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Great stuff, Rick. I'd add that if you listen to pianists comping, this is often what they're doing. If you look at their hands, you see 10 fingers scrambling around on the keyboard, and it can be deceptive since there's often a lot of octave-doubling of voices. But the right hand is often a top-line melody with one or two notes harmonizing (or even just a top-line melody). Obviously, it can get busier than that, but much of the time the piano comping is actually not more complicated than what a guitar can do, and it's good to steal from that as well as from guitar players.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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05-16-2023 12:40 PM
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[QUOTE=dconeill;1265181]I worked out fingerings for diatonic seventh chords starting with diminished chords, and noticed that there were groupings of inversions.
This is something I always wanted to work out. Do you have a source for learning this?
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I sometimes get the feeling that guitarists are more likely than pianists to play every quarter or even every eighth. Not always, just more of the time. A lot of us learn to strum before we comp more sparsely and Freddie remains an influence, making quarters sound great. Originally Posted by John A.
Pianists rarely play every quarter. They are more likely to be emphasizing the transitions from one chord to another.
That is, if you have 8 beats of Cmajor going to E7 (e.g. All of Me), the guitarist may play on quite a few of those 8 beats.
The pianist is more likely to play a little on the first 6 or so, and then do a chord sequence leading to the E7 -- which, I think, is what Reg was talking about (something like, say, Cm7 F7 E7, to take a simple example - you get nice voice leading from Cmaj to Cm7, changing E to Eb and B to Bb, then nice voice leading from Cm7 to F7 (Bb to A) and then a half note slide into the E7). Reg is great at this. Another terrific player who I heard comp this way at Small's is Ed Cherry.
Ralph Sharon, long time pianist for Tony Bennett, was an absolute master of this.
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I mean - you could try transcribing some comping? (Should do more of that myself)
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I had a lesson with a guy once who said he thinks Wes did the same thing with drop twos. Always kind of liked the idea but also never quite spent the time on it. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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That voicing is becoming more common. I hear it employed regularly by Jonathan Kreisberg. Originally Posted by princeplanet
For an earlier instance, check out the end of the head in Wes Montgomery's version of Days of Wine & Roses. Wes plays an Fmaj7 as xx2211 although most transcriptions I've come across (apart from the one in Steve Khan's old book) write it as a conventional F major grip - xx3211. IMO, it works well here because the preceding chord is a C11 (x3333x) and the suspended 4th/11th "F" resolves down to the "E" in that octave. As Christian, Reg and others have pointed out, it's often a question of context and voice-leading that can make otherwise unstable voicings seem almost inevitable.
Here's the section in question at 1'20":
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My favourite major seventh voicing is a first inversion drop 2 and 4
x 7 9 x 8 8
It doesn’t sound anything like a maj7 probably because of the minor ninth between the B and C
Major sevenths are weird
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I started from 11 diminished 7th fingerings. I chose not to consider diminished 7th fingerings that spanned more than four frets because I concluded that I wouldn't be able to reach the resultant chords, so it's likely that I missed a few edge-of-playability fingerings. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
In terms of drop-x voicings, I noticed the following. This is an observation, and I haven't yet figured out why they group this way. I'll get there, I hope (I'm sure someone else already has). This is for four-note chords, starting with the Diminished 7 and working through all the diatonic 7th chords. The observations are:
- fingerings that occupy 4 adjacent strings (e.g., strings 5-4-3-2) are Drop-2 voicings. There are 3 sets, for groups starting on the 6, 5, and 4 strings.
- fingerings that occupy one string, then skip a string, and then occupy 3 more strings (e.g, strings 6-4-3-2) are Drop-3 voicings. There are 2 sets, for groups starting on the 6 and 5 strings.
- fingerings that occupy 2 strings, skip one, then occupy two more strings (e.g., strings 6-5-3-2) are Drop 2&4 voicings. There are 2 sets, starting on the 6 and 5 strings.
- fingerings that occupy 3 strings, skip one, then occupy one more string (e.g., strings 6-5-4-2) are Drop 2&3 voicings. There are 2 sets, starting on the 6 and 5 strings.
- two groups of fingerings appear to fall outside the Drop-x ecosystem, namely fingerings that occupy 2 strings, skip 2, then occupy 2 more (strings 6-5-2-1). There are 2 sets of such fingerings.
