The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76
    I guess I'm slow. I've never really understood the second finger sixth string reference thing the way Reg talks about it. I took "reference" to mean just the starting point for figuring out how to finger the scales or whatever. I mean, even when I kind of bought into it, I basically just learned the fingerings and immediately applied major scale root-to-root playing to each position.

    Now, I'm seeing it as something pretty different. If you use the "modes" for your fingering reference, all beginning with the same finger, you easily see where the scale degrees are in relation to that root . The 9th is always in the same place, or the b9 etc. In the past, for me, it's been a two-step process. First , think of the root of the key in my current position, then, scale degree in relation to that, (and the root is always in a different location). Really, at least a two-step process.

    Or..... I can just think of the relationship to that 2nd finger. Each pitch has relationships to that second finger which are constant. I mean, if I'm playing B, 7th fret, with that 2nd finger on the six string, then, A is a PHYSICAL LOCATION, regardless of the key or mode. I mean, playing through the modes does enforce the relationship of that mode to the pitch, but it's also reinforcing the actual physical location to that finger reference.

    Think about it. When you first learn to play piano , you don't learn theory for an entire scale to play F. You learn the physical location of F relative to three black keys. You learn to play F with your first finger, then your fourth finger for key of C etc, but once you have your first finger on F, you pretty quickly come to know where A is, regardless of key or even any understanding of keys. It's more about finding the physical location of F in relation to the Black Keys , and then deciding which finger . Everything else makes sense because you have the physical reference.

    I'm not a great up-the-neck reader. Honestly, I read better in relation to chord shapes than position playing out of context, but I find reading with reference to a one-/string one-finger base much more easy and relaxing than thinking in relation to the "root of the chord of the moment". I actually enjoy this process And don't have to think it's hard.

    In my mind, this is like laying out the black keys on the piano. With the keyboard, the kinesthetic reference is the layout it's self. it's already done. With a little work, I find that the 2nd finger reference quickly becomes a very similar tool.

    Maybe obvious to most. Like I say, I'm slow.
    Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 01-24-2016 at 10:31 PM.

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  3. #77

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    I wouldn't say that you're a slow learner, Matt. For someone who hasn't been at this stuff for all that long, your posts always reveal an ability to quickly understand the deeper implications of any approach. That's what counts; knowing why something works for you so that you can build upon it rather than just adopting it for the sake of convenience.

    Incidentally, Kurt Rosenwinkel is an advocate for the second finger/sixth string reference as against judging positions in relation to the first finger:



    Like Reg, I depart from that reference by switching to the 3rd finger for the locrian as there's only one stretch and the chord scale arpeggios contained within are easier to access. Also, although it's been inferred in earlier posts, an important component of this method of organizing the fretboard is that the 2nd and 3rd fingers never shift regardless of the string - particularly useful when reading.
    Last edited by PMB; 01-25-2016 at 06:06 AM.

  4. #78

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    My primary references are Major scale/ 6th string/ 2nd finger and E shape barre chord with extensions. From there it's finding the root and from the root it's similar anywhere, noting tuning difference btw 3rd and 2nd string.

    This ends in couple of secondary references which are actually fragments of several other scale and chord shapes.
    Meaning, I did not learn them as such. I discovered them related to above 2 basic references, only later to establish them as preset chord and scale shapes.

    Must say, generally, at least, I can not just move shapes and intervals around, I have to have the name of at least one of the notes and work from there, even if only applying shape. For example, 2 strings and 2 frets apart can not be just "an octave", it's always "note "X" octave higher/ lower". Even more, "Play same thing 3 frets up, two frets down ..., it will work to cover this, or that ... " and alike rules of thumb, almost never sound good to me, I mean, they always sound like total crap.

    At the moment I decide to exploit different part of the neck, or switch shape, or something like that, I do it because I think there I'll find a couple of notes to give me certain colour, but for at least one of them I have to have at least some idea about function related to tonal center, ie. root, of the moment, and to know it's name.

  5. #79

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    Quote Originally Posted by fumblefingers
    but can we get reinstated and ushered to the front pews if we make a large donation?
    Pews? No pews in my guitar religion! Comfy chairs (no arms, please) all around. And all the singers sing in Bb, F, Eb, Ab, Db, G, or C!

