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In my experience you’ve got that backward.
Originally Posted by ragman1
Shell voicings are extremely easy to understand for beginners.
And I’ve literally never heard someone describe harmony the way you’re describing it now.
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10-24-2023 09:21 AM
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Let's get back to your actual question... Originally Posted by jazzpazz
1. Shell chords, as you know, a re root 3rd and 7th (honestly, sometimes I just think 3rd and 7th)
2. "Real" is a dumb word to use, because it implies shell chords are "fake" or something. The fifth added obviously puts you into drop 2 and 3 voicings usually, which are only magical in the sense that they are playable. A lot of folks will hear maj7, m7, dom7 and m7b5 as "jazz chords." I don't really think of them as being exclusive to jazz, but that's probably what these YouTube people are getting at.
3. As others have mentioned, it's the alteration of that 5th note that is much more "jazz exclusive," but obviously it doesn't happen on every chord.
4. When comping, to avoid clutter, often the 5th goes...unless you're creating a melodic line in your coming and it's on top. But root and 5th both near the bottom of the chord? Usually too much.Last edited by mr. beaumont; 10-24-2023 at 11:03 AM.
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Not at all. They learn - and I bet you did too - chords before they get round to shells. I certainly did. I learnt the basic stuff, then the 7's, then extended to the 9's, and it went on from there. I never even heard of shell voicings for a long time. Thank god. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
What about you? Did you learn shell voicings before you learnt 'jazz chords'? Did anyone here?
I know, and that's the trap. Oh, look, now I can play jazz! Except they can't, especially when it comes to chord melody.Shell voicings are extremely easy to understand for beginners.
Can't help that :-)And I’ve literally never heard someone describe harmony the way you’re describing it now.
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I have to disagree. Originally Posted by ragman1
I think it makes perfect sense to learn shell voicings and then use them as building blocks to build some more (but not all possible) chords like 3x345x.
Sure you can not use that method to build voicings like x8998x but just learn that one and other related vocings later with a different method.
No one (unless I missed it?) claimed that this is the ultimate method to build any imaginble chord voicing for every imaginable chord.
I don't have any issues with calling it a "shell voicing + 13". For a beginner which just learnt the shell voicings, this would just mean "stuff you've already learnt + new stuff you are learning now"
Possibly a beginner might misunderstand it to think it means "all the stuff you will ever have to learn ever", but they have enough stuff to practice for now and can later correct the misunderunderstaning and learn more stuff.
I doubt an experienced player might not know what is meant what is meant with "shell voicing + 13" if they know what a "shell voicing" is.
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This place reminds me of a story I trot out frequently. And I have to, believe me.
A man goes to a completely foreign country armed with his trusty phrase book. He sees a safe-looking local and says, in perfect Albanian or whatever it is - 'Excuse me, Sir, where is the Post Office?'.
The local smiles happily because he's got it. 'Ah!', he says, and tells the man exactly where he's got to go. In beautiful Albanian. And the poor man can't understand a single word he says.
Ask a simple question here and, before you know it, they're discussing PhD-level Baroque and classical theory. Oh, yes :-)
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Ah, well :-) Originally Posted by orri
Exactly. So now you have two methods to learn...Sure you can not use that method to build voicings like x8998x
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Boss if you don’t know shell voicings, youre probably not going to get into high school jazz band. Forget the phd. Originally Posted by ragman1
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You haven't answered my question. Which did you learn first?
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Definitely shell voicings. Originally Posted by ragman1
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Sure :-)
How did you learn guitar first? Book? Teacher? How did you begin?
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An addendum to the OP.
I think I remember your goal being to play solo arrangements/ "chord melody."
I think my experience can be helpful here, because this is where I started with jazz...which is probably not where a lot of people start. But I had heard Joe Pass' "virtuoso" and I was tired of playing in "bands" and the drama that comes with them, so start there I did.
I never learned anyone else's arrangements, I set out to do my own from the start. It was a slow process, but it taught me a lot about how the guitar is laid out, and about putting melody on top of chords.
