The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Thanks to Jordan's inspirations and communications has help motivate me to push myself to deliver on my goals for this year, write 3 songs.

    I set out to write a hard bop blues, nothing was coming, some how I started writing a minor ii v i thing, I have never done minor ii v i before.

    So here it is warts and all. Is it crap, is it jazz? It is what it is, interesting how my deep mood came out. Things have been a bit crap so its called Another Hope (as in another let down).

    I tried a completely different improv to be authentic, I have probably improved on it less than 10 times. Listening back I can hear I keep starting in the same place and the lines are similar in length. I play a wrong note in one place and employed the repeat it and take it down a semi tone rule which kinda worked.

    A brilliant brilliant illuminating experience, highly recommend it. My mind is now gushing with ideas. Really had to dig deep, coming up with a B Section was really hard. Recording it and putting it out there is intense, even if only 20 people end up listening to it.

    Constructive feedback is of course welcome.


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  3. #2

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    glad to be one of the 20!! keep at it!!..

    i know you are always listening to other players, thats a great thing..soak it all up and use it in your own playing


    btw, got a kick out of the fact this is your 666 post!! haha..

    cheers

  4. #3

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    Nice playing and tone. Maybe bring the backing tracks up a bit in the mix, giving the melodic flow of that beautiful 175 just a tad more rhythmic support. As neatomic says, keep at it!

  5. #4

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    Thank you neatomic and CitizenK for taking the time to listen and provide feedback.

    Yes you are write, dam guitar player never even considered volumes, just trying to get it down in the small window with no kids around, could not find my proper picks was stressing about the sound.

    Had good feedback from a friend re building it to a climax, tried but along way to go, gotta work out a grab bag of improv endings.

    To my fellow beginners, this has been an intense learning experience on so many levels, one week of trying to write an orig has been worth months and months of practice.

    That learning experience is sure to continue as my senses are on high alert and now to get back into the improv and analyse what did I do, how to improve it etc. As they say in bike racing, marginal gains.

  6. #5

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    Enjoyed it very much! Well done!!

  7. #6

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    Liked that piece - has a real 50s bluesy Burrell feel to it - nice work...

  8. #7

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    Hey that's a pretty cool first, keep it up!

  9. #8

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    Great job triple G! Honored to have added the slightest bit of spark to your process. But let's be honest... you had the drive well before I said anything. You were already headed in that direction. Glad to have crossed paths on the way.

    Sounds really great. Whole hell of a lot better than my first tune! Or most of my first tunes!

    A couple of quick thoughts that jumped out at me... not necessarily anything you need to listen to... just observations and questions and things that are part of my process that I would take a look at if I'd written this.

    ***I'm personally a big fan of the Jim Hall school of being able to really sing the melody beautifully using just single note lines, and not relying on chord melody. I do love the use of chord melody, but I think it opens up a lot of additional textures and 3-dimensionality to develop chordless melodies. I might take something like this at the point you're at (where you have a chord melody arrangement and know the harmony and the melody and everything) and spend some time really focused on performing the melody as a single note line.. the way a horn player or a singer would. Really play with the phrasing and the timing and the dynamics. In the words of Aaron Parks (paraphrased)... make us BELIEVE the melody. It's just a bunch of notes, but try and find a way to breathe life into it... to the point that it sounds like it's a living organism.

    A couple of powerful examples
    Chet Baker singing Blame it On My Youth
    I've heard tons of people perform this tune (instrumentally and vocally) but there's just something about Chet on this one that just floors me. Part of it is maybe that I can hear his 2 front teeth missing, which just depresses the hell out of me. But it's almost like you can hear the regret and sadness of his heart drenching every note and every word of the vocals as it departs his soul. It's so heavy. He mainly sticks to the basic melody, but he does have some interesting little changes. But listen to the dynamics. The way he emphasizes certain notes and uses other notes to deliver the heavier notes to us.


    Then the polar opposite is Louis Armstrong singing Dinah. Good lord it's from 1933 and he swings harder than so much music that's come since. Listen to how joyful he is. He can't stand still. Check out the way he takes the simplest melody ever and just screws around with the time like crazy. The way he drops the word Dinah in the most interesting rhythmic ways and dances around the beats. And if all that weren't cool enough... the dude is scatting hip bebop lines... in 1933!!!! I just can't help but be insanely happy and smile like an idiot when I listen to this one. I love it so much. Again, notice the dynamics. How some notes are louder and some quieter. Some get held longer, some shorter. It makes it feel alive.