Again, this is just for the set of fingerings derived from 11 diminished 7 chords.
Maybe this is a relatively quick way of discerning whether a voicing is a Drop-x voicing.
If my observations are incorrect, I would be happy to hear about it.
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They struggle to place it into perspective... Without perspective, one cannot see the depth of the garden. The spent suffer from blase' and ennui. The fresh hunger for information. Music is a gift from God. As are the ears. It's left to us to name the beasts.
The Drop Voicing Process is a milestone on a musician's journey. From thereon, you no longer have to learn grips from someone else's book. Spoon feeding stops. At your leisure, you can do it yourself. On a deserted island, you'd have fingertip access to every voicing usable on guitar with inversions. Self-reliance and experience. You can't buy it. After your first 30 grips, it's time to become acquainted with it. There may be as many useless chords as there are useful ones, but you get to choose.
It's one part of a Musician's Rote Learning:
The fingerboard note gamut by neck position
The notes on the lines and spaces of the Grand Stave
Mapping the Gamut to the Staff
Reading the stacks.
The Major Scale Step Formula and Key Signatures to construct Major Scales
Practicing scale & arpeggio sequences to train the aural-tactile facility
The Modes of the Natural, Harmonic, and Jazz Minors
Harmonising a scale or mode
Recognising standard changes and embellishing them to compose variations
The intervals within a chord
The Cycle of Thirds/Sixths for Chord-Spelling & Relative Minors
The Cycle of 4ths/5ths for Changes
The Cycle of Minor Thirds for o7 Subs (including the special case of Tritone Subs)
The Degree Numbers for Modulation and Transposing
Learning Top 4 Triads and inversions on string sets 123 and 234.
The CAGED FB Pattern
The Drop Voicing Process
Playing inversions up along a given string set, then switching to the adjacent string set at different scale degrees
etc. etc.
Each seems unimportant until you progress enough to become ready to receive. Rather than milestones, they are more like a number of vessels placed in a garden catching rainwater, filling simultaneously at different rates until their contents are combined to open new possibilities.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 06-02-2023 at 12:23 PM.
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I don't know if the observations are correct. I do think it's an interesting idea. Originally Posted by dconeill
But, I'm still left wondering, assuming for the moment that it is correct, what is the value? I never think, "the next chord should be drop-n". Nor do I ever think, "oh, this voicing, that I'm already playing, is a drop-n".
Nor do I need the drop-n context to find voicings. I know the notes in the chords I use and I know where every one of those notes is on the neck. I have yet to see the value of knowing the drop-name for the voicing.
I'm aware that some have advocated it as an organized way to learn voicings. No argument there, other than to note that there are other ways to learn the same voicings. And, I'm aware that it's a useful thing to think about when arranging horns.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. But I just don't get it, tbh.
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So far, I've found exactly one thing of value in this endeavor: Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
the "drop-n" process is an easy and mechanical way to systematically expose all the inversions of chords, without having to struggle through making sure I've done all the permutations correctly. Using appropriate equations and procedures to list permutations works just as well, but is harder to implement.
I was there already via math of probability (i.e., combinations and permutations) before I'd heard about "drop-2" and the rest, and I just wanted to explore it a little bit. Turns out I seem also to have opened up a nice can of juicy worms, too. Apart from "drop-n" being an arranger's tool to reliably chunk out inversions, I don't see that it has much value that can't easily be found through other avenues instead.
Thanks, all, for your comments in all this. I've learned quite a bit in the last several days.
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Thanks for this. I understand that some players do it this way. Originally Posted by dconeill
It seems to me that another way to do it would be to just label them by the intervals. There are 24 permutations each of which has a "drop" name. Hearing that a chord is "third inversion, double drop 2&3" does not strike me as easier than "7531". Quite the opposite, really.
In the horn arranger version of this I imagine it as a little different. The arranger thinks of a sequence of chords to be played by four trumpets. He thinks of 1357 and then thinks, I'll put the second chair guy an octave lower". Is that much realistic? Does he get 5137? Or is it 1537?
