The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I'm on Book 11 of Modern Method for Guitar, finally getting into higher fretboard positions. Very slow going on anything above 2nd position, though. Very slow! Either 6 prior years of nothing but tablature or my 62-year-old brain just isn't adept enough-yet. Not that I'm in a hurry, but I'm assuming the speed and accuracy proficiency levels out sooner rather than later? If anyone has other recommendations / exercises besides the Leavitt book, I'm open to suggestions. Thank you!

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by tomvwash
    I'm on Book 11 of Modern Method for Guitar, finally getting into higher fretboard positions. Very slow going on anything above 2nd position, though. Very slow! Either 6 prior years of nothing but tablature or my 62-year-old brain just isn't adept enough-yet. Not that I'm in a hurry, but I'm assuming the speed and accuracy proficiency levels out sooner rather than later? If anyone has other recommendations / exercises besides the Leavitt book, I'm open to suggestions. Thank you!
    Real book, a Spotify account, and some good headphones.

  4. #3

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    Hi, T,
    Study with a QUALIFIED(university-trained) CG teacher once a week. You'll make great strides in a very short time.
    Marinero

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    Real book, a Spotify account, and some good headphones.
    Interesting. I assume the Spotify and headphones are for transcribing by ear, but what is the Real Book for? Checking your answers?

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Endaro
    Interesting. I assume the Spotify and headphones are for transcribing by ear, but what is the Real Book for? Checking your answers?
    Learning tunes. Jazz is music, not exercises. Practice reading those, then check your work with the recordings.

    (Vice versa is cool too, but trust ears over book...but it might take a little while to get those ears trustworthy. )

  7. #6

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    Some good whisky.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    Some good whisky.
    But not bourbon. According to the Tele forum, that will get you right back on tablature.

  9. #8

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    I am glad my father taught me to read and to the end I find TAB unreadable. To me it just does not make sense with note values. The best way to read is to just sit down and read through tunes and eventually get to complicated bop melodies with off beats. I don't think guitar players will ever be violinist when it comes to sight reading but once you get it down to a certain level it is a matter of keeping up. I sight read ok for a guitarist for sure but if the piece is difficult and tempo is fast things fall apart pretty fast. The best method is to keep going no get lost and playing no notes is better than wrong ones.

    TAB......TERRIBLE ABSOLUTELY BUSY...........compared to notes and staff.

  10. #9

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    I do find TAB can be a good thing with fingerpicking. That's a case where the standard notation can be harder to follow than the TAB.

  11. #10

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    Notation system is heavily tied to classical music theory. It's brilliant, but can get difficult with more modern things. Like jazz.

  12. #11

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    Tab can be ok initially when you are just trying to replicate what it says exactly and playing rather trivial rhythmic figures.

    For me notation is more convenient as I can shift positions or octaves on the spot - where it would take an additional mental "translation" step from tab to notation then back. Intervals are also easier to see with notation.

    Not to mention trying to write something down for your fellow non-guitarist band mates. Or even your future self I guess you could just record these days but still..

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
    I do find TAB can be a good thing with fingerpicking. That's a case where the standard notation can be harder to follow than the TAB.
    Hi, B,
    This statement ,for a trained musician, is beyond absurd. Try reading Paganini or Joe Pass in tabs. It's a lazy man's approach to music with an impossible practical conclusion.
    Marinero

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    Hi, B,
    This statement ,for a trained musician, is beyond absurd. Try reading Paganini or Joe Pass in tabs. It's a lazy man's approach to music with an impossible practical conclusion.
    Marinero
    Okay, but I still find it useful.

  15. #14

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    I like reading lute tablature though, there are thousands of pieces available which can readily be played on the classical guitar by tuning the 3rd string to F#. They use letters instead of numbers, you just need to know that the ‘r’ is a Renaissance ‘c’, and the letter ‘j’ is not used.

    Weaning Myself off Tablature-9d8e9209-1aa8-4404-a152-e70a95e9c538-jpeg

  16. #15

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    Grahambop, I used to play lute and worked my way up to a 7 course lute that I bought from Anthony Rooley!

    I fell head over heels for Renaissance period music, especially the Italian school. Francesco da Milano still puts me
    in a kind of zen state.
    Like you I learned French tablature and became quite fluent at reading it.
    The thing is you have to be conversant with the style and the implied counterpoint.

    The whole lute and early music thing became such a strong passion I had to give it away.....sounds
    odd, but I spent a fortune on buying hardbacked books of facsimiles from the various publishers that
    may not be still around, like the Boethius Press for example.
    I was making my living teaching guitar and found that I got to dread the first 3:30 school kids knocking on
    my door and ruining my reveries.

    Thanks for the memories!