    So maybe put the playalong on and just loop the melody over and over for a while... just play the melody for 10 or 20 minutes as single notes. Or analyze one particular phrase and make choices about which notes you feel like are the jabs and which ones are the right hooks meant for the KO.

    ***As for the harmony... I did hear one note/chord jump out that sounded a little quirky to me... but bear in mind I go way overboard when it comes to my chords and finding the perfect harmonies to bring out my melody notes. It's the very first note/chord. Forgive me if I'm wrong here (I've been out of the game for a while and my ear and playing are VERY rusty), but it sounded like you're playalong was playing a Dhalfdim7 while you were playing a Dhalfdim9. You had the E note in the melody, whereas the piano in the playalong didn't... correct? Whatever it was that happened on that first chord created a rub in my ear. It might not bother you at all, in which case, take this with a grain of salt. But you know me. I'm into all this upper structure stuff and utilizing triads to best organize and harmonize any note against the chord. We tend to think of the 1-3-5-7 as the "chord tones" which are the resolution points, and everything else is a tension. But if voiced properly, a Dhalfdim9 literally makes the 9 (E) into a strong sounding resolution point.

    Anyways... you're playing the Dhalfdim9 which is effectively turning the E note into a strong chord tone, but then in the piano, it sounds like you programmed it as a basic halfdim7 which turns the F note into a strong chord tone and makes the E sound like a tension. And when you play the two together, it causes some friction... which I think may be what I was hearing. If you listen back and hear what I'm talking about and it does start to bother you, (A) I'm sorry for being the one that pointed out something you'll likely find annoying for the rest of your life harmony really is a lifelong adventure and (B) the simple fix is to change the chord's name in your software to a Dhalfdim9 and rerecord yourself playing it. If it sounds better to you, and you don't hear the friction anymore, it means you were hearing the same thing I did and the problem is solved. Then just make sure that you write the chord as a halfdim9 and not a halfdim7 if you ever make a lead sheet of this so that when you're playing it with your buddies, they know how to properly voice out the chord that will help support your melody rather than fight against it.

    Just a few thoughts. For whatever their worth.

    Great job!

  10. #9

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    Just keep at it, and everything takes practice to get good at, including composition.

  11. #10

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    My first impression was much like jordanklemons, but he said it much better than I would have. Melody is king. The melody here is interesting, but there are a bunch of places where I bet you could make it better. And the chords in some cases seem to work against the melody. If you decide to work on the melody some more you might try playing the melody without accompaniment or just over a bass line, or simplify the chords eliminating extensions, substitutions, etc. unless they are demanded by the melody. You can always add the fancy harmonies back in after you've come up with a compelling melody.

    Another approach is to move on the the next tune, then revisit this one. You'll probably come back fresh with all kinds of ideas for how to improve it.

    Good job though. Creating art from a blank canvas is hard work!

  12. #11

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    Wow what fantastic feedback. Jordan you are a treasure. Thanks everyone else.

    Yes Jordan and Kirk you are write re the first chord and note. I did not no it was half diminished I was just mucking around with minor chords and ended up with that thinking it was just a flat 5 minor 9.

    I will definitely get into all the suggestions and thanks for the music recommendations, two of my favourite artists but songs I had heard.

    This is so great.

    Funny, i was thinking that it would be really cool if we had one if those big forum argument things over this and I can sit down with pen paper listen and study.

    The chords were a little forced they were some things I had been working on, working on a chord melody arrangement if Here's that rainy day. I really liked the chords and I wanted to work them in so I would own the chords. But yes totally agree what you are saying re being convincing on the melody on its own.

    Unreal, thanks again,I am back into it. How good is this forum.

    Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Yes Jordan and Kirk you are write re the first chord and note. I did not no it was half diminished I was just mucking around with minor chords and ended up with that thinking it was just a flat 5 minor 9.
    Yeah the min7b5 and the half dim are more or less interchangeable. I mean, I've been told that they're not and why we use one term vs another at different times. But if I'm being honest, I just about always use them interchangeably, and I almost always refer to them as half dim just because of all the harmony stuff I study. It helps me categorize them differently from the min7b5. For instance, I also something use min7#11 where it's a min7 chord with the nat5 AND the #11/b5. So I just like to keep everything separated out and categorized. Just part of my harmonic ocd maybe?

    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    The chords were a little forced they were some things I had been working on, working on a chord melody arrangement if Here's that rainy day. I really liked the chords and I wanted to work them in so I would own the chords. But yes totally agree what you are saying re being convincing on the melody on its own.