In any case, it doesn't give you all the playable permutations on guitar. If you play, say, 3xx777 (which I do use), that's GDF#B 1573, which is some drop or other, except I've spread it out over 2 1/2 octaves, more or less. It isn't the same chord as 3543xx, even though they're both 1573. Or, do they have different drop names?
My recommendation to the hypothetical student is to start with G7 and play it every way you can. That should begin with 4 voicings on each set of 4 adjacent strings. And, it can continue with non-adjacent voicings, as many as you can reach. Get all those under your fingers and know them in 12 keys plus the enharmonic equivalents. Then, flat all the Bs and realize you've just learned an equal number of Gm7s.
Then, flat the b7, and you now know lots of Gm6s. Flat the Bs and the Ds and you've got all the Gm7b5s. And so on.
That's a lot of work and, in reality, you can play pretty good guitar without knowing all of these voicings. For example, four note chords on the lowest 4 strings tend to be muddy and can probably be avoided, although every now and then you'll hear somebody make one sound great.
What I don't see, though, is how knowing the drop names makes anything any easier.
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Jazz arranger Don Sebesky occasionally used drop terminology but mostly spoke in term of range, density, openness, weight, color, etc. Of course voicings for full big band horn sections are far more flexible than solo guitar. Smaller still than 4 way close are cluster voicings and he wasn't thinking only of singular 7th chord but rather at any combination of notes that served his representative harmonic intentions of the moment.
I'm with rpjazzguitar with a preference for thinking in chord tone number order over drop name. 1357 1375 1573 1537 1735 1753. Nothing wrong with drop terminology, just easier for me to process numerically than by measuring diversions from 4 way close.
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Knowing about it is helpful when reading through a series of chord stacks.
For CEGB, in the key of C, Drop-2 leaves a gap of a fifth between E and B as G is dropped on octave lower and the dropped G displays a gap of a fifth between itself and the C. The rest of the stack is in thirds. This helps with a visual indication on the lines and spaces, for recognition, like a signature, besides telling one much about the chord.
It helps in mapping the staff to the fingerboard. You can read the stack, but then you have to make it real on the fingerboard. The piano keyboard is laid out like the Grand Stave. The guitar is a stranger in the orchestra. "Keep busy until we need you." So you chunk away until they need a Flamenco intro or soft ballad accompaniment for Diamond Lil.
If one is reading chord symbols, and selecting voicings of their own choosing, then there's no need for it at all. But many playing situations have the guitar part written out in such a way as to avoid interference with the double bass and piano, or to evoke a certain tessitura on guitar for the vocalist.
Chord Melody or Joe Pass Style or Django Reinhardt Style is great if you're in your bedroom playing alone. But leave Barre Chords and those E/A strings alone unless you're in the Rolling Stones. Most musical ensemble situations can't use them. Strings 6, 5, and even 4 really are the bass strings on a guitar.
Besides, if one doesn't care about Drop Voicing Nomenclature, there's always a Chord Encyclopedia sitting around that one can use to learn grips. But there's no order to it, really.
It appears that most people on the forum are American and don't read or don't care to read. It's not respected there. Hence, the attitude. It's the same up here, of course. And that's fine. I'm a struggling reader, myself. My point is one of perception. To understand that things have a reason and a season. They have a place in the scheme of things. Making rash assumptions now means we have to return to it, cap in hand at a later date , because music eventually demands that we read as we improve, and need to communicate more complicated musical ideas.
As we climb, it behooves us to keep Mel Bay close at hand and spend some time with Oh Susannah whenever we can. Later on when we need to read, the steps won't be so steep.
Who would have thought that learning Key Signatures would be so important later on in our musical journey? Whether you read or not, they are.
Drop-3 is also a convenient name for rhythm chords, while Drop-2 lets us know that the grip has no unused strings to dampen. I often hear of the two difficult Mickey Baker chords M7 [15x373] and 13-9-5 or 7+9 [5b9bx7b313](I learned them from Johnny Rector's book) but they are actually Drop-2/4 grips. Knowing this helps you find the others like them.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 06-03-2023 at 12:43 AM.
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Cheap shot. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I guess I caught a troll... It comes with the culture.
Sure. When you become wealthy, or if you become a Jimmy Bruno, send me your recommendation.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 06-03-2023 at 03:19 AM.
