar

[grahambop]

There’s some useful examples here on the freddiegreen site:

A Comparative Study of Rhythm Guitar Styles

[mr. beaumont]

So, after reading all this I thought I'd give gypsy rhythm another go, just for fun. After an hour online I'm reminded why I gave it up before: everybody hates everybody else's way of doing it! So many conflicting opinions. So, if I'm going to get anywhere with it, I'll spend the coming month listening only to the original Quintette du Hot Club de France, and do my best to cop what they did.

...and then I'll spread hate online about anyone who does differently!




Probably not...

It's always the hacks that cry the loudest about that it seems.

A lot of those guys get so prescriptive about the way the music has to be done. Took all the fun out of the style for me. I sure do still like the guitars, though

[TheGrandWazoo]

I love this quote from Bucky about rhythm guitar on the Freddie green site:

"If you are a guitar player, you have to know how to play rhythm first. You're playing rhythm most of the time. Play a Broadway show, and you're playing rhythm. Single lines are secondary. The whole thing is to get the right rhythm sound. So many young players now don't own a rhythm guitar. They don't even know what one looks like!"

Playing in a big band was the best musical learning experience I've ever had. It was reading the articles, not the music examples, from the Freddie Green website that helped me most.

[Tomcat]

That's definitely a good idea, I've been playing 4 years now with the funk band and I can see clearly that my rhytm playing in the funk idiom is much better now than before and also better than my soloing skills. In the band with vocal you play rhytm 90% of time ;0

[RLetson]

The other day I re-listened to a duo CD of Bucky and Scott Hamilton--The Red Door, a tribute to Zoot Sims--that really shows off Bucky's straight rhythm playing, along with seven-string comping and chord solos. A nice compendium of Bucky's various techniques.

[pcjazz]

The other day I re-listened to a duo CD of Bucky and Scott Hamilton--The Red Door, a tribute to Zoot Sims--that really shows off Bucky's straight rhythm playing, along with seven-string comping and chord solos. A nice compendium of Bucky's various techniques.

That’s another treasure.

[mr. beaumont]

The other day I re-listened to a duo CD of Bucky and Scott Hamilton--The Red Door, a tribute to Zoot Sims--that really shows off Bucky's straight rhythm playing, along with seven-string comping and chord solos. A nice compendium of Bucky's various techniques.

Oh yes, that's a WONDERFUL record.

[grahambop]

Some great rhythm guitar by Jim Hall here, in fact he is the entire rhythm section on this one. Sounds like he is playing acoustic (you can hear him turn up the volume for his solo later on).

[rpjazzguitar]

For me, sublime is Wes soloing and Jim Hall comping.

[kris]

Barry Galbraiht in one of his books demonstrates examples of comping in the style of F. Green.
You just have to understand what it is and what guitar strings it sounds best on.

[kris]

For me, sublime is Wes soloing and Jim Hall comping.

...but I don't think it would fit if Wes was playing a rhythmically complex solo with chords.

[mr. beaumont]

...but I don't think it would fit if Wes was playing a rhythmically complex solo with chords.

It'd sound great. Because Jim knew , possibly better than anybody in jazz history-- when NOT to play.

[kris]

It'd sound great. Because Jim knew , possibly better than anybody in jazz history-- when NOT to play.

World-class jazz musicians know it all.

[princeplanet]

It's amazing how hard it is to actually sound good at FG style quarters. Getting to and from each grip cleanly and easily in time is one thing, but making each chord sound just long enough before releasing / muting and have it really lock in with the rest of the rhythm section is harder than most realise. On top of that you gotta swing ...

[mr. beaumont]

It's amazing how hard it is to actually sound good at FG style quarters. Getting to and from each grip cleanly and easily in time is one thing, but making each chord sound just long enough before releasing / muting and have it really lock in with the rest of the rhythm section is harder than most realise. On top of that you gotta swing ...

Every single note has to be played with complete confidence. That is BRUTALLY difficult.

So my plan is to start the week of February 13th. I'm looking at this as a way to explore and find weak points, things to work on, and to make some progress...I don't expect a month to do much more than show me it will take many, many months to get even "decent" at this.

If anybody else is down for the ride, this isn't going to be a "tune of the week" or any kind of study group with a schedule, my intent would be for the thread just to be a resource-- videos, ideas, conversation, etc. I hope it can be helpful to others!

[bluenote61]

Getting to and from each grip cleanly and easily in time is one thing, but making each chord sound just long enough before releasing / muting and have it really lock in with the rest of the rhythm section is harder than most realise.

Yes. That’s the secret of playing good rhythm guitar.

[losaltosjoe]

If anybody else is down for the ride, this isn't going to be a "tune of the week" or any kind of study group with a schedule, my intent would be for the thread just to be a resource-- videos, ideas, conversation, etc. I hope it can be helpful to others!

I'm interested in this subject and will be following this thread. Thanks.

[rpjazzguitar]

Every single note has to be played with complete confidence. That is BRUTALLY difficult.

So my plan is to start the week of February 13th. I'm looking at this as a way to explore and find weak points, things to work on, and to make some progress...I don't expect a month to do much more than show me it will take many, many months to get even "decent" at this.

If anybody else is down for the ride, this isn't going to be a "tune of the week" or any kind of study group with a schedule, my intent would be for the thread just to be a resource-- videos, ideas, conversation, etc. I hope it can be helpful to others!

Jeff, I know that I have no standing to assign anybody homework, but, if you were willing to chronicle this journey with some video, I'd really like to see it.

