The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 3 of 8 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast
Posts 51 to 75 of 177
  1. #51

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I think Joe Pass deliberately down played his knowledge of theory. Perhaps he preferred to be seen as a pure artist or may be he was making a point of criticizing attention given to theory. I remember reading in an interview, someone said F#, he was like "What is F#, show me, I don't know these things", paraphrasing. I'll try to find the interview.
    More over I believe that good 'ole Joe was just saying don't ask me for a model concept as in: "what mode over Dm7b5?" ...he didn't see his music in that manner.

    On one of his vids he was explaining something and hit (if I remember right) an F# well up in the register of his instrument. He wasn't sure if it was an F# or not and so searched for the sound IN THE FIRST POSITION which then confirmed his guess.
    That gesture alone gave me, not only hope, but the understanding that he was not seeing notes on the guitar but hearing harmonic function and then applying intuitive melodic phrases to the movement.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #52

    User Info Menu

    To the OP, there is an online TrueFire course called “Modal Improv Survival Guide” by Fareed Haque. I highly recommend it because Fareed always does a great job in his courses stripping out the unnecessary complexity and explaining things in a way that makes them seem natural and obvious.

    Modal improv is NOT traditional jazz. But if it is what you want to learn, then Fareed’s course is a good place to start.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

  4. #53

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
    What are some examples of that, and reliable sources?
    How I was hipped to this distinction - this is how Warne Marsh played a Lydian Dominant type scale (he called this Dominant I)

    3rd framework

    C E G Bb D F# A C

    Scale

    C D E F G Bb C D E F#G A Bb C

    From a Jazz Life, By John Klopotowski.

    Also, it's kind of obvious when you think about it. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be able to use chromatic passing tones on major chords, bebop scales wouldn't work and so on.

  5. #54

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by djg
    so you're saying that you played a line over Gmaj where one couldn't put a g in the bass?
    Pretty much. I clearly *heard* Bm on G, not Gmaj7. The G felt dissonant.

    The guy to hit up about this sort of weirdness is Jordan Klemons. It's mostly his fault I've become sensitised to this sort of thing.

  6. #55

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I'm not sure what you are referring to. I was agreeing with Christian in making a distinction between passing notes and upper extensions. If you contrast Dorian - Mixolydian - Ionian approach of teaching with the chord tone oriented, more traditional approach, chord tone approach tends to treat passing tones as embellishments of chord tones (see forward motion by Hal Galper for example). They can be chromatic, appogguaturas, enclosures etc. You can be embellishing primary chord tones or upper extensions.
    In the Dorian - Mixolydian - Ionian approach 9, 11 and 13 are seen as both passing notes and upper extensions. I'm not saying that's not correct. But there is a difference in the educational approach.
    Yeah, there's a combination. To be super pedantic, that E G and B on Dm are 2, 4 and 6. 9, 11 and 13 IMPLY by their very name they are US notes of the chord. In this case they are not heard that way.

    If you analyse every note in a solo as harmonic, you are going to run into analytical problems right away.

    Surely everyone knows this right?

    A good guideline as to whether a note is harmonic is basically that it doesn't resolve by step either immediately or in the manner of an enclosure etc. If it doesn't, it probably is a harmonic tone.

    If I'm looking at a bop line, say the first phrase of Anthropology - I see and hear 'Bb triad' - the actual notes include a couple of non chord tones, but they all fall into our 'passing tone' category.

    If we then played that phrase on an Eb or Gm chord, we'd have an US triad related to the other chords via CST relationships. The non chord tones are obviously embellishing that US triad and are not important to the harmonic content of the line.

  7. #56

    User Info Menu

    This must be doing the OP's head in.

    But keep going

  8. #57

    User Info Menu

    At the risk of being repetitive ...

    (OP - bear in mind that most people seem to disagree with what I'm about to say).

    The nomenclature strikes me as unnecessarily confusing. It's not impossible to get comfortable with it, but it doesn't strike me as helpful.

    Here's why.

    G7 is typically associated with G mixolydian. But, you could call it a G7 scale.

    G7#11 is typically associated with G lydian dominant. But you could call it a G7#11 scale.

    G7b13 is typically associated with fifth mode of C harmonic minor. But you could call it a G7b13 scale.

    G7b9#11 doesn't even have a typical scale name (you have to add a note to get to dim), but you could certainly call it a G7b9#11
    scale.

