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I’m quite pleased with this as a lesson
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06-30-2023 01:34 PM
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Arpeggio at 2:45 "meet the jetsons"
It's not fair. You make it look so easy.
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Christian's lessons are concise and useful.
Well done!
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You mentioned Ben Monder in the video, as it happens I saw him recently (with sax player Tineke Postma) at the Watermill in Dorking. I had a quick chat with him afterwards, he is quite a reticent sort of guy but when I said something about Mick Goodrick he suddenly got quite animated and said how great Mick was etc. He said to go through the ‘Advancing Guitarist’ book properly would take several lifetimes!
I congratulated him on all those strange stretchy chords he uses, but he said he does not play them so much now, as they make his hands hurt!
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He is human after all! (Maybe)
Originally Posted by grahambop
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Great. I'm going away for two weeks and already have TAG, my usual holiday book, packed. Can't wait to get stuck in. Originally Posted by grahambop
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I was taught all the triads up and down the neck on each set of 3 strings early on. I also learned chord construction and so I can figure out any chord and inversion I want from there rather than trying to remember a million different shapes and inversions of larger chords. The triads lay it all out for you, inversions included, and you can figure out where you want to add your additional color notes 7ths 9ths etc.
I don't play jazz so a lot of those fancy shapes you got there are less useful to me if I can't move a pinky or ring finger for some hammer on RnB style chord action. Further, some of the big fat chords aren't that useful with a bassist, second guitar, and/or keys so I think depending on what and how you play there is quite a bit that can be discarded.
Spending time learning triads was definitely worth the little bit of effort it took for me.
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I think there are two fundamentally different ways to view the fretboard harmony.
Christian's video does an excellent job at bringing an organization to the first view. In this view, each chord type is realized by a set of grips. These grips can transform into other grips or individual chord tones can be moved horizontally to get to different extensions and alterations.
The second view is seeing each chord type and its extensions in a pianistic way. Sort of like the chord tones and the extensions become the white keys of a piano and voicings are superimposed over the white keys in a more free and fluid way without a mental reference to a "grip vocabulary".
One of the exercises I do to practice the second view is to pick three chord tones for each chord type. For example b9, 3 and 7 for dominants, 3, 5, 7 for minors etc. I then play the chords of a tune by limiting myself to only these voices. I try to find the voices in different parts of the fretboard while moving horizontally. I also add a fourth voice occasionally and experiment with different intervals for this voice. The next step is to connect the voices of successive chords with inner lines etc.
This type of exercise requires a different way of viewing the fretboard than using the muscle memory grips but it also brings a new perspective to grips that I already use when they naturally arise in the process.
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You know... I wouldn't call what Christian's doing in the vid, or what Tal says above a method or a system. These are exercises to increase our craft and knowledge. To expand possibilities. And for me at least, this type of thing's a small part of my daily routine. Much of my time is spent learning tunes and trying to get better at comping and soloing thru the changes. I try to produce some music every day.
I don't agree with the idea that knowledge is going to hurt your musicality. It won't, unless you unnecessarily limit your playing to working within a system... for some reason. Why would you? I don't really have one. Maybe I have some sort of home-baked thing to get underway in a tune. Then I use my ears to tell me what sounds good and what doesn't.
If your talent is so weak that it needs protection from outside influences, maybe it's not worth protecting.
'Just learn the tunes' is nothing new. Everyone knows that. It's even in some folks' signatures. It's a good thing to remember, but it's OK to do more if you feel like it.
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Ah yeah. Good point. Definitely not a method. System makes me think of just “systematic” ways of going through things. Which I love. Using my brain to work through possibilities that the ear might not get to on its own, which is how I (try to) train the ear to hear them later. Originally Posted by ccroft
Like “I know drop-2 is a thing, with all its inversions, but what if I tried drop ….” and a whole new universe of chord voicings opens up. Some useable, some not, but most wouldn’t be things I’d come to without that kind of systematic thinking.
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Hmm, this video lesson makes me feel like I've been cheating all these years...
It came up in another thread recently (the Drop X thread), but it was enough work for me to do essentially the things shown in the video, but only using drop2 and drop3 grips. I know that is limiting one's harmonic palette, but I don't do much CM so I get by with mainly drops when comping, simply by creating connective movement between the inversions.
It's systematic and easy to get my head around, but I admit it doesn't have all the answers. For example, if we were to take drop 2 for the middle strings to create Cm69 in at least 4 inversions, then you can start with Cm7, drop the Bb to A and raise the C to D. Now most of them sound "useable" but one sounds plain wrong for, say, a tonic in a C Jazz minor Blues, I'm talking about : x 5 5 2 4 x - it's an interesting sound perhaps if you were arpeggiating some folky thing, but in a C min blues, you'd much rather : x 3 1 2 3 x .
So my lazy approach is to rely on the Drops for my "go to" options, and only swap them for a different grip when it sounds naff. Trouble is, I don't know how naff that basic approach would sound to some of you guys that put a lot more options to work, but then, I'm happy to just "get by" with my comping for the time being, cos I spend way too much time on my single line playing !
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That's every jazz guitarist ever I think. Originally Posted by princeplanet
I'm happy to just "get by" with my comping for the time being, cos I spend way too much time on my single line playing !
Re. the discussion about the merits of methods. My teacher told me how his teacher, Randy Vincent, used to tell him: "I'm not teaching you how to play the guitar, I'm teaching you how to think about the guitar!"