  6. #80

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Reg, I have another question. This is about another situation---dominant cycles. In this case, a ii- V7b9 line that takes two measures and is run through the cycle. David Baker calls it a 'perpetual motion' exercise.

    First: all intervals are given in relation to the V7b9 chord. So we start with a measure of G- then a measure of C7b9:
    It goes like this (-all 8th notes): 3 b3 2 b2 R 7 b7 6 (---chromatic descent from 3rd to the 6th; that's the first measure: G-)
    Then: 5 4 3 5 b7 b9 R b7 (C7b9)

    All together now: 3 b3 2 b2 R 7 b7 6 5 4 3 5 b7 b9 R b7.

    Baker writes this out for all keys in his "How to Play Bebop". (He varies the last four intervals but that need not concern us here.) It calls for several fingerings---the number is determined by how much moving around you want (or don't want) to do. ;o) I found a way to do this.

    But Reg, how would you think of this in relation to the fingerings you gave us?

    First, I'm thinking of everything here in relation to the V7b9 chord. In doing this, Richie Zellon's fingerings come in handy. But if there is a simpler, just-as-effective way, well, I'm all for that too!
    Mark, have you looked at 'The Cellular Approach' by Randy Vincent? It's all about this idea and he covers fingerings on all the string sets.

  7. #81

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    Quote Originally Posted by SeanZ
    Mark, have you looked at 'The Cellular Approach' by Randy Vincent? It's all about this idea and he covers fingerings on all the string sets.
    No, I haven't seen that book yet. I've heard good things about it, though. It's on my list of things to get...eventually. Thanks for the suggestion!

  8. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    I wouldn't say that you're a slow learner, Matt. For someone who hasn't been at this stuff for all that long, your posts always reveal an ability to quickly understand the deeper implications of any approach. That's what counts; knowing why something works for you so that you can build upon it rather than just adopting it for the sake of convenience.

    Incidentally, Kurt Rosenwinkel is an advocate for the second finger/sixth string reference as against judging positions in relation to the first finger:



    Like Reg, I depart from that reference by switching to the 3rd finger for the locrian as there's only one stretch and the chord scale arpeggios contained within are easier to access. Also, although it's been inferred in earlier posts, an important component of this method of organizing the fretboard is that the 2nd and 3rd fingers never shift regardless of the string - particularly useful when reading.
    Holy crap! Took a minute to watch the whole thing, and it's uncanny. Talked about in EXACTLY the same way . Even exactly the same terminology: Key of G, second finger, 6th string, whole neck... everything.

    Thanks for sharing!

  9. #83

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Holy crap! Took a minute to watch the whole thing, and it's uncanny. Talked about in EXACTLY the same way . Even exactly the same terminology: Key of G, second finger, 6th string, whole neck... everything.

    Thanks for sharing!
    Well, all roads lead to Rome, Matt. As you mentioned a while back, my way of developing cycles through CAGED fingerings when I first came across the concept years ago was identical to Leavitt's despite not knowing his books at the time. Similarly, I figured a good way to learn drop 2 & 3 chords was to send them through inversions of the I-vi-ii-V progression on the available 5 string sets. It turns out that Harry Leahey taught the same method. Rather than lament that I was just reinventing the wheel, such discoveries confirmed for me their validity. The fact that you've articulated independently the advantages of the 7 position layout means it's yours to keep!

  10. #84

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    No, I haven't seen that book yet. I've heard good things about it, though. It's on my list of things to get...eventually. Thanks for the suggestion!
    A lot of books promise so much and deliver so little but Randy's The Cellular Approach is truly excellent. An added bonus - one that that doesn't even rate a mention in the text - is that wherever weak to strong beats occur on the same string, slurs are incorporated. This vitally important component of jazz articulation so often gets sidelined in discussions about the pro and cons of playing phrases or even whole bebop heads in position.

  11. #85

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    A lot of books promise so much and deliver so little but Randy's The Cellular Approach is truly excellent. An added bonus - one that that doesn't even rate a mention in the text - is that wherever weak to strong beats occur on the same string, slurs are incorporated. This vitally important component of jazz articulation so often gets sidelined in discussions about the pro and cons of playing phrases or even whole bebop heads in position.
    Hhmm. I never thought of it that way. I'm moving this book up my list.... ;o)

  12. #86

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    In my religion, we banish anyone who does NOT change strings on a downstroke! ;o)

    I respect all religions, decisions, assumptions and divisions, but if you allow me to notice, you've turned astray from the divine path of the Water, the mother of us all.