    So, the traditional Greek names can completely change if you change one note in the G7. The chord based names, in contrast, tell you exactly what to play.

    Now, I understand that the chord name system can result in some unwanted ambiguity, particularly with minor chords. For example, is Am associated with the notes of G major, F major or C major? Am6, Amb6, Am7?

    That said, one of my teachers taught it exactly that way and everybody understood what to play.

  9. #58

    User Info Menu

    New starter here... a little advice on modes?-modes-g3-copy-png

    Modes are helpful for fretboard mapping. Here is G maj7 from Locrian. Note the mirrored patterns.

  10. #59

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by p1p
    This must be doing the OP's head in.

    But keep going
    IKR, I'm so sorry....

    Although - it neatly demonstrates how you cannot learn music from the internet lol.

  11. #60

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    At the risk of being repetitive ...

    (OP - bear in mind that most people seem to disagree with what I'm about to say).

    The nomenclature strikes me as unnecessarily confusing. It's not impossible to get comfortable with it, but it doesn't strike me as helpful.

    Here's why.

    G7 is typically associated with G mixolydian. But, you could call it a G7 scale.

    G7#11 is typically associated with G lydian dominant. But you could call it a G7#11 scale.

    G7b13 is typically associated with fifth mode of C harmonic minor. But you could call it a G7b13 scale.

    G7b9#11 doesn't even have a typical scale name (you have to add a note to get to dim), but you could certainly call it a G7b9#11
    scale.

    So, the traditional Greek names can completely change if you change one note in the G7. The chord based names, in contrast, tell you exactly what to play.

    Now, I understand that the chord name system can result in some unwanted ambiguity, particularly with minor chords. For example, is Am associated with the notes of G major, F major or C major? Am6, Amb6, Am7?

    That said, one of my teachers taught it exactly that way and everybody understood what to play.
    At risk of sounding repetitive I 100% agree...

    Although, influenced by Barry, I tend to teach the MM modes as related to the minors... As in, you can play D minor on G7, Ab minor on G7alt, F minor on Dm7b5 and so on... II-V and tritone relationships are pretty essentially. And minor/m7b5 relationships. The common MM modes follow from that....

    Later on we can worry about how G altered is not the same thing as AbMM on G7 or whatever lol.

  12. #61

    User Info Menu

    Mission accomplished guys, the OP has abandoned jazz guitar forever.

  13. #62

    User Info Menu

    I have the Jody Fischer book, got it when I was first getting into Jazz.

    It didn't help me much at all really, just made me feel way out of my depth at the time, especially when he got to modes. I mean I understood the concept, but to go practice that and make it work, and remembering all the greek names

    In my opinion it would do a lot of good to listen to some early bebop, and first learn to play chord tones/triads with rhythm, connecting them, learn the 'colours' of the upper structures b9, b13 etc.. and how you can use those to connect your chords with greater effect. Practice basic scales and arpeggios: major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor, dominant, pentatonic, blues.. I think this is way more important to master before thinking about modes. I still haven't made the effort to learn the modes like that, I'm just seeing the substitutions and chord tones with their tensions. I think if you can internalize the sounds of the basic chords with their tensions, and how to connect them you'll be flying. You'll eventually pick up the "modes" you need.

    I totally empathize with you, I consider myself an intermediate player and still learning.. thanks to all the folks here.

  14. #63

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    At risk of sounding repetitive I 100% agree...

    Although, influenced by Barry, I tend to teach the MM modes as related to the minors... As in, you can play D minor on G7, Ab minor on G7alt and so on... II-V and tritone relationships are pretty essentially. And minor/m7b5 relationship. The common MM modes follow from that....

    Later on we can worry about how G altered is not the same thing as AbMM on G7 or whatever lol.
    It seems to me that 7th chords and their alterations are pretty straightforward. The chord name tells you the scale.

    For minor chords, it's a little more complicated, arguably. But, almost all that nomenclature refers to which combination of 6 and 7 you're going to use. The "almost" refers to phrygian, so there's a b2 to consider.

    Still, you can get there with chord names, I think. Gm13 for 6 and b7. Gminmaj7 for 6 and nat7. Gm7b6 (G aeolian? I've never seen this one, but it seems clear enough), Gmmaj7b6 (G harm min).

    In practice, how much does the theory help? I think most players can hear the 6 and 7s they want.

    And, that post above which points out that the scales really are two octaves -- with some extensions only in the upper octave -- is an oft-neglected but important point.

