The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Not moveable do solfege though? Isn’t Re always D in English?
    I do not know about English... I think not.


    In Russian the note names are do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si... and it is used both as names and as solfege syllables.

    usually it is not moveable (but can be if the student does not have an absolute pitch)...

    So when you sing in A -major you start like la-si-do- ... sharps and flats are meant but not sung usually.

    Originally it was moveable - I think I gave a link to EarlyMusicSource where they describe moveable hexachord system.. I think it is really good actually for those purposes and the music they played those days.

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  3. #27

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    Yeah I cannot get my head around hexachords

  4. #28

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    Both? But I'm not sure if I totally understand the question.

    hmm... Some of the best relative pitchers that I know (I thought they had perfect pitch) usually relate everything they hear to a single note (and that note can change). These people can sight sing atonal modern chamber (jazz?) music. It's quite incredible actually.

    For unlocking chords it's a good idea to know what intervals sound like. It seems like relating what you hear to a tonal centre gets you farther for lines based stuff. Also, you eventually just know the sound of the major scale (and other popular tonalities) and what lines sound within that (or jazz language etc).

    The one limiting thing with isolated intervals is that you that isolated intervals are rooted on one degree. For example 1-6 sounds different than 3-8(1) even though they're both major 6ths.

    just some random thoughts...

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by bediles
    Both? But I'm not sure if I totally understand the question.
    I don't really understand the question either... Don't we hear ALL the intervals? I mean all at the same time?
    Including the chords' roots, tones, extensions, and alterations to the chords' roots and the progressions' keys?

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by bediles
    The one limiting thing with isolated intervals is that you that isolated intervals are rooted on one degree. For example 1-6 sounds different than 3-8(1) even though they're both major 6ths.
    In my experience, the key thing is to make a skill "automatic". If we want to play a solo "live", play a tune by ear "live" - on the spot, then those skills must be automatic, in the bones. That's the most limiting thing imo. That we don't have it good enough very often.

    We can ponder a bit and get it right by trial&error method, ponder and get it down in a few secs.. but the end goal of doing it 100% right (thats what jazz impro & tunes need) with instant execution is for the crazy good brains or for the crazy practitioners..

    The isolated interval recognition&execution will help a ton but only when its 100% right, 100% instant. I bet it's possible to achieve but before having this, tieing them to certain scale degrees is the way to go.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I trained my ears over the years to identify intervals both ascending and descending, chord qualities etc. to an OK level. When I transcribe a line without an instrument, I find it quite unnatural and inefficient to go interval by interval though. It's also not very immediate to identify the exact type of the altered note in altered chords (#5, b9 etc.)
    I'm thinking doing more functional ear training from now on. What are your thoughts on the differences between functional vs intervallic ear training.
    Here are some articles about functional (or contextual) ear training. I'm also using a functional ear training app.
    Articles
    My first 3 years in ear training (2009-October 2012) were mostly intervallic ear training. Guessing an isolated interval without a cadence or tonality. I used this software called EarMaster Pro 5 for the exercises. After 3 years of consistent and thorough practice, I am able to guess flawlessly all the intervals (ascending, descending, harmonic) correctly. But all of that was a waste as I flunk with simple melody dictation in school and I was totally tone deaf with real world melodies heard on the radio, tele, etc.

    From November 2012-December 2018, these years were spent trying to crack the code of recognizing real world melodies by mere listening. During these years, I have witnessed individuals with very strong relative pitch do this. Long story short, within these years, I found out that I wasted my time with isolated intervals and that the answer was Functional Tones or Functional Interval Training. This epiphany took a bit slower to process because I was in school all these years. Around the end of 2018, I found the tools that I currently use (a flash card app, a DAW, gaming laptop, and IPad) to make my practice happen.

    From January 2019 - To this present day of this writing May 2020, My current ear training regimen is basically years in the making. I learned from my past mistakes with intervallic ear training and now my exercised are heavy with functional and contextual ear training. Each day, I add new melodic patterns, further expanding my vocabulary and understanding of melody, while making transcribing also an integral part of my practice.

    Unlike previous years, these past two years, I have seen results with whatever I’m doing right now. It’s just a matter of time where I will cover all melodic patterns and scales in a comprehensive and time efficient matter. Whatever I’m doing seems to be working. All it needs is time

    I tried intervallic ear training for 3 years and I failed at melody recognition. I’ve tried functional ear training for 2 years and I’m already seeing real results. Guessing isolated intervals will take you nowhere. Functional Ear Training will lead you somewhere - the path to melody recognition mastery.

  8. #32

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    I've worked with both approaches, and found them useful in different things. Functional ear training for functional Harmony, intervallic for more complicated one. Or for hearing modulations and any unusual movement in tunes. Then working on chord recognition, and relationship of a melody with the underlying chord. At least for me, intervallic solfege was a lot more difficult than the movable, functional one. Mainly i used Berklees books for both.