I think that nails the discussion. Whatever "method" or system you use to learn chords or single line playing or whatever, it's a matter of thinking about it. There's value in all of it, but you have to apply it to the music.
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it’s funny how nothing sounds naff when it swings innit Originally Posted by princeplanet
Hmm, this video lesson makes me feel like I've been cheating all these years...
It came up in another thread recently (the Drop X thread), but it was enough work for me to do essentially the things shown in the video, but only using drop2 and drop3 grips. I know that is limiting one's harmonic palette, but I don't do much CM so I get by with mainly drops when comping, simply by creating connective movement between the inversions.
It's systematic and easy to get my head around, but I admit it doesn't have all the answers. For example, if we were to take drop 2 for the middle strings to create Cm69 in at least 4 inversions, then you can start with Cm7, drop the Bb to A and raise the C to D. Now most of them sound "useable" but one sounds plain wrong for, say, a tonic in a C Jazz minor Blues, I'm talking about : x 5 5 2 4 x - it's an interesting sound perhaps if you were arpeggiating some folky thing, but in a C min blues, you'd much rather : x 3 1 2 3 x .
So my lazy approach is to rely on the Drops for my "go to" options, and only swap them for a different grip when it sounds naff. Trouble is, I don't know how naff that basic approach would sound to some of you guys that put a lot more options to work, but then, I'm happy to just "get by" with my comping for the time being, cos I spend way too much time on my single line playing !
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I think the two things dovetail. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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I should have added that the next "go to" for me, when adjusting the drop x is not working, is to create a voicing that omits the 5th. Every time I do this I tell myself I should really know all my 5th-less voicings as well as my drops, but life gets shorter by the day..... Originally Posted by princeplanet
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When we think of all the chords a jazz guitarist could know, it’s encyclopedic.
So the question is - or might be for some - what is a PRACTICAL set?
(Assuming one doesn’t aspire to be the king of chords that is, as was mentioned elsewhere).
Developing effective skills as an improviser of “horn lines” on the guitar, is a high enough mountain on its own - is it not?
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5th less voicings are more immediately useful imo Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Probably get that down first then? Comping can with commonplace grips. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
I don’t think a lot of this stuff is of immediate use actually. It’s mostly building capability, flexibility and fretboard knowledge. You can find uses for all of this, but if your aim is to functional as a jazz player there’s more important things to master. if your long term aim is to play like Wes Montgomery you can learn the drop 2’s and 3’s as well as the common ‘guitar grips’ and leave it at that - in fact I’d say Wes probably didn’t do this type of work at all going on interviews (he said he’d worked on other things than chords).
This is more for the advanced guitar harmony students looking to ‘connect the dots’ and can support things like composition, Mick Goodrick voice leading cycles, Barry Harris harmony, advanced reharmonisation and so on. It’s actually more that you get really good at doing this stuff - its not so much you know the chords but you get used to looking at the fretboard in a connected pianistic way. This is the real upshot of doing this work, not learning a bunch of voicings (75% of which you might not use)
Btw you can apply a similar (tho not identical) methodology to scales.
I would regard this as classic ‘back burner’ work, like reading practice. You do a little every day (5-15m) and improve greatly over the long term. If you sit down and do an hour straight on this stuff early on, you’ll need some Ibuprofen.
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If you never do a minute of systematic fretboard work like this it doesn’t mean you won’t play jazz well. Plenty of great players never worked on this sort of stuff Originally Posted by ModesSchmodes
OTOH doing 15m of this a day for a few years will give long term knowledge and freedom of the instrument. I can speak from my own experience of working on this type of stuff for around a decade (Nb I was already a working player before I started this). It gets easier!
It’s a bit like doing strength training and working on general fitness to improve one’s ability to play team sports I suppose.
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Nice video, having spent many, many years working through Mick Goodrick's Almanacs of Guitar Voice Leading, the whole fretboard opened up, giving a very different perspective from the usual chord grips. You don't need to play the Almanacs as static chords, physically I can't.
Some of the Almanac voicings remind me of Allan Holdsworth type voicings.
Anybody use the Goodchord Voice Leading Books?
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I like that a lot of the Goodrick stuff is oblique or contrary motion, which takes it out of the guitar parallel thing Originally Posted by GuyBoden
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I'm idly wondering (in a 'Sunday morning, got nothing to do' kind of way) about guitarists trying to emulate what keyboard players can do easily, and finding the going is a lot tougher than hoped for. And whether 'all 4ths' tuning would make things easier or harder. I'm lucky enough to have a working knowledge of historical plucked instruments, and am reminded that when polyphonic Renaissance music gave way to chord-based Baroque music, the French (and most of Europe followed) decided that a new tuning was needed, eventually settling on a Dm chord plus added stepped basses. Once this tuning was found, they went to town with it, and the German's followed, creating some stupendous music in the process, all which defies being played in the old Renaissance tuning.
I'd better get on with the day...yesterday 'Into the Labyrinth - An anatomy of Position Playing for the Guitar' by Davy Moonie arrived. Looks interesting.
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P4 definitely simplifies this type of thing
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Yes, P4 definitely simplifies the fretboard, but you loose a quite a lot of common guitar chord voicings. I've played in P4 for over 12 years, I was warned not to change, as I already knew the fretboard very well in standard tuning. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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It's quite a long video, but Joe Diorio talks about this a lot. Funny enough he ALSO recommends the exercise Christian's video is about. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Last edited by AllanAllen; 07-02-2023 at 09:34 AM.
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