    My "career" veered from wannabe Hank, and then Clapton [shh] and Peter green...onto John McLaughlin, ....then Segovia,
    Juian Bream and then the lute.....all the while with a Gibson 335 always just out of sight under the bed.

    Now....I guess I'm a wannabe me....but tab for guitar? It just screws my head up worse than acid did.
    I'll take notation thanks....it was farking hard enough to teach myself that.
    BTW the best advice I ever had about improving my reading was fro the only true virtuoso I ever got to hang with
    almost daily could read frightenly well at almost any tempo. His name was Karl Herreshof, originally from
    San Francisco....a laconic guy and wonderful player ....knew a huge repertoire from memory....when we used to play duets
    he kicked my arse good!
    ....Karl said while rolling a cigarette...."ah just read it by the kilo" ...he had plies of violin,flute,clarinet and piles of guitarworks
    like complete works of Giuliani, Sor etc ....Man, I miss that man, good friend while being in International class.

    Herreshof did a Wigmore Hall recital in London to get known there, had an album of contemporary [later 20thC] stuff and played in
    Paul Winter's Consort, mixing Baroque to jazz ...he preceded Ralph Towner who took over his chair when Karl wanted a change.

    So, nix for tab for me, except for lute tab from the 16th and early 17th C.

    Sorry for the ramble....just being reminded of getting on to 60 years playing! Whoah where does the time go?

  17. #16

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    In measure 25 if you translate to English it says “Paul is dead”, and measure 30 “I am the walrus.”

    Still working out the rest of the translations.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    In measure 25 if you translate to English it says “Paul is dead”, and measure 30 “I am the walrus.”

    Still working out the rest of the translations.
    Whatever you do, DON’T PLAY IT BACKWARDS!

  19. #18

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    @Moonray - I got into lute music after I got a couple of the Julian Bream lute records when I was learning classical guitar as a teenager.

    Later at university I somehow wangled my way into the music library (even though I was not in the music faculty!) and discovered the Diana Poulton/Basil Lam complete edition of Dowland. They let me sign the book out for a whole term, so I taught myself the tablature and got lost in Dowland fantasias etc. I’ve enjoyed lute music ever since. Never owned a lute though, it would be hard to justify the cost!

    There’s a bit of a story behind that piece I posted. Decades ago I bought a Jan Akkerman LP and on it he played a great lute fantasia by Laurencini of Rome. I always fancied playing it, but never tracked it down. Anyway recently I found out his real name was Lorenzino Tracetti, and that the piece was included in Robert Dowland’s ‘Varietie of lute lessons’. So I looked on Sarge Gerbode’s excellent site (under Robert Dowland) and there it was.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    I like reading lute tablature though, there are thousands of pieces available which can readily be played on the classical guitar by tuning the 3rd string to F#. They use letters instead of numbers, you just need to know that the ‘r’ is a Renaissance ‘c’, and the letter ‘j’ is not used.

    Weaning Myself off Tablature-9d8e9209-1aa8-4404-a152-e70a95e9c538-jpeg
    That’s because the Lute is an instrument of ill-repute favoured by knaves, rakes and fops.

    so tabs? Yeah, sounds about right. Learning staff notation’s for nerds!

    You can hire one here
    The Lute Society: Hire Lutes

  21. #20

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    TAB is no substitute for reading standard notation, but it has its place.

    Here's an example. Take the Rolling Stones' "This Could Be The Last Time". The guitar lick, written in standard notation, is highly unlikely to result in a guitarist getting the thing to sound like the recording. Rather, it was played with what could be called a guitar trick. It is perfectly clear in TAB, but not in standard notation.

    Last night, I finally figured out how to play a guitar part in a song called Migration by Dori Caymmi. I looked at the standard notation for years and got to the point where I could play it, but it was a struggle. It was another guitar trick -- actually, two guitar tricks in one lick, and very easy to play once you realized how he did it. I spent more than 10 years, on and off, before I figured it out. Would have been completely obvious in TAB.

  22. #21

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    TAB and standard notation and shaped notes and letter notations are just symbols, i.e., pictographs, for an auditory experience. Of course they will have limitations!

    I mainly use standard notation with classical pieces. When you’re used to it, it becomes second nature to see fret patterns with the notes on the staff. Most pieces are arranged to take advantage of this—progression in arpeggios and so forth. Written music tends to be less “chord-centric”, though of course they are chords, but presented in a different way.

    My old guitar teacher used to transcribe pieces like Steve Howe’s Mood for a day in standard notation, and that’s how I learned them. I still have those handwritten sheets, with the very neat notes. A very pleasant memory, especially since I lost touch with John Brown many years ago and haven’t been able to find out what’s happened with him since the 80’s.

