The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Yes that's true. You tend to be able to get away with anything that resolves on the weak side of the bar. Even on beat 3 of up tempo tunes.

    Well you know I'm a Peter Bernstein fan and he turns this into a high artform. Very often his stuff defies theory from a vertical perspective, but it always sounds great because it works in combination with this basic principle and the logic - chromatic parallelism, contrary motion etc etc, is actually really clear to the ear, and always supports a melody in the top voice - often something pretty diatonic or simply chromatic.

    I don't think he gives to much concern to altered scales when doing this stuff, although we will use that scale (and others) to evoke the sound of a static dominant 7th chord - his introduction to that solo version of Yesterdays is a good example.

    That's the way I tend to use it - usually these chords fly by way too fast to be getting into all the scalar stuff, so you are really accessing soloing ideas based on chromatic voiceleading, sometimes 'legal' and sometimes ABSOLUTELY not.....

    I had a discussion with a student about the legendary maj7 on a dom7 today - using the bVII sub of a Db7 into C ala Wes. He's still worried about it poor lad. I explained to him that 'jazz theory' and what people actually play on records are two entirely different things sometimes, and he seemed to accept it. TBF this is what the textbooks say too. (The good ones.)

    People need to trust there ears more, listen to more music and read fewer text books..... Sometimes we are getting to that I chord via some shady back route involving going through a few other peoples gardens (shhh don't tell them.)

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  3. #27

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    But to the intermediate student I say - get out of my register (lawn) young wippersnapper, and let me decide what kind of 9 I want to play, thank you very much.

    There are lots of players who do a fancy chord and then let it hang around like a sort of musical fart. That's really not comping.

  4. #28

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    The easiest "hack" is to use what you already know. For example, I assume you know your grips for standard Dom 7 and m7b5, so if you know, say, your drop 2's for all your inversions, then by subbing the tritone you have a stack of options for b9b5 or b9b13. This gets you out of trouble for most situations requiring an "alt" chord, even if there's a #9 in the melody (or in someone else's comping!).

    For chords where you need the #9 in there, then like has been mentioned above, the best hack is to simply modify these grips you already know. So if I default to a Bm7b5 (rootless G9) as my starting point to alter a G dom7, then I'd raise the nat 9 in each of the inversions I know, just as I'd raise or lower the 5th as required. This is why drop2 is a handy thing to know inside out.

    Sure, things can get pretty complicated in alt dom land, but just remember, simple or basic does not mean wrong!

  5. #29

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    nice topic..very "guitarhead" stuff..combine theory with experimentation..

    Reg may have puzzled some with his post..GMa7 acting as a dom chord..resolve to Am7 .. The G could be thought of as an implied Bb7 b9#5..acting bV to Ami..

    when time and space permit and I have a MA7 chord I can move it in diatonic steps..IM7- ii7-iii7.then backcycle to biii7-bvi7-bii7..IM7..now from any one of these chords which can be altered of course which may change direction radically .. in regard to the progression of the tune..but may come back home through the "back door"...stringing a couple of turnarounds together works wonders on this kind of stuff

    for me this is where a Major chord may be thought of as an altered dom or another altered Major chord which opens up more possibilities (CM7=Eb7b9#5=AbM7#9#5)...and Reg stresses "organization"

    in learning inversions Ted Green stressed a "systematic" 1357 3571 5713 7135 for ALL four note chords/all string sets..now some are not possible to finger but the essence of the chord 3 & 7 can be and with string skipping the inner voices can be fingered in diatonic steps or chromatically-ascending and or descending

    applying this type of thinking to tunes becomes the essence of the "chord melody" approach and with improvisation the combinations are many...when you have the progression of a tune under your fingers and know that anywhere on the neck the chords can be found..you have some confidence in running some chords together that mirror the melodic and or rhythmic flavor of the tune-and you can jump back into the charted progression at any point...of course using a blues based tune to try this stuff out on is recommended..fun..and productive

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by wolflen
    nice topic..very "guitarhead" stuff..combine theory with experimentation..

    Reg may have puzzled some with his post..GMa7 acting as a dom chord..resolve to Am7 .. The G could be thought of as an implied Bb7 b9#5..acting bV to Ami..

    ...
    I guess the puzzling thing for me is that you'd have both the nat 13 and b13 ( E and D#). Unless you drop the root (no G), in which case makes any nomenclature rather arbitrary....?

    As for Ted Greene's closed voiced inversions, I'm wondering what any advantage might be over drop 2 or drop3 for the suggested application? Am I missing something?

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    I guess the puzzling thing for me is that you'd have both the nat 13 and b13 ( E and D#). Unless you drop the root (no G), in which case makes any nomenclature rather arbitrary....?

    As for Ted Greene's closed voiced inversions, I'm wondering what any advantage might be over drop 2 or drop3 for the suggested application? Am I missing something?
    these kinds of things may not fit in with well worn theory/harmony..actually the G major thing is just to show whats possible..it will take some work to fit it in a common progression..

    and yes the inversions .. as I said some are 'finger breakers" in close voicings..but in the effort one may discover something interesting..in taking the chord apart and rearranging as you said in drop voiced something else may be discovered...thus experiment ... in reading Greens chord chemistry several of the progressions he said came from experimentation..in watching him use two hands on the fretboard to extend a chord idea just to hear how it sounds..I often asked my self..why cant I think like that..