    I learned it the way you teach it. That is, common applications. So, I first learned MM's by recognizing that they could be used for minmaj7, m7b5, and alt chords. Later on, Mark Levine's book showed me that all the MM chords were interchangeable and I found some additional applications. Because of that, I still tend to think like (m7b5 is MM a minor third up .. and ... alt is MM a half step up). I suspect that I'd have been better off if I focused initially on things a little differently, e.g. m7b5 is R 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 and didn't need to think about a mode with a different root. Iirc I learned some melodic minor fingerings before I learned the notes in the MM scale in 12 keys, which made it easier (at the time) to find the notes by thinking of the related MM scale.

    To sum that up, I think I'd have been better off thinking about the individual chords than getting caught up in which ones were melodic minor with some other root. But, being aware of melodic minor harmony and all the chords therein was extremely helpful for comping.

  15. #64

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Mission accomplished guys, the OP has abandoned jazz guitar forever.
    Excellent. Got to nip it in the bud early.

    He will thank us in the long run.

  16. #65

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    The table of contents of this book doesn't really give a good idea about it's CST emphasis. If one goes by the chapter titles, it appears to be a fairly standard treatment of jazz harmony.
    Do you know how is it different than this (which I have):
    The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony
    That one has quite a bit of advanced CST stuff in it.
    I don't have time to compare and contrast right now but I would make two points:

    1. That's the point. CST IS an approach to harmony that is useful to composers, arrangers, improvisers. (No matter how many times one explains it, you just can't get some people - especially guitarists - to avoid inventing their own definition of CST, and further to have it mean something similar to "play scales not arpeggios" or "play modal tunes, no (so-called) tonal tunes". The topic belongs in Harmony/Theory, not Improvisation or Technique.

    2. The Berklee Jazz Harmony book is more up to date and is a fine book. It has significant overlap/commonality with the former. I'd say stick with it.
    Last edited by Jazzstdnt; 01-26-2019 at 05:59 PM.

  17. #66

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Mission accomplished guys, the OP has abandoned jazz guitar forever.
    I'm slightly disappointed with how long it took this time. We clearly have some work to do.
    Christian, good job with the layered tonality thing, don't know how you come up with shit like this. May be capitalize it next time.
    Jazzstdnt obscure book reference comes before the post 15. It doesn't work as well when the OP is already numbed.
    I was like very sloppy right off the bat.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 01-26-2019 at 06:17 PM.

  18. #67

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Let's take Summertime. First 4 bars are Gm. What scale or tonality to use. It's up to the improvisor. Most literal would be to treat it as G natural minor (as there is also a Bb major 7 chord in the tune). But Wes Montgomery and many others can be heard playing G dorian and G Melodic Minor over these bars. It can be treated as a "modal moment" in the tone. That seems to get the most interesting results. This is I believe similar to Christian's example. Does using G Dorian implies modulation to F major? Or is it a temporary harmonic reference? Same as G melodic minor. Is it modulation? or harmonic reference to MM? Either way there is more going on harmonically than case 1 above. It's not simply a pedagogical tool in this instance.
    Summertime, at least as Gershwin conceived it, is an interesting topic in itself. MM would be the most obvious scale choice for the opening bars as the chords alternate between Bm6 and C#m6 (the default keys of Am and Gm came later). Whether that constitutes melodic minor tonality is, of course, another issue...

  19. #68

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by orri
    In the same way that a minor scale is just a major scale with a different starting point.

    Thinking of modes as a major scale with a differnt starting point is IMO only useful to explain the concept of modes and how they relate to each other during a theory lesson*, but from a practical point of view, what they really are is a group scales that sound different from each other.

    If you hear the Summertime melody you'll probably not think something like "that sounds just like a major scale but with the 6th note as the root".
    I guess most people would rather think "that's a melody in the minor scale".

    The same is true for the other modes...

    ... almost

    The other modes are quite similar to the major and minor scales. Most of them differ by only one note from either major or minor.
    So instead of recognizing them as totally different "sound worlds" some people think of them as minor sounding or major sounding + this one note that is different.
    Dorian is minor sound with major 6th, lydian is major sound with #4, mixolydian is major sound with b7, and phrygian is minor with b2.
    (locrian is minor with b2 and b5)

    As has been said, it is not urgent to learn all of this ASAP.