    It's not that ear training is difficult, it's that most people never work on it in an organized fashion. It's like octaves, spend 10 minutes a day on them, and you make tremendous progress after a while.

    A great exercise that I got from Mick Goodrick and have done for periods of time, was to record random chords for 2 minutes and play over them the next day. You identify weaknesses and work on what you cannot hear. When I studied with Mick, he could hear anything, chords, scales, inner voices, movements. He said after working at it for years, he was at a Liebman gig when he first realized it. And without having perfect pitch..

  9. #33

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    Start with the end - in the long term, what do you want to be able to do?

    Draw that picture first; for example, you might want to recognize progression movements, chord types, and melodic lines that you hear and be able to grasp and coordinate them within an organized musical head space - on stage, during an informal get together, when composing, or when exploring alone, and then within that musical head space be able to hear and play what you want to hear as the specific contribution from your instrument. Then, imagine the particular mechanics of success - like being able to do those things pretty instantly, and easily. This does not mean how trying to do those things feels now, but how it will need to feel later, further down the path in the future for it to work. Identifying these mechanics are clues or guides in one's self examination of what will be needed for what one wants to be able to do, so they act as sign posts that point the way to what you specifically want to be able to do.

    In the old days, the sign post were self directing and self revealing - the answer to virtually all of these things was to listen to records that sounded like what you wanted to sound like, and play until you figured out how to get the sound of what you played to sound like what you heard and wanted to sound like. Then find people to play with and perform as much as possible. A lot of things have changed since then, but perhaps there is still no better way.

  10. #34

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    By hallucinating (imagining) that which is not there, intervallic ear training can transcend the limitations of how it is generally taught. Generally speaking, we tend to aurally place each interval into the most obvious context available. C-E is C major and likely to be heard as a I chord.
    But.... it can be so many things: b3 5 of Am // 5 7 of Fma7 or FmMa7 //
    b7 9 of D9 or Dm9 // 7 9 of Dbma9 or DbmMa9 // etc.

  11. #35

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    Would say from the point of mathematics alone, you have a lot more combinations when you think of a note on a chord then 12 notes against the key centre.

    So I advocate functional ear training, but in practice I find that I fall between two stools. I'm not hearing everything in relation to a central pitch (ala Banacos) but often over a chord.

    For instance in a Rhythm Tune, I hear lines and melodies relative to Bb, but in the bridge I hear each one over each chord. So I hear an F# on D7 as the 3rd on that chord, not the #5 of Bb.

    TBH I think that's how most people thought of that progression. Even today, if you listen to Adam Rogers or someone do it, that's what they tend to do.

    One thing that I would like people to talk about more is this concept of gestalt or 'chunked' hearing.

    Very simply, when I transcribe something, I hear music objects that I am familiar with very quickly and ones which I am not familiar with have to be puzzled out slowly. I would be amazed if others didn't have the same thing.

    So it would seem that the aim of ear training in this sense is to get really good at recognising stuff, which is what I think the real purpose of transcription and ear learning is. Then you can play gigs a lot better.

    Ear training exercises aren't going to do this. You have to go to real music. (Also playing stuff on the guitar helps me hear stuff on the guitar.)

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    I've worked with both approaches, and found them useful in different things. Functional ear training for functional Harmony, intervallic for more complicated one. Or for hearing modulations and any unusual movement in tunes. Then working on chord recognition, and relationship of a melody with the underlying chord. At least for me, intervallic solfege was a lot more difficult than the movable, functional one. Mainly i used Berklees books for both.

    It's not that ear training is difficult, it's that most people never work on it in an organized fashion. It's like octaves, spend 10 minutes a day on them, and you make tremendous progress after a while.

    A great exercise that I got from Mick Goodrick and have done for periods of time, was to record random chords for 2 minutes and play over them the next day. You identify weaknesses and work on what you cannot hear. When I studied with Mick, he could hear anything, chords, scales, inner voices, movements. He said after working at it for years, he was at a Liebman gig when he first realized it. And without having perfect pitch..
    That exercise is also in the Advancing Guitarist.

    The question it raises in my mind is - why not just transcribe lots and lots of contemporary jazz instead? The advantage is then you have some things to play on gigs as well. (Presuming you an hear all the standard GASB moves.)

    I suppose some people like controlled environment exercises. Also the recording thing could be cool for composition.

  13. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    A great exercise that I got from Mick Goodrick and have done for periods of time, was to record random chords for 2 minutes and play over them the next day. You identify weaknesses and work on what you cannot hear. When I studied with Mick, he could hear anything, chords, scales, inner voices, movements. He said after working at it for years, he was at a Liebman gig when he first realized it. And without having perfect pitch..
    I use this tool a lot:
    https://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/ear_training/online


    The "progressions" feature generates random progressions after applying selected filters. It can be used perhaps for exercise you suggested without having to "forget" the progression first.
    These days I use it mostly for random chord quality identification and singing inner voices ("chords" feature). I worked a lot with the intervals feature in the past. It's a great tool and completely free.