The first thing I learned, by chance, was drop 2 and 3 voicings. I didn't know they were called that, I just knew they were playable! And it wasn't hard to put melody notes on top of them.
My first arrangements used a lot of 5 and 6 string chords. I've come waaaaaay away from that now. I find that using smaller chords makes it easier to not have "the bottom fall out" when I want to improvise. It also makes it easier to improvise on the arrangements themselves, as opposed to playing things "note for note" like a classical piece.
When playing in this style, the chords I use and the way melody fits on top of them is NOT the same when comping for a soloist or singer. I learned that the hard way. Comping on the guitar is really just another way of improvising, but it's a supportive role, not a lead role, if that makes sense. But I don't think there's too much reason to go into that because I don't think that is what you are after (correct me if I am wrong)
I would not concern myself so much on what kinds of chords I'm playing for this style...shells, drop 2/3, 2 note voicings, even the occasional larger chord, all are fair game. Your job is to support that melody with enough of the harmony to get the tune across. And there's a lot of ways to do that.
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Excellent.
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Guitar in general, with a teacher. Originally Posted by ragman1
Jazz here, actually.
I learned shell voicings in let’s say 2007-8 because the esteemed Mr Beaumont was preaching the gospel of Ed Bickert.
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The OP is complicating things.
1. Google e.g. 'minor 7th chord shapes guitar'
2. Pick the easiest ones to hold down.
3. start playing them.
Worry about shell voicings or whatever later.
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With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience... But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience... ...and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. (Aristotle, a very long time ago) Originally Posted by ragman1
Ragman1, always insightful, agreeably inciteful, and this whole thread is fascinating.
What is the accepted wisdom of best practices for learning the guitar?
- learn to read music, really well
- learn the note names of the guitar
- learn some piano because it helps
The OP is a pianist that reads well and learned the notes of the finger board - an example of one who meets those three "prerequisites' but is falling down the well with confusion and impatience, complaining that those with long experience aren't answering his confused theoretical questions. Yes, it's so exasperating.
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And really for interesting comping, that's the way to go. You get the "meat and potatoes" of the chord and create a lead line on top. I mean, that's what comping is...it's not just playing chords in a rhythm. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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My first teacher, Sid Margolis, a big band guy from back in the day, showed me four note "muted string" chords like 3x231x for C7. Yes, the root was on the B string in that particular case. Another one was 3x343x for G7 and the root was at the bottom.
One chord that he didn't show me was 3x34xx. I found out decades later that's called a shell voicing and I noticed that Jimmy Bruno always played that version of G7 (no fifth) and not the one with the fifth. But Sid, as I recall, played it with the 5th.
Next, Sid taught me a chord melody to Don't Blame Me. He diagrammed the chords I needed, circled the root, and I went home and learned each one in 12 keys. Next was Moonglow then Stompin' At the Savoy, Stars Fell On Alabama and others I don't recall. By the time I finished those, I knew a lot of chords -- and still never heard of a shell voiciing.
Warren Nunes taught playing 3rds and 7ths on the D and G strings. He was also brilliant at chord melody, but he wouldn't stop and diagram the chords. I wish I had video!
Still no mention of shell voicings R37.
I studied with Carl Barry who taught, among other things, Chuck Wayne's approach to chords. I don't know if either one of them used shells, but I can't recall any mention of it.
I play in two big bands and before that an octet, for years, and I rarely play shell voicings R37. Maybe I should. I tend to play 37 in those situations.
Looking at transcriptions of Freddie Green on his website suggests that he was doing something different than I thought. He was often pressing the D string all the way down but only pressing lightly on two other strings, so it was one real note and two muted. What he was doing is not easy.
For any intermediate player interested in comping, I'd suggest watching Reg's youtube videos. reg523. Slow them down, figure out the chords and appreciate the context. Nail the time-feel.
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My current teacher was looking for some sheet and while searching he showed me different sheet and asked "I guess you already know all of these chord shapes?"