    (* practically speaking you also take some advantage of the modes' relationship in the same way you take advantage of the relationship between minor and major. For instance you can reuse scale fingerings).
    This is more or less how I approach modes, too. If I hear in my mind's ear an interval that ain't in the tonic major, I figure out what that interval is, my mind says, "Hey, dummy, use this mode" and for a moment I catch that whiff of the outré that carries it to what I'm hearing in my mind's ear. Modes can shift in my playing even inside a single line depending on what I hear in my head ... chasing the dragon, y'know?

    Essentially, to me, it's a matter of integrating modal knowledge and intervallic "feels", and going with it inside the moment.

  20. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    It seems to me that 7th chords and their alterations are pretty straightforward. The chord name tells you the scale.

    For minor chords, it's a little more complicated, arguably. But, almost all that nomenclature refers to which combination of 6 and 7 you're going to use. The "almost" refers to phrygian, so there's a b2 to consider.

    Still, you can get there with chord names, I think. Gm13 for 6 and b7. Gminmaj7 for 6 and nat7. Gm7b6 (G aeolian? I've never seen this one, but it seems clear enough), Gmmaj7b6 (G harm min).

    In practice, how much does the theory help? I think most players can hear the 6 and 7s they want.

    And, that post above which points out that the scales really are two octaves -- with some extensions only in the upper octave -- is an oft-neglected but important point.

    I learned it the way you teach it. That is, common applications. So, I first learned MM's by recognizing that they could be used for minmaj7, m7b5, and alt chords. Later on, Mark Levine's book showed me that all the MM chords were interchangeable and I found some additional applications. Because of that, I still tend to think like (m7b5 is MM a minor third up .. and ... alt is MM a half step up). I suspect that I'd have been better off if I focused initially on things a little differently, e.g. m7b5 is R 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 and didn't need to think about a mode with a different root. Iirc I learned some melodic minor fingerings before I learned the notes in the MM scale in 12 keys, which made it easier (at the time) to find the notes by thinking of the related MM scale.

    To sum that up, I think I'd have been better off thinking about the individual chords than getting caught up in which ones were melodic minor with some other root. But, being aware of melodic minor harmony and all the chords therein was extremely helpful for comping.
    Honestly, neither way is going to be much better... if you learned it in a DIFFERENT to start. I don't see that one way is more or less contrived than the other.

    The argument against your chord symbol naming method is that you're going to have more degrees of separation or distinction... more accidentals etc.... depending on what scale you're using. I mean, how do you write altered that way?

    There's probably not as much of a sensible argument for using Greek mode names UNTIL you get to applications of melodic minor honestly. But in THAT context, it starts to make a lot of sense, because of the SINGLE degree of separation from a source of reference... and additionally, because it references a specific CHORD TYPE as well. (With MM, that's the only aspect that matters anyway, because the scale degree associations aren't functional relationships to their parallel major/minor counterparts.)

    Anyway, 7b13 is ambiguous. It needs another accidental at least, simply to distinguish between melodic and harmonic minor. Mixolydian b13 is less ambiguous than 7b13, as it references a complete 7-note scale. 7b13 could easily be scales like altered, Mixo b13 or harm minor. It goes without saying that knowing the NAMES of things doesn't help you to play it in the first place, but that's kind of beside the point. If you can't play it, it doesn't much matter what you call it .

    Yet, there's a constant argument on the forum against using these Greek mode names for the scales, and it always seems to be related some myth that you can somehow understand the names quickly enough to do it on the fly, WITHOUT having practiced the crap out of them.

    If you can play it, the terminology isn't that big of a deal. Greek names or otherwise.

  21. #70

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

    Anyway, back to it, Mixolydian b13 is less ambiguous than 7b13,

    .
    In the approach taken by some, C7b13 is C D E F G Ab Bb. You could argue that it should be two octaves, C D E F G A Bb C D E F G Ab Bb C.

    If it was altered, in this system you'd have to specify the alterations. It becomes unwieldy for four alterations. So, in my view, mixo b13 and 7b13 are the exact same thing.

    As a practical matter, I don't think it would make much difference to me if there was a note's worth of ambiguity on the possible alterations. In the practice room, you can try all the possibilities. On the bandstand, you don't want to be thinking that way anyway.

    One last point. It's also 5th mode F MM. Confusing for the beginner. The Master soloist might or might not be aided by that knowledge. I think it can help if you have mastered all the interchangeable MM chords in 12 keys and can employ that knowledge usefully during a solo.