    Last edited by aleksandar; 01-27-2016 at 08:53 AM.

  13. #87

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

    https://youtu.be/Hn2uEBvekcE
    Holy crap! Took a minute to watch the whole thing, and it's uncanny. Talked about in EXACTLY the same way . Even exactly the same terminology: Key of G, second finger, 6th string, whole neck... everything.

    Thanks for sharing!
    I think you guys are missing a very important point in that video. That is, when Kurt concludes that after all, it boils again to the same thing. That your fingering for one thing becomes the same fingering for another. Like he says, in the A shape (or the E shape if we thing in CAGED therms) if you add the G note before the A note, you again have index finger fingering (hehe, the guitar is like a woman ).

    Same goes for the modes. If you equate those positions to a mode, then how will you think about it - oh now over Dm I will play a Dorian mode in the Ioinan position of the C maj scale? Pointless. Just learn those freaking notes and scales by heart, over Dm you play can play a natural minor D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C; You can raise the Bb into a B for a Dorian mode, the C into C# for harmonic, or both for a melodic.

  14. #88

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I think you guys are missing a very important point in that video. That is, when Kurt concludes that after all, it boils again to the same thing. That your fingering for one thing becomes the same fingering for another.
    I don't think he says that it is the same thing but rather that either way can work. He prefers it the way he does it and I have come to see a lot of sense in that way of organizing the fretboard. And it is not the way I learned, so doing this involves a change for me which takes time and effort to learn; if I didn't think this way---2nd finger plays root, sixth string reference---was an advantage, I'd just stick to what I learned long, long ago.

    But either way one chooses, one needs a principle of organization for the fretboard. It's nice to have the same finger for all the roots and for that to be the second, or middle, finger.

  15. #89

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I don't think he says that it is the same thing but rather that either way can work. He prefers it the way he does it and I have come to see a lot of sense in that way of organizing the fretboard. And it is not the way I learned, so doing this involves a change for me which takes time and effort to learn; if I didn't think this way---2nd finger plays root, sixth string reference---was an advantage, I'd just stick to what I learned long, long ago.

    But either way one chooses, one needs a principle of organization for the fretboard. It's nice to have the same finger for all the roots and for that to be the second, or middle, finger.
    Any way you organize the fretboard has its benefits, like a step for learning the freatboard piece by piece, section by section. The CAGED system can also be sufficient if you look upon it as a root reference system. Kurt's 2nd finger reference might be good for visualization of three notes per string lines. But - you can have root on any string, you can have a root on the 1st string, or maybe you won't have a root at all (like superimposing different scales, for example Bminor pentatonic over C major).

    My point is that, if you limit your self to patterns, be it a fingering pattern or picking pattern, well you're limiting yourself. It's going to show somewhere, but we can always mask it with a jazzy rest

    The best way to practice scales, in my opinion, is to use them in context. You pick a song to learn this week, then you choose the scales that you can play over each section, and then you practice those scales, on one string, then on two strings, three strings, string skipping, intervals and all that.

  16. #90

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    My point is that, if you limit your self to patterns, be it a fingering pattern or picking pattern, well you're limiting yourself. It's going to show somewhere, but we can always mask it with a jazzy rest
    I don't see that I'm limiting myself to patterns. Even if I were, I know all sorts of 'em now: rock / blues pentatonic ones, Charlie Christian / Herb Ellis "shape system" ones, Jimmy Bruno's 'five fingerings', all 3 nps fingerings that I flirted with when temporarily mesmerized by shredders, Richie Zellon's fingerings, and now Reg's----I don't know that there are many other (feasible) ways to play scales and arpeggios! Not that that's all I do.

  17. #91

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    I don't say that you personally limit yourself to patterns, I used the word "you" in general, I don't know if that is common in the English language. Well, let me put it this way, I've come to a point where I'd like to think about scales more as a horn player, instead of as a guitar player. I think it is a matter of accustomization, whether I will think of scales as shapes, or as notes. Today I practiced playing all the scales with a steady tempo just on the sixth string up and down, one by one. And I liked it. So, we'll see how it goes.