I said "sure, the shell voicings".
He was not familiar with the term!
(but he knows them and uses them)
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If you know the fingerboard, you know the notes in the chords you play. So, you know perfectly well which notes are R37. At that point, if you like the sound of the 5th, or not, it's easy enough to play either way. Originally Posted by orri
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Here are some basic starting chords that are musically organized for the guitar and expand with again guitar organization, and fingering organization. The are just a starting reference.... most already know them.
But as I've said before.... playing chords or voicings is just the beginning.
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Pianists often approach shells in the same way. They can be complete chords, but are often seen as a base of essential tones, to which you can add to with other free fingers, depending on the harmonic or melodic need. Certainly a freer way to think than memorized grips.
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Probably redundant, but I find accounts of how skills are acquired endlessly interesting, perhaps because, as a former English teacher, I once had to figure out how students learn to read and write.
As I've posted before, my guitar education has been unsystematic and non-linear--up from Folk Scare strumming and through folk-fingerstyle-ambitious tutorials and transcription books and workshops. The first instruction this 10-year-old got was via a junior-high piano teacher who used a book with chord frames and strum-slashes. Years later, a college classmate wrote out the basics of keys and triads and chord-spelling, thus offering a peek at the theory behind the cowboy chord grips one needed to get through Kingston Trio songs. (Though "Scotch and Soda" was considered an unclimbable mountain. We didn't realize how basic Bob Shane's chords were.)
Everything thereafter was reading tab and adding to the encyclopedia of chord shapes with very little notion of the theoretical frameworks that governed them. But the ears absorbed relationships and recognized patterns even before being introduced to the "Nashville number" system that much simplified transposing into one's vocal key.
What I find interesting in the context of this thread is that while nearly every guitar picker of my acquaintance had followed paths similar to mine, my first swing teacher (when I was 51) had devised a curriculum aimed at complete beginners ("I can teach your grandma to play") based on what I later recognized as shell chords and inversions. Ted Connor had self-published three instruction books--Fast Chords--that built on R-3-7 voicings and emphasizing movement on the third and fourth strings. What was immediately apparent was how Ted's fingering exercises worked together to make familiar harmonic patterns, especially ii-V-I sequences, a lesson reinforced by his singing four-bar snatches of standards while students played through them. "See how many songs you can play now?" he'd say. I don't recall him ever mentioning scales or arpeggios--though I'm sure he knew all about them. (He'd educated himself partly by reading big-band charts while in the Navy.)
Now when I'm trying to keep up on a chart for a tune that I recognize but have never played, I fall back on a mix of the brute-force-learned chord shapes accumulated over the decades and Ted's "heart of the chord" thirds-and-sevenths, with the root telling me where I need to be on the neck. It's an untutored, messy, and certainly unsystematic approach, but it usually results in something resembling music, at least for a swing-rhythm player.
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I honestly didn't know the term "shell chord" until this thread. As with so many things, I'm quite familiar with them without knowing they had a name.
Trying to think back on how I learned chords... someone showed me (and told me to learn them inside and out) simple triads in root position, 1st and 2nd inversion. Those are all easy to finger, especially on the top 4 strings where they're within a 2 fret span.
From there I realized I could change one note to make 7th chords. Simple obvious example, root position A minor triad (xx 755 x) you can either lower the root or raise the 5th to make a 7th ( xx 555 x or xx 758 x). The second voicing is a "shell" chord, I see.
An Am7 chord is just a CM triad with an A in the bass. If there's a bass player or piano, just play the C Major (xxx 553). Or play a CM7 "shell" chord to get an Am9 (xxx 557) without the root. Or play an Em for an Am11 without the root, third, fifth (xxx987). That can work, depending on context and how you use it. Triads can take you very far.
After learning the triads I've never studied a chord method.
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Shells on guitar aren't the same as triads. Triads are 1-3-5 whereas shells are 1-3-7 or 1-3-6.
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