    Modern music like rock or jazz solos is very difficult to deal with in standard notation unless you’re quite used to it, and it’s a very different experience from classical repertoire. TAB is better for conveying this.

    These days I’m not playing much classical except pieces I remember by ear, so not reading much standard notation at all, but it would come back instantly if I dived back into it. I mainly just read chords and work out the melody fingerstyle by ear. Probably very crudely, but I do tend to remember how to play it that way.

  23. #22

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    Jazz is fine in standard notation.... reading rhythm is the step change here. Classical guitar repertoire WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE. Classical guitar will teach you the neck (if you stick at it) but not how to play contemporary vernacular rhythms (although some modern concert pieces do indeed contain these rhythms.) Being able to sight read a common but syncopated phrase in the Bb blues scale is a completely different exercise to sight reading a Bach Gigue or something.

    What you need is experience with reading syncopated rhythms in time and this is hard to come by for a guitarist without seeking it out. Horn players, on the other hand, do it all the time in school bands etc. So practice at home, but also try and put yourself in situations where it will push you to do this. Also the Bellson book is great.

    In rock guitar, TAB is useful because so much of what makes rock guitar rock is in the way stuff is played rather than in the notes themselves, bending, vibrato, right hand techniques, so on and so forth. So pedagogically, tab makes sense up to a point. But beyond about intermediate level, I wonder if we shouldn't be ditching the tab? So start with stylistic embellishment of the blues and then extent to more diverse musical resources...

    But, I think the top drawer music literate rock players, the Carltons and Lukathers of this world know how to take a chart and breathe life into it with their own style, and to an extent this is actually true of all music to one extent or another, even classical.

    I actually find it quite hard to read TAB now. Not that I'm a fantastic reader of notation, but I think it makes more sense to me at first glance lol.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Jazz is fine in standard notation.... reading rhythm is the step change here. Classical guitar repertoire WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE. Classical guitar will teach you the neck (if you stick at it) but not how to play contemporary vernacular rhythms (although some modern concert pieces do indeed contain these rhythms.) Being able to sight read a common but syncopated phrase in the Bb blues scale is a completely different exercise to sight reading a Bach Gigue or something.
    That is so true

    also a great amount of CG music is so over-fingered its almost like tab


    a great exercise is going the other way - try to notate a lick or phrase you come up with or an arrangement of a tune

    best thing about standard notation is that it can communicate musical ideas without having to play them

    also try some of the many classical vids on youtube that scroll the score


  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    That is so true

    also a great amount of CG music is so over-fingered its almost like tab


    a great exercise is going the other way - try to notate a lick or phrase you come up with or an arrangement of a tune

    best thing about standard notation is that it can communicate musical ideas without having to play them

    also try some of the many classical vids on youtube that scroll the score

    I like to watch jazz versions of these videos. I think the channel is Sharp 11th.

  26. #25

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    "Jazz is fine in standard notation.... reading rhythm is the step change here. Classical guitar repertoire WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE. Classical guitar will teach you the neck (if you stick at it) but not how to play contemporary vernacular rhythms (although some modern concert pieces do indeed contain these rhythms.) Being able to sight read a common but syncopated phrase in the Bb blues scale is a completely different exercise to sight reading a Bach Gigue or something." Christian Miller

    Hi, C,
    Did you write this before your morning Tetley??? Music is music. Period. Rhythm is rhythm. Period. There are no contemporary vernacular rhythms that are "new and fresh." There is nothing new in music rhythms/notation that hasn't been played before from the primitive campfires of Australopithecus Africanus to the New York Met. And, reading a Bb Blues Scale is different that reading Bach??????? How so? A university-trained/conservatory Classical/Jazz musician can read anything. Period. Have you ever looked at some Paganini or Giuliani music for guitar? What about Chopin transcriptions? Some of it is no different than a T. Monk/Bird chart from the 60's. However, most "popular"(read untrained) musicians cannot read and they rely on the bizarre(for me) tabs because they're too mentally lazy to undergo formal musical training. And, the valuable time they waste with this hieroglyphics could be better spent learning their trade properly. Some older Jazz guitarists and those today who call themselves "Jazz" guitarists,despite good ears, oddly--cannot read music. I remember ,as a former saxer, studying the Marcel Mule saxophone studies(Etudes) that were far more complex rhythmically than any Jazz chart I've ever seen/read. And, try to read a Tito Puente/Celia Cruz Salsa chart(especially cold) as a horn player juxtaposed to improvisational syncopation with drums and timbales if you want to see some "new and fresh" twisters. Your above statement is false and misleading.
    Marinero

    P.S. Please take these remarks in a friendly way as I mean no disrespect to you but I wanted to clearly and honestly dispute your above remarks. M


    https://youtu.be/AXN-_asIaYs
    https://youtu.be/Zm2C5hx4sI0