[mr. beaumont]

Jeff, I know that I have no standing to assign anybody homework, but, if you were willing to chronicle this journey with some video, I'd really like to see it.

Feel free to assign some homework! I definitely plan to video document a lot.

[AllanAllen]

I’ve got a video. Anyone have an anchoring tip to go from the last G7 to CM7. I’m trying to do the run a lot but get tripped up every time.

xx3433

xx2413

[grahambop]

Here’s something I did once which might be of interest. Basically it was a sort of exercise to write out ‘Freddie Green’ type four-to-the-bar chords, with a different chord on every beat, as much as possible. Some of this is based on Barry Harris sixth/diminished ideas (omitting the 5th string from the voicing). Not that easy to play, possibly there’s a bit too much movement going on, but anyway it might be useful to get some ideas.

Of course I am using the term ‘Freddie Green’ loosely here, we know he reduced his chords down to one note most of the time. But this ‘busier’ approach might be useful where the guitar is the only accompaniment. For example like that Jim Hall and Jimmy Giuffre ‘Topsy’ clip I posted earlier.

[mr. beaumont]

Here’s something I did once which might be of interest. Basically it was a sort of exercise to write out ‘Freddie Green’ type four-to-the-bar chords, with a different chord on every beat, as much as possible. Some of this is based on Barry Harris sixth/diminished ideas (omitting the 5th string from the voicing). Not that easy to play, possibly there’s a bit too much movement going on, but anyway it might be useful to get some ideas.

Of course I am using the term ‘Freddie Green’ loosely here, we know he reduced his chords down to one note most of the time. But this ‘busier’ approach might be useful where the guitar is the only accompaniment. For example like that Jim Hall and Jimmy Giuffre ‘Topsy’ clip I posted earlier.

This is very cool. I definitely think that for a "deep dive" writing out etudes like this will be very important.

[rpjazzguitar]

Here’s something I did once which might be of interest. Basically it was a sort of exercise to write out ‘Freddie Green’ type four-to-the-bar chords, with a different chord on every beat, as much as possible. Some of this is based on Barry Harris sixth/diminished ideas (omitting the 5th string from the voicing). Not that easy to play, possibly there’s a bit too much movement going on, but anyway it might be useful to get some ideas.

Of course I am using the term ‘Freddie Green’ loosely here, we know he reduced his chords down to one note most of the time. But this ‘busier’ approach might be useful where the guitar is the only accompaniment. For example like that Jim Hall and Jimmy Giuffre ‘Topsy’ clip I posted earlier.

Great contribution.

My first teacher, Sid Margolis, was a big band player from the 30s-50's. One of the things he taught me was what he called fill-in progressions.

Here's one which I just used last night -- after pretty much ignoring it for 58 years.

x3231x x5333x x6757x x7858x

This covers two measures of C7.

It's basically I7, the associated iim, Idim7 and another I7.

My guess is that Freddie knew a lot of this sort of pattern, for different contexts, and was mixing and matching as he went along.

Another advantage Freddie had (compared to what a lot of us do now) is that he had time to work on the charts. I'd guess that he didn't need to after a while, but he had more time to think about his comping for an individual tune than those of us who play in rehearsal big bands with large books and little repetition.

As I tried to play through Graham's chord sheet (thanks!) I found myself wanting to know the fourth note so I could name and classify the chord. Is that second one, for example, Gm6 vs. C7 vs Gdim? Maybe that's not the best way to think about it, but that's where my mind went.

[grahambop]

As I tried to play through Graham's chord sheet (thanks!) I found myself wanting to know the fourth note so I could name and classify the chord. Is that second one, for example, Gm6 vs. C7 vs Gdim? Maybe that's not the best way to think about it, but that's where my mind went.

I was thinking Gdim there, because most of this is based on Barry Harris sixth/diminished stuff, using the voicings for the bottom 4 strings but omitting the 5th string. The first 4 chords are basically a run up in Ab6/dim (which is effectively the same thing as Fm7/dim). So the first chord is Ab6 (or Fm7), second is Gdim, third and fourth are further inversions of Ab6 (or Fm7).

So a lot of the passing chords are probably diminished, plus there are some dominant 7ths here and there, sometimes used as chromatic approaches or something like that.

[rpjazzguitar]

I was thinking Gdim there, because most of this is based on Barry Harris sixth/diminished stuff, using the voicings for the bottom 4 strings but omitting the 5th string. The first 4 chords are basically a run up in Ab6/dim (which is effectively the same thing as Fm7/dim). So the first chord is Ab6 (or Fm7), second is Gdim, third and fourth are further inversions of Ab6 (or Fm7).

So a lot of the passing chords are probably diminished, plus there are some dominant 7ths here and there, sometimes used as chromatic approaches or something like that.

Your approach and Sid's fill-in progressions have in common three voicings of a chord (varying the inversion) plus a diminished. Sid always had the diminished third in the progression (as far as I can remember them). Yours have it second. Both work.

In non-Freddie comping, I'm conscious of the soprano voice making a simple melodic statement, but on the B or E strings. Doing it on the G string as sopra,no voice (if you can call it that) requires some thought - and time in the shed.

It might help to start with common grips of maj(6, 7, and/or 9), 7, m7, m6 and work out the three-inversions-plus-a-diminshed for each. A few positions each, 12 keys. Some work, but it's not infinite.

Sid's are ascending for all voicings, but yours may go starting-point, up, up and back-down, which I like.