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Some expert advice
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Like the rich chords in Johnny Rectors book: M7 [5x373x] and M6 [5x361x] to name a couple.
My favourite being dom7 [5x37b1x]
Of course the three chords above are second inversion Drop-2's (fifth in the bass).
Apparently, we're not supposed to mention Drop Chords, now.
Mea Culpa...
However, as a bassist in ensemble playing, I can attest to the train-wrecks that occur if the guitarist starts playing fifths on the E string. Great when playing alone or accompanying a vocalist and building interesting bass lines with second inversions and some tritone substitutions. But stay away from the E and A strings when working with a bassist as it completely masks his/her work. The E and A strings on a guitar are bass strings.
For those beginning with Jazz Chords don't forget Jazz Guitar Online's Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary where they refer often to Drop-2 and Drop-3 chords.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 06-03-2023 at 04:24 AM.
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Are you familiar with Pete’s style? He uses a lot of very commonplace voicings very creatively.
he also seems unconcerned about playing on the bottom two strings, doubling roots etc. this is ‘wrong’ from the perspective of mainstream jazz workshop style jazz edu and it’s easy to see why advice such as what you gave is repeated, but the history of jazz is full of pianists who do exactly what jazz educators tell you not to (Ethan Iverson as usual has a rant)
I think most bass players would be pretty happy to play with Pete and to me it certainly doesn’t sound like he’s conflicting with the bass.
So perhaps a lot of these problems boil down to guitar players (and learner pianists) not listening and not setting their amp appropriately rather than to so with ‘correct’ comping voicings.
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Originally Posted by StringNavigator
Is that all the notes on the E and A strings I need to avoid, because that's a lot of notes?
"The fundamental range of a 4-string bass goes from about 40Hz to 400Hz."
I'll have to get a four string guitar.
Only joking, I know what you mean. keep out of the way of the bass player's range.
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one of the nice compliments I got from a bass player is that I know to roll off the bass. It was a gypsy jazz gig but I was on an ES175. Playing swing rhythm on electric you pretty much have to dial out most of the bass or you’ll be making muddy puddles (or you could do the one note comp thing but that’s not really the GJ style). I’d been playing in these settings for a long time. In general, the bass and the guitar should sound like one composite instrument here. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Is that all the notes on the E and A strings I need to avoid, because that's a lot of notes?
"The fundamental range of a 4-string bass goes from about 40Hz to 400Hz."
I'll have to get a four string guitar.
Only joking, I know what you mean. keep out of the way of the bass player's range.
This and being a Peter fan has really convinced me that fundamentally this is an EQ’ing/mix issue. It’s one reason why I broadly speaking prefer 10” to 12” speakers; the latter generates a lot of fat low end which sounds great solo but not so good in a band mix. However I think a lot of players think ‘jazztone(tm)’ is the treble down to 0 and bass and middle up to max. This may indeed work for a small amp, but for a Fender Deluxe at gig volume you need to tame that bottom end.
In fact you need a tight, tidy sound which makes space for acoustic bass. That said how it sounds on stage may not be how it sounds out front - but in my experience the bass player listens more than the audience haha. So I try to keep them happy on the whole.
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My experience as well. Low end is necessary for solo guitar, but can make mud with the upper register of the bass, the pianist's left hand and even the drums. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I find that the setup which is best for big band swing comping has relatively little bass. My main amps use 8" speakers and I turn the bass most of the way down.
At times, I prefer the single coil sound, but I end up playing HB anyway. Rounder, less bite (not necessarily what I'm looking for) but it works okay. I prefer it for the single note lines.
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There’s also definitely times when you want to keep off the bottom strings and play rootless voicings etc as well - some styles sound better that way and it also depends on who you are accompanying.
But I wouldnt rule out the lower voicings. Voicings on the middle four strings can sound great with alto sax but can be problematic with another guitar for example. With guitar I like to keep off the E, B and G string altogether - I play quite skeletal voicings but that can include fourths on the bottom string set .
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I'm guessing that the voicings on the lowest 3 strings sound best on an archtop? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I tend to avoid voicings that use both the E and A strings together. Chuck Berry would disagree. Chuck Wayne had a full set of voicings for the lower 4 strings not just the inner 4 and higher 4.
