The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I think this is a question that I would have had a different answer to not even all that long ago.

    So, obviously, it'd be pretty difficult to be a good blues or rock guitar player if you didn't listen to any blues or rock guitar players.

    But jazz is different, in that the functions of the guitar can be done by piano and horns. Theoretically, a player could listen to piano and sax players and 'learn' to play that way.

    But is it possible to become a good player, in a functional sense of playing with others, without listening to any guitar players at all (or learning those things from a teacher)?

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    There was this idea floating around years ago that there was a original, or "ur" language that people were born already knowing how to speak, but exposure to parent's speech caused a baby to forget it.

    So one day a king sent a newborn baby, who parents had just died in an accident, sent him to live with a mute sheppard who lived in a high mountain valley, away from any other person.

    Twelve years later the king ordered the child, who was now a young boy, to come to court and speak before the court. The boy was nervous in this alien environment to him, but at the gesturing of the king he stepped forward and said ... "baaahh! baaaah!"


    Last edited by BigDaddyLoveHandles; 08-15-2020 at 01:55 PM.

  4. #3

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    Heh, actually I meant to say, this would be an interesting experiment, but the guitarist would be learning things the hard way.

  5. #4

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    I can’t think of a jazz guitarist who has not been influenced at all by other guitarists, but I can think of many whose primary influence is other instruments.

    (in my case I like guitar, but feel I am influenced as much by other instruments.)

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by jobabrinks
    I think this is a question that I would have had a different answer to not even all that long ago.

    So, obviously, it'd be pretty difficult to be a good blues or rock guitar player if you didn't listen to any blues or rock guitar players.

    But jazz is different, in that the functions of the guitar can be done by piano and horns. Theoretically, a player could listen to piano and sax players and 'learn' to play that way.

    But is it possible to become a good player, in a functional sense of playing with others, without listening to any guitar players at all (or learning those things from a teacher)?
    Think the functions of the guitar can be done by piano and horns?
    You may have already learned to play without listening to guitar.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by jobabrinks
    So, obviously, it'd be pretty difficult to be a good blues or rock guitar player if you didn't listen to any blues or rock guitar players.

    I think you have to look at what the language is for a particular genre and whether any of that language is guitar specific.

    You also have to look at how narrowly you define your categories.

    I have a bard time imagining blues being in Jeopardy if nobody listened to guitar players.

    Rock is dependent on what you think is rock. If you're talking about classic rock radio, then, yes, a lot of that was conceived on guitar and executed on guitar. The chord voicings alone are pretty guitar specific (heavy on the root-5th). Many of the sequences are inspired by the guitar, as well (major chords following minor pentatonic patterns). The importance of the guitar solo can't be overstated.

    But you also have sub genres like new wave which were completely synth driven. Guitar was given a back seat if used at all. When used it was generally trying to masquerade as a synth, or actually become a synth

    Can you become a good jazz guitar player without listening to guitar?-roland-g-707_0-jpg



    I'm not qualified to speak on jazz, but it seems to me from the sidelines that most guitar players are trying to imitate the piano harmonically and the sax melodically. Fusion is really the only sub genre that features guitar and guitar solos.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I can’t think of a jazz guitarist who has not been influenced at all by other guitarists, but I can think of many whose primary influence is other instruments.

    (in my case I like guitar, but feel I am influenced as much by other instruments.)
    I think that theoretically it should be able to be accomplished.

    You can learn comping from sparse piano players like Diana Krall, and solos from ... whomever really. I think the complications in trying to copy sax players are that the fluidity of the lines are difficult to replicate on the guitar. So, you can just make a mess of the time and phrasing trying to port it over. But line wise at least, the mission is more clear.

    In terms of rhythm, I think harder. I think there's a pedagogy with the four to the bar and rudimentary voicings that guitar players use. I think learning to comp from listening to piano players is a very difficult process based on the massive differences in the instruments.

  9. #8

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    Who did Django listen to, guitarwise? Was it Eddie Lang, or Lonnie Johnson? If so, who did they listen to guitarwise? I think they'd all qualify as being good - someone had to be the first and what/who did they listen to? Louis Armstrong?

  10. #9

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    Before the days of codified academic jazz “education” we learned mostly by listening to/coping of Bird, Coltrane, Young, Davis (as well as guitar players, sure). And doing that lifting and dropping the needle on the record. Long before there were digital boxes or software that slowed things down for you while keeping the same key context.
    So yea, to me you can learn jazz from other instrumentalists. That’s speaking single line of course.

    Personal opinion, but I believe it’s a much better way for a guitarist to learn. Wind players have to breathe, thus phrase much the way a singer would. Natