The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary

View Poll Results: Shapes or notes? What, in your opinion, is more important?

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226. You may not vote on this poll
  • Shapes

    37 16.37%
  • Notes

    32 14.16%
  • Both

    143 63.27%
  • I kind of just fiddle around and hope to hit the right notes.

    14 6.19%
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  1. #26

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    Shapes are a guitar-only invention. Yes, on guitar, they come in handy, especially when you're really blowing over changes and what not. Muscle memory is important on any instrument in any style. But that's just what it is...memory. Not creativity.

    I believe that, in terms of scales and chords, the piano is perfect. Scales go two directions-up and down, as do arpeggios. Chords happen at a single instant, and thus you can see it happen on a piano. The piano is very very visual. But the linear motion of scales is not what music is. Music moves in different directions. So limiting yourself to a "piano only" view of music is constrictive. That's not to say, of course, that pianists are linear. Definitely not. But thinking in terms of the instrument (which most great pianists are not) can cage you.

    I think that once you have a definite, second nature grasp over music, horns are the best instruments to view music theory through. The have no shapes. I'm starting to learn tenor sax for this reason. I'm trying to erase many of my patterns. Horn players play each note with more intent than a guitarist or pianist because there are no shapes to follow. Granted, they too have muscle memory with pressing the keys on the horn, but their muscle memory is not as great or as prevalent as guitars and pianos.
    The human voice is the same way. Horns and voices can be bent...they have no definite shape. Neither does music...unless you give shape to it.

    That's why I'm starting to try and not think in terms of scales and/or arpeggios. They have shape and direction. I don't want my solos to be caged to the X, Y, and Z axis. So instead, I think in terms of "weight."

    I know my chords, and therefore I know how different notes respond and relate to those chords. For example, the note with the least weight over a Cmaj is C. The note with the most weight could arguably be Gb or Db. G has slightly more weight than C, E more than G, B more than E, F and D are about equal and heavier than B, A more than D and F...and so on. This can relate to what we call "tension and release," though it's not just that. Tension is tense according to the ears of other players. Each note possesses slightly different weight to other people. Therefore, musical beauty--tension, release--weight--are in the ears of the beholder.

    This is just a budding idea. I hope to expand it a lot more. I can't effectively use it in an improvisational setting, but I hope to one day. I believe that eventually escaping direction and letting your feelings transcend directly into music is the ultimate goal of the musician and the improviser.

    God I sound like such a stoner!
    Smitty

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  3. #27

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    I love this thread because it is demonstrating how much this subject weighs in our minds as guitarists. Some really great responses.

    It sounds like a lot of us learned in a rock/pop type fashion which is really dependent on learning a few things and sliding them all around. I hope to see the whole neck soon, perhaps an epiphany; it happens!

    Jazz and classical should be taught simultaneously in schools so we see the bigger picture sooner and don't spend a lifetime just learning the "alphabet", so to speak.

    Expand more Smitty, nothing wrong with sounding like a stoner.

    Sailor

  4. #28

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    Good post Smitty, very thought provoking.

    Regarding muscle memory and the saxophone... I've never played saxophone but a saxophone player I use to play with like to say, "all I have to do is drop the sax down the stairs and it will play a Bb scale". Meaning it was easy to play that scale. Isn't there some easy "pattern" to that?

    Regarding weight, a #4 over a Maj7 chord (i.e. F# note while the band is playing CMaj7), I love that sound. Or a b3 with a 1/4 tone bend over a dominant 7 chord, or a 1/4 tone bend on the 4th over a dominant 7 chord, love those too. Never thought of it as weight (it's hard to describe tones with words). I think I play those tones with the kind of 'weight' concept you describe... I haven't consiously assigned that kind of experience to all the tones though.

    Don't you think this weight concept can go beyond single notes to a group of notes. Just like playing F# note over a Cmajor chord has a certain "weight", couldn't you also say running a Bm7 arrpegio over a Cmaj7 chord has a certain "weight" also.

    At least for me, I can't think quick enough to consider the 'weight' of each note and it is a necessity to think in terms of groups of notes (i.e. scales, arrpegios, licks). The note I end on and sustain, yes that destination is sometimes considered in terms of 'weight'.

    Which gets us back to where we started... That Bm7 arrpegio shape has a certain weight against a Cmaj7 chord.
    Last edited by fep; 11-06-2008 at 01:19 PM.

  5. #29

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    Great post, Smitty. I like the way you phrased a lot of the good points.

  6. #30

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    Thanks guys. Glad to see someone can see where I'm going with this

    I agree that the "weight" idea doesn't work when blowing over changes. It works best when playing slow. But then again, to me it's not a method. It's a thought process that forces me to think about each and every note. Which is why I prefer one chord vamps or songs with chords that last over more bars. But that's a completely different can of worms.

    I've found that being able to truly physical feel music is a very cool phenomenon, though it's very rare. I've felt phrasing before that actually makes your body sway. Andy Timmons does that sometimes. I like the idea of giving single notes a value that one can relate to physical terms. Music only exists in one sense--hearing--so being able to detect it with another sense is pretty cool. Once you really start to notice the actual weight that some notes have, you start to notice that holding out certain notes can be very cool.
    For instance, in a Gmaj/Ebmaj vamp, holding a B over both chords produces a different weight each time. The B is much heavier over the Eb than the G. We already know this...it's because the B is the #5 of Eb and the 3 of G. Easy theory right there. We know that the 3 is less tense than the #5. But one can't really feel tension. So, I atleast, give notes weight. It's not necessarily concious though.

    Someone brought up different chords or arpeggios over chords rather than just single notes. The example was, I believe, Bmin7 or Cmaj7? You see, the reason that I try not think in terms of a Bmin7 arpeggio over a Cmaj7 is because an arpeggio moves two directions...up and down. There's no side to side movement. Chords are just a dot. They happen at an instant. They move in all directions and no directions. Sure, they can continue to happen...their instant can be longer than what we commonly refer to as an "instant," but still, they don't move. They just are. So if we were to play a Bmin7 arpeggio over a Cmaj7 chord, you are caging yourself to two directions...once again, up or down. Now, if you say "I'm going to play the notes of a Bmin7 chord over a Cmaj7 chord," then that's different. True, an arpeggio is just a broken chord. But it has direction...a chord doesn't. So, once you start thinking that you're playing notes of a chord over another chord, you're getting more free but also more confusing. Rather than thinking about Bmin and Cmaj, I just think of notes relating to Cmaj. I think "B over Cmaj7...mmm.....D over Cmaj...more mmm....F# over Cmaj....that's a little bit different....A over Cmaj....now I feel like I need to go somewhere else (meaning change chords.)"

    So really, there are no arpeggios or scales. Just pools and groups of notes.
    But don't get me wrong...I'm a huge theory dork. I thinking about theory when I practice. When I'm working on a particular scale, I'm thinking in terms of that scale. I'm ingraining that scale into my head and therefore my fingers, which I guess results in different shapes. Because, of course, the guitar is a directional instrument. Shapes occur, I build muscle memory. But when it's time to let a solo rip, I don't think about what scales or arpeggios I'm playing. Just the relations of the notes I'm playing to the chord that's being played at the time. I feel that that tends to allow more openness to come out in your playing. Each note has a purpose.

    On a completely different note, when it comes to truly ripping and trying to break speed records....shapes are more important.
    Smitty

  7. #31

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    This topic is very interesting and made me register on this forum.
    There are so many answers to the first post and each pulling me in a different direction. It just shows how this subject cannot be covered with one or two answers. We can only write our own experiences and let every one else fill in their own blank spots.

    I played guitar in bands all over the place for forty years. In the past three and a half I've been practicing the alto and soprano saxophone and haven't touched a guitar since, except to replaced my daughter's guitar strings every now and then.

    When I first got into sax I found myself hunting for notes (in an intervalic way) by picturing how they were located on the guitar. My instructor said that I sounded like a guitarist when improvising.

    As I read in several responses, the guitar gives us a unique and efficient intervalic perspective. The problem I find with the piano is that notes are too spread apart and it is difficult to picture intervals in my mind. The great think about the saxophone is that it is mostly about the development of our earing since we can't really picture where the notes are and we can very easily play out of tune. Sure we can read music ( and we should) but after the second hour of daily practice I always find myself playing by ear for another fifteen minutes and i feel that is is the most rewarding not just in learning advancement but also as a musician since music is all about playing the instrument in ways that communicate with the gods. After all, the art of playing an instrument is all about communication.

    I find the topic on insterval weights very interesting. I also agree that there is a time to learn music theory and there is a time to play. Ultimately, playing is the most important of the two. As much as I value the study of music, I think we were born with all the knowledge already and it is up to us to discover it! Nothing like playing in a mindful way to discover how notes relate to each other and how they comunicate with us. Like Joe Pass once said: There are no wrong notes and if we play one such note, we make it right by what we play aftewards. Isn't that the real art, reinventing ourselves everytime we play?

    Thanks for this little moment. I'm looking forward to read more ideas.

  8. #32

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    I've been doing some self-directed study of music theory while also learning some scale (mode) patterns. I think they both go well together. If we as guitarists limit ourselves merely to learning patterns I think we will be stunted in our growth as musicians. But the patterns are very useful when combined with some knowledge of the music theory behind them. I've found several useful instructional materials that have been helping me as I've been working on both learning patterns, note reading, and music theory.

    Guitar Scales Method

    Absolute Fretboard Trainer Pro

    Chord Wizard Music Theory

    I've also benefited as a developing musician from learning to play the bass guitar. Since bass players are often just given chord sheets and expected to create a suitable groove, a knowledge of music theory is pretty much essential to being a good bass player (at least in my opinion!). I've found that books like Bass Guitar for Dummies and The Complete Idiots Guide to Bass Guitar very useful for getting a better understanding of the connection between chords, arpeggios and melody lines. This knowledge is then transferable to my guitar playing.

  9. #33

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    I teach my students the shapes that your fingers form with each chord and what notes are under each finger then a fret away in both directions making runs and riffs without movint hte hand...just the fingers...thats the mechanics of it...after they have that well executed I have them close their eyes and listen to what they are playing...here is where it starts to come out of you...listen instead of watch...it works....
    time on the instrument.......pierre..........

  10. #34

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    I think that learning shapes isn't necessarily a bad thing on the guitar. Though learning just the shapes can hinder certain aspects of ones playing, it can really help when first learning how to play as well as playing over faster tunes.

    Since the guitar is set up in a geometric way, this is to say that it's not symmetrical like a piano where every octave looks the same, we can take advantage of shapes to help us learn scales, arps, chords, melodies, licks, etc in different parts of the neck. I still see shapes when I play though I always know what notes I'm playing, for me it has become a combination of both.

    MW

  11. #35

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    I just read a comment in an earlier post that mentioned that the piano doesn't have shapes. I can agree that they don't have shapes like we do on the guitar, BUT they do have very specific fingerings which can be related to how guitarists see shapes.

    When someone learns the C major scale on the piano there is a very specific fingering that they are taught and they repeat that in each octave to move higher or lower. This is very similar to how we learn scales on the guitar. We learn a fingering for a C major scale in a certain position BUT on the guitar we have to learn a whole new fingering when we want to play the scale higher or lower on the neck.

    So I would say that the piano is a symmetrical instrument, where fingerings are the same no matter what octave the player is in, where as the guitar is an asymmetrical instrument because we have to learn a new fingering each time we play a scale in a different octave.

    MW

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by m78w
    I still see shapes when I play though I always know what notes I'm playing, for me it has become a combination of both.

    MW
    Having read other forumers' opinions during this past half year I already began to think that seeing shapes after 20 years was a bad thing.
    I agree that it has to be a combination with knowing what notes you're playing.

  13. #37

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    Hey, Matt!
    Do you play jazz with a piano? If you do can we see any video of you playing?

  14. #38

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    Do you mean me playing on a piano or with a pianist? I don't normally like playing with pianists, I like being the only harmonic instrument in a group.

    I used to play piano, I studied through the royal conservatory for 12 years or so, then took jazz piano as my second instrument in college. It's a great instrument to learn on and I'm glad I did it, it's really helped my guitar playing.

    MW

  15. #39

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    Hi, Matt!
    I mean you playing live jazz piano. A performance.

  16. #40

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    I was going to comment that both shapes and notes have equal weight, but then I read through the posts and realised that with comping it ends up being about 80% shapes... maybe for some 100%.

  17. #41

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    Both is the only answer I can give.
    I will go even further, you must learn your fretboard out of many perspectives.
    Notes - arpegios - shapes - scales - intervals

  18. #42

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    finding all the notes on a piano takes about 10 minutes..

    finding all the notes on the guitar takes a little longer...

    we must work on learning both...gives us guitar players more to work with...

    time on the instrument..pierre

  19. #43

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    ........to me, there's no way around it. If you want to get good on guitar in any style, you have to learn the fretboard and the theory applicable to it. Unless you're one of those one in five million geniuses who just pick it up and go for it.
    From my observations, it seems that learning the fretboard is just about the most hated/dreaded thing in the learning of guitar. Sorry, but you have to do it. Just get your head down, follow all the advice in this forum and DO IT! Then you'll feel much better. I am doing that, and I am feeling much better (if not, indeed, a little cocky as I watch my fingers bounce around on notes I the the name of...nah nah na nah na! ).

    I was VERY lazy on this till I joined this forum. My thanks to you all.

    So I voted for notes.

  20. #44

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    Ive been playing the guitar for about 21 years now and i know from experience there are so many ways on the instrument how you want to play a certain way. I think the more you can do the better of you will be on the instrument. I used to years ago practice my scales up and down all day long but now i dont. I usually use a few scales and/or just the important ones that are needed. You will end up working it out on your own after a while of what is important to you and even take short cuts in how you do it.
    I currently just work on things that are difficult to do. I work on things that i used to play 15 years that i have forgotten. I usually have a few different scales types remembered, few arpegios, triads and things like that on the fretboard remembered. Its imposible to have everything memorized on the guitar because there is so many things out there.
    Maybe when I get to 50 years of playing experience my palying wont be much different to what it is now. I have covered everything that is used in past and present music plus all the music education and training that I have recieved.
    Write now I only enjoy a challenge on the guitar and with my students i teach i tell them what is the most important to know and keep stayin in that direction.

    Im a graduate of the Mcnally Smith College in Professional music (guitar major) receiving a diploma. - 1997. USA

    Im a graduate of the Diploma in Jazz music performance . 2001. Australia.

  21. #45

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    I'd like to hear something more about the "human voice" being the first "instrument" of all

  22. #46

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    are you satisfied with your "graduates" or "diploma"?

  23. #47

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    agree, to me listening is the most important time on the "instrument"

  24. #48

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    Hubert, how do you learn how to sing then?

  25. #49

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    Uh oh, this is one of those mysterioso threads that I pop up once in a while.What's happening?

  26. #50

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    I guess accobbydaycle is voting for "shapes".