I also have the pickup lowered on the bass side and I use a .42 E string (that's for arthritis, not for the flabby tone). But, I'm playing a semi, with a block, that has a fairly dark tone to begin with.
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Bassist Walter Page's Influence on Freddie Green
Bassist Walter Page's Influence on Freddie Green
Jazz historian Loren Schoenberg provides insight on Freddie's style of rhythm guitar.Publication: Liner notes for "Count Basie - The Columbia Years" (4 CD Set)
Date: June 2003
Author: Loren SchoenbergEditor's Preface: Perhaps the most unique aspect of Freddie Green's rhythm guitar style is his creation of a moving melodic line on the 4th string. This melodic line created a counterpoint to the bass line. The excerpt below sheds light on where this concept likely originated.
-Michael Pettersen"The Basie band's rhythm section was simply one of the best in the entire history of jazz. The man truly responsible for the concept that led to this era of musical miracles was neither the leader [Count Basie] nor the band's resident genius, Lester Young. It was the bassist Walter Page (1900-1957) who had developed a unique approach that managed to sustain the spontaneity of a jazz small group within the confines of a larger ensemble.""In 1918, shortly after graduating [high school], the young bassist joined pianist Bennie Moten's orchestra and during five years there continued formal studies of piano, voice, violin, saxophone, composition, and arranging at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.""The spark for the whole concept [employed by the Basie rhythm section] came from the bassist. Indeed, the other members of Basie's famous rhythm section - guitarist Freddie Green, drummer Jo Jones, and the pianist himself - all have credited Page with teaching them how they should play their instruments in order to realize what he was hearing in his head. It began with bringing the volume down and intensity up, giving them the space in which to create the meshing of timbres that resulted in one organic, indivisible whole. Later there would be the pacing of the performance, and the counterpoint of the bass lines, as well as the way the rhythm section made it sound as if they were breathing the beat...""Not content to maintain one pattern throughout an entire performance, Page taught Basie and Jones (and later guitarist Freddie Green) to think orchestrally and in terms of counterpoint."The Style | Recordings | Biographical Info | Photos | Additional Info | Contact Us | Post Comments | Home Page
Basie gave his left hand a rest while Page & Green did the honours. The bassist took care of the E and A string gamut while the guitarist worked with the D string and above. Counterpoint and separation averted the muddiness. A form of "two-man stride piano", if you will. Basie focused on his right hand and directed his band while leaving the left hand in their capable hands.
I've played with Barre Chord Guitarists using an amp. They wash my double bass Starks out of the mix, but it's only ignorance. They clue in quickly enough. On my archtop guitar, I use fifths in the bass on the E string all the time on my own, especially with [5x37b1x] or a [1x63b5x] 2m6 sub for 57 or [5x361x], but not when there's a bassist, who may play a note that clashes with that low end fifth. It doesn't sound good. Unless it's a finale chord... It becomes a competition to be heard. Especially if the bassist is playing the fifth while you're playing the tonic or vice versa. Even a walking bass line on DB can be thrown out of whack by a guitarist playing Root-Fifth with the E and A string.
On my plectrum banjo, I only use the G, B, and D strings. The Low C string rarely. It's relation to the G string is similar to the Stradella bass on accordion and is best used when playing chord-melody or accompanying a vocalist. All you really need for accompaniment are the D, G, and B strings. It's all there. You can see/hear where the guitar emerged from the banjo in jazz. G and B are the heart of both instruments.
It's also insightful, once again, to hear someone say, "It began with bringing the volume down and intensity up..." It's the essence of rhythm.
Looking at the video posted above, I can see the bassist having a hard time. He's clenching his face as he struggles to hear his instrument. Then he even stops playing his fiddle and no one seems to miss him. Then he fiddles with the amp a number of times to find a volume setting or frequency notch to differentiate himself from the guitar's incursions into the bass realm. I know because I've been in that fix a few times. Another difficult gig is a Fender Rhodes with an active left hand. Both instruments can turn a bassist into a Captain Dunsel.
Apparently they don't teach this to those dropping a quarter of a million at Berklee...
But I know they wouldn't try it with Mingus. He had a solid hook.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 06-05-2023 at 12:58 AM.
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Wow, well I suppose that’s Pete told.
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