  22. #71

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Honestly, neither way is going to be much better... if you learned it in a DIFFERENT to start. I don't see that one way is more or less contrived than the other.

    The argument against your chord symbol naming method is that you're going to have more degrees of separation or distinction... more accidentals etc.... depending on what scale you're using. I mean, how do you write altered that way?
    The Altered scale is the only scale name I like out of the MM modes. Every note flat except root. Altered dominant. Easy.

    You say Alt.

  23. #72

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by tal_175
    i'm slightly disappointed with how long it took this time. We clearly have some work to do.
    Christian, good job with the layered tonality thing, don't know how you come up with shit like this. May be capitalize it next time.
    Jazzstdnt obscure book reference comes before the post 15. It doesn't work as well when the op is already numbed.
    I was like very sloppy right off the bat.
    NOTED

    Bako could have done some more lists.

  24. #73

    User Info Menu

    I tried. I carefully avoided mentioning that Andres Varady was on the cover of GP and knows no theory whatsoever. I didn't provide the map of Ancient Greece with my comparison of modal flow dynamics with major Athenian causeways. I didn't tell him that all he needed to do was change his usual patterns by a single note and he could figure it all out by ear.

  25. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    In the approach taken by some, C7b13 is C D E F G Ab Bb. You could argue that it should be two octaves, C D E F G A Bb C D E F G Ab Bb C.

    If it was altered, in this system you'd have to specify the alterations. It becomes unwieldy for four alterations. So, in my view, mixo b13 and 7b13 are the exact same thing.
    C7b13 is actually a chord symbol though. How is it interpreted by actual musicians reading it? It could easily be either phrygian dominant or mixolydian b13. Probably much more often, altered is played over it.

    Anyway, anything with multiple interpretations is ambiguous by definition. That's not a value judgment, just an observation.

    I think that if you're going to write chord symbols to indicate pitch collections, you may as well be explicit:

    C7b13(9,11) or C7b13(b9,11)

    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    As a practical matter, I don't think it would make much difference to me if there was a note's worth of ambiguity on the possible alterations. In the practice room, you can try all the possibilities. On the bandstand, you don't want to be thinking that way anyway.

    One last point. It's also 5th mode F MM. Confusing for the beginner. The Master soloist might or might not be aided by that knowledge. I think it can help if you have mastered all the interchangeable MM chords in 12 keys and can employ that knowledge usefully during a solo.
    No one was talking about what words/labels/symbols you're "thinking for scales" while playing in real time.

    We were talking about your original idea of SIMPLIFYING - by using chord symbols in place of confounding Greek names. It sounds like you're saying that it's all basically loosely open to interpretation, and I agree with you. ...But that's the definition of ambiguity.

  26. #75

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    C7b13 is actually a chord symbol though. How is it interpreted by actual musicians reading it? It could easily be either phrygian dominant or mixolydian b13. Probably much more often, altered is played over it.

    Anyway, anything with multiple interpretations is ambiguous by definition. That's not a value judgment, just an observation.

    I think that if you're going to write chord symbols to indicate pitch collections, you may as well be explicit:

    C7b13(9,11) or C7b13(b9,11)


    No one was talking about what words/labels/symbols you're "thinking for scales" while playing in real time.

    We were talking about your original idea of SIMPLIFYING - by using chord symbols in place of confounding Greek names. It sounds like you're saying that it's all basically loosely open to interpretation, and I agree with you. ...But that's the definition of ambiguity.
    Yes, in the system I'm describing you must be explicit. The idea, which I may not have expressed clearly enough, is that you basically start with C mixolydian ("C7 scale") and specify any and all alterations. So, C7b13 is a C7 scale with a b13. If you want a b9, you have to mention it. You don't need to do that for an 11, because the C7 scale has an F.

    Alt scale would require four alterations, so doing it my way starts to break down. It would be easier just to say "alt". But for an alteration or two, it seems easier to me, and that's why my teacher did it that way. I imagine that I could grasp thinking "fifth mode C harmonic minor" to get to G Ab B C D Eb F but I can immediately grasp G7b9b13.

    Consider G7b9#9. To go from G7b9b13 basically I'm changing the b13 to a #9. The rest stays the same. Must I really think "fifth mode C harmonic minor to second mode F melodic minor"? It doesn't seem easier and you get the same notes either way.

    For that matter, I think it's pretty consistent with what I've heard Joe Pass say, which is that he worked from vanilla chord grips and extended them by ear.