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I didn’t. I learned the whole thing by ear. Took a while for a boneheaded Rocker such as myself too. lol I’ll see if I wrote it down somewhere but I don’t think I did unfortunately.
Originally Posted by alltunes
Last edited by Chonker; 02-26-2026 at 02:32 PM.
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02-26-2026 12:28 AM
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How come? Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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they're fine and good and cool but not necessary for starting out. You can go a long way with just the shells. You can also stall up for a very long time trying to play a drop 2 major 7 chord in first inversion on the middle string set. Originally Posted by James W
EDIT: just for context ... my comment was in response to him saying he "needs" all the necessary jazz chords to be able to play the chords and melody together. I was just pointing out that I would call the shells necessary and not the drop 2s and 3s. They're cool and you don't want to ignore (though honestly I kind of do these days), but they're supplemental, not essential from jump.Last edited by pamosmusic; 02-26-2026 at 03:02 PM.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Ah ok.
Yeah you probably learn that the drop 2 first inversion major seventh chord on the middle string set is possibly nicer or at any rate easier to play if you move the root up a whole tone thus turning it into a minor seventh from the third.
I admit the drop 2s form the basis of my chord work on any tune I'm working on, playing them in a single area of the neck in whatever inversion they happen to be in that area of the neck tends to produce nice voice leading and the systematic way of doing this appeals to me. But I wholly admit I've hardly transcribed much comping so am not in the greatest position to judge how jazzy in fact my approach to chords is.
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There’s a bunch of standard grips people play that don’t really fit into any of these systems. It’s good collect them by chord type. “Oh here’s a nice altered dominant voicingâ€, and so on.
In general i feel Drop 2’s often sound quite bad for mid range comping to my ears.
Sometimes in the way. Sometimes just very boring.
I prefer them on the top strings for this, typical block chording, good with a tenor sax.
On record they do get used, but not that much and not exclusively?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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One of the initial challenges when getting into jazz guitar is to acquire a large number of chord voicings that are unified with how you view single line material (licks, arpeggios and scales). Guitar players tend to develop a compartmentalized view of harmony and melody which is a self imposed obstacle.
One way to do that is to start with guide tones (3th and 7th) in the middle strings (not even shell voicings) then build larger voicings by locating other chord tones around the guide tones. Knowing your arpeggios cold is helpful here. By "cold" I mean not just as dots patterns but intervallically. The root and the 5th in relation to the guide tones will give you the garden variety drop 2, drop 3 voicings (as well as others). Then you can look for common extensions for that chord type by moving the root or the 5 voicings to the neighbor notes. Once you get good at the guide tones in the middle strings, you can expand on guide tones in other adjacent and none-adjacent strings and build voicings around them. You can also start moving the 3rd to neighbor notes for sus type chords.
These voicings will be imbedded in the arpeggios, while the extensions are the scale notes in between. So you'll end up seeing your arpeggios, scales and chord voicings in a unified way and learn (or compose) licks in relation to these forms.
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Yeah the exception proves the rule on that one -- Wes pops off with the drop 2s on his chord solos, and when you hear it, you realize how distinctive it is. And he is really not bothered by the voicing type -- lots of sixth chords that are a bit easier to play than the major 7ths, alterations that are probably more for convenience of what notes fell under the finger than for the specific extensions. That kind of thing. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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It's why i keep posting that Jimmy Bruno Lesson 1 video. He goes over 2 grips that cover major7, minor7, dom7, and m7b5.
That's pretty much all you need to start playing tunes.
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My favorite must-have jazz guitar book hasn’t been written yet, as far as I know. It would be titled something like, “How to Use the Stuff in the Mickey Baker Book.â€
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Kinda weird that Mickey Baker didn’t write it. Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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There’s a good reason to doubt that he wrote the original. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
But no matter. I’d still love to see that particular book.
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It already exists as a website Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
Mickey Baker
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I should have said that I want examples referencing actual songs. I’ve always liked this site though, and the Herculean effort it resulted from. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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At some point, we have to a bit of the work too. Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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Micky Baker's books are always recommended by many experienced jazz guitarists with great praise and passion. Could it have been written for working with teachers or for class in jazz school?