  18. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I don't say that you personally limit yourself to patterns, I used the word "you" in general, I don't know if that is common in the English language. Well, let me put it this way, I've come to a point where I'd like to think about scales more as a horn player, instead of as a guitar player. I think it is a matter of accustomization, whether I will think of scales as shapes, or as notes. Today I practiced playing all the scales with a steady tempo just on the sixth string up and down, one by one. And I liked it. So, we'll see how it goes.
    In my understanding, pianists and horn players don't need to "organize" their instruments to start with, the way guitarists do, because their instruments are just inherently organized, by design. If pianos had black keys between every single white note, for example, with the second octave C being on a black key, then, THEY would have to do some organization as well, just to start. I think it's a fallacy to say that guitarists need to think like pianists horn players in this regard , as if guitarists are just stupid or something.

  19. #93

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    I don't say that guitarists are stupid, but when you play, say, Bbmajor scale, how do you think of it, like this (for example):



    or you think Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb anywhere on the neck?

    As for the organization, I would say that fret markers are the same thing as the black keys on the piano.

  20. #94

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I don't say that you personally limit yourself to patterns, I used the word "you" in general, I don't know if that is common in the English language. Well, let me put it this way, I've come to a point where I'd like to think about scales more as a horn player, instead of as a guitar player. I think it is a matter of accustomization, whether I will think of scales as shapes, or as notes. Today I practiced playing all the scales with a steady tempo just on the sixth string up and down, one by one. And I liked it. So, we'll see how it goes.

    I get your point about "you." It is the same (in English) for second-person singular ("you are") and second-person plural ("you [all] are"<<<<by the way, this is where the Southern term "y'all" comes from, being short for "you all"). But of course if something is limiting to everyone it would also be limiting for me. I wasn't offended.

    But you know, if you play scales on a single string, there is still a pattern: whole step, whole step, half step (and so on, depending on which scale one is playing.) A scale is a pattern, after all.

    My point of reference is chords more than scales---it's needing to know, without thinking / looking, where the alterations for this or that voicing will be, and where all the chord tones are wherever I happen to be on the guitar.

    As for how horn players think, I must confess I do not know. That said, I have a good idea of what Charlie Christian was doing and his playing has often been called "horn-like".

  21. #95
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I don't say that guitarists are stupid, but when you play, say, Bbmajor scale, how do you think of it, like this (for example):



    or you think Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb anywhere on the neck?

    As for the organization, I would say that fret markers are the same thing as the black keys on the piano.
    right. But B-flat FEELS like B-flat on the piano, immediately, even as a beginner, whereas , B-flat feels like every OTHER key on the guitar, until you learn the organization of everything and can relate to it kinesthetically.

    Fret markers are helpful , if you're LOOKING at the neck . They only relate to one. dot every few frets . How many notes are represented in those spaces? The keyboard layout is inherently kinesthetic AND visual . You don't have to learn any reference. C always feels like c.

  22. #96

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    The C on the guitar always sounds like a C also, if it is tuned like C. Same with piano. Let me ask you this question, then - this shape is for B major, G minor, C dorian or Eb Lydian?

  23. #97

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    ... I've come to a point where I'd like to think about scales more as a horn player
    Are you a horn player?

  24. #98

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladan
    Are you a horn player?
    I think that's a fair question. For all the talk of approaching the guitar like a horn, I have no idea how actual horn players think. (Off the top of my head, I can't think of many people who play guitar and a horn.) Also, I don't even know if sax players and trumpet players think the same way about scales, arps, "instrument organization", what have you.

  25. #99

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladan
    Are you a horn player?
    I will answer your question with a question - what do get when you type jazz sax scales on Google images, and what when you type jazz guitar scales?

    I am not a horn player, but I believe it is about shortening an air stream inside a tube, the same way you shorten the length of a string and you get a higher pitch. So I think it is better to know those divisions inside out and know how they relate to the sound, instead of conditioning your brain to think in terms of images.

  26. #100

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    For the heck of it, I just posted a question on Willie Thomas' site, "Jazz Everyone." I don't know if he will answer, or when he will answer, or what he will say should he answer it, but whatever it is (other than silence), I'll report back here.