    Unreal, thanks again,I am back into it. How good is this forum.
    Don't forget that working on the melody single note doesn't have to replace the chord melody. In fact, it very well might help you make the chord melody arrangement more unique and personal. Getting an idea in your mind of exactly how you want to phrase the melody as a single note line can help the pieces fall into place even better as a chord melody. For instance, if you realize that one particular note is a dynamically "heavy" note with a build up into it... you might decide to play the build up using single notes and then to put the chord under that note, to emphasize it. Lots of things can happen. But they'll all be built on a deeper sense of intention if you take the time to clarify your own intent.

    Thanks for sharing the piece Mark. Sounded really nice.

  14. #13

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    well i see you've well exceded your "20 listener" figure both here and on youtube...in just 2 days!!...never underestimate jazz guitar players!!! haha

    and got feedback and good response in addition to jordan k's thoughtful analysis..(bravo jk)

    not bad for a first tune!!!


    keep goin!!..(you owe us now!!!) haha

    cheers

  15. #14

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    Great job, very evocative. I listened to it on a car ride home late at night, nice soundtrack to the sleeping city.

  16. #15

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    Thanks guys. JazzinNY wow I take that as a huge compliment.

    Fellow beginners I so recommend this. All your sensors are heightened to the max, everything you have thus far learned zeroed in like a test but this is kind of like a test of the soul also. You hear so much, now going back over it you really start to feel you own the notes, the harmony etc.

    neatomic definitely more to come, my goal was 3 for the year, I really want to do a hardbop blues and am working on it.

  17. #16

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    Yeah the min7b5 and the half dim are more or less interchangeable. I mean, I've been told that they're not and why we use one term vs another at different times. But if I'm being honest, I just about always use them interchangeably, and I almost always refer to them as half dim just because of all the harmony stuff I study. It helps me categorize them differently from the min7b5.
    What do you mean Jordan?
    It's the same chord... just different names...
    it's called half-diminished because in diminishe 5th and 7th are diminished (in comparison to regular minor 7th chord) and in 'half-diminished' it's only 5 flat... so it is absolutely the same meaning as m7b5

    Or did I miss something?

  18. #17

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    The song is pretty good. Once you get comfortable with it, it will be smoother.

    I was checking out the Giant TCR with 105's in the backm doe!

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by fuzzthebee
    Me too - I have one with ultegra.
    Canyon is supposedly selling in the US next year. Amazingly low prices for high end bikes. Bad customer service, but how often do you need that?

  20. #19

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    Hah! Need to be careful what is in the back ground.

    Yes a TCR in the background, that is my racing machine full Dura Ace and my track bike behind it. Suns out time for a spin.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Hah! Need to be careful what is in the back ground.

    Yes a TCR in the background, that is my racing machine full Dura Ace and my track bike behind it. Suns out time for a spin.
    I succeeded in a thread hijack!

  22. #21

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    Apologies if a sounded like a tosser with the I've got DA. Who cares as long as you get out and enjoy.

    When I used to surf they said the best surfer is the one having the most fun.

    Perhaps this applies to music also.

    I saw the Miles Ahead movie on Thursday. Intense. Amazing when you put an image to music it seems to have do much more conviction. I think I need to work on that as Jordan recommended. Really get inside what I am trying to say.

    Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Apologies if a sounded like a tosser with the I've got DA. Who cares as long as you get out and enjoy.

    When I used to surf they said the best surfer is the one having the most fun.

    Perhaps this applies to music also.

    I saw the Miles Ahead movie on Thursday. Intense. Amazing when you put an image to music it seems to have do much more conviction. I think I need to work on that as Jordan recommended. Really get inside what I am trying to say.

    Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk
    Not at all a tosser! 105 and DA look the same from that view. My next bike will probably have it too.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Thank you neatomic and CitizenK for taking the time to listen and provide feedback.

    Yes you are write, dam guitar player never even considered volumes, just trying to get it down in the small window with no kids around, could not find my proper picks was stressing about the sound.

    Had good feedback from a friend re building it to a climax, tried but along way to go, gotta work out a grab bag of improv endings.

    To my fellow beginners, this has been an intense learning experience on so many levels, one week of trying to write an orig has been worth months and months of practice.

    That learning experience is sure to continue as my senses are on high alert and now to get back into the improv and analyse what did I do, how to improve it etc. As they say in bike racing, marginal gains.
    The guitar sound is nice, IMO. I think you also did a fine job writing this tune( for whatever it's worth coming from a jazz-beginner like me).