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I had the book in the late 1970's early 1980's, but only because it was one of the few Jazz Guitar book available in the UK. Originally Posted by Chonker
My recollections were that the book had very nice chord sequences, but they were too big chords for beginners. Three note chords using 1st, 7th and 3rd are best for beginners.
As a beginner, all you needed were these chord voicings:
Maj7: 1st, 7th and 3rd.
Min7: 1st, b7th and b3rd
Dom7: 1st, 7th and b3rd
(Shell voicings)
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Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Agreed…but three note chords are for experts too
See Vincent’s shell voicings book.
The Mickey Baker book is outdated. Someone mentioned that Randy Vincent’s Intro to Jazz book starts out with shell voicings. That makes sense…not the big clunky chords that Mickey starts his book out with. Those will make people give up jazz guitar.
For guitar players just starting out in jazz I would look to Frank Vignola’s TrueFire stuff. He takes the shroud off and teaches you songs. Frank’s TrueFire channel will get you going in the right direction. In the the year 2026 with all the technology available to us a book is not the way to start. Why not listen and watch the teacher over and over at your disposal?
Books are great if you know how to play. Anybody get anything out of Mickey’s single line stuff later in the book?
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Mickey Baker Book2 has a lot easier and simpler chords with lots of explanations (Chord Forms and Simple Chord Analysis) than Book1 (26 large chords to memorise). Maybe the Book2 should have been Book1, and Book1 should have been Book2? Tunes to practice in the later parts don't seem that scary.
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Dennis Chang has a book on Fretboard Visualization. I don't have the book but based on the description it seems like a book about what I was talking about, organizing the fretboard in a way that unifies harmony and melody. I always thought that the lack of a dedicated methodology on this was a big gap in the jazz guitar book ecosystem (or guitar pedagogy at large). Hopefully this book fills that gap. Note this won't teach you how to play jazz, it's a foundational skill. The good thing is you don't have to master this before learning your first tune, it's more a mindset.
Jazz Guitar Fretboard Visualisation: An Improviser's Guide to Connecting Your Ears to Your Instrument - Chang, Mr Denis; Lewis, Mr Luke: 9781739625290 - AbeBooks
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I find "Chord Connections" by Robert Brown very good. I am not sure who recommended this book, but somehow it had been ordered and arrived here. It is a good book and has lots of good stuff in it.
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I’m not going to knock the Mickey Baker book because a lot of people loo it but I didn’t get anything out of it at all.
Couldve been too young (high school). Could’ve been that my teacher wasn’t really a jazz guy. Could’ve been that it’s not really my style. But I got a copy when I started teaching more and haven’t really found the use case either.
It’s in this weird zone where it seems geared to beginners but not really level appropriate. Mick Goodrick and Ted Greene are wild but also pretty transparent about what their project is.
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Yeah, I learnt a few grips from the Mickey Baker book and actually played them at my first gig (university battle of the bands). But they never materialised into general material I could employ in other contexts. The single line stuff in the second half went completely over my head. I did in fact stop playing jazz for many years after that, but not through any fault of the book. I expect I'd get a lot more out of it now I know a bit more about jazz.
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By todays standards and access to written books etc. and videos in comparison the Baker Book is outdated. Originally Posted by CliffR
But in the early 1970's..it was one of the very few to be had...Yeah..hard to believe the world didnt have personal computers/cell phones yet..Ohh..how did we ever live.
I had a nylon classical style. I did the lessons-one a week-wrote out all the written lessons in all keys..and as Baker suggested..started from the first lesson again.
So all in all it was a two year study. Now I had access to basic chords in all keys and could read and write music in all keys..not bad for an outdated book.
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Yeah, I'm not criticising the book itself. I just didn't understand the degree of commitment it required. Originally Posted by wolflen
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Yeah, compare that with today. You can spend a few days memorizing which scale goes with each chord, then have a bunch of theory arguments online and never have to pick up the guitar.... so outdated. Originally Posted by wolflen
(read in a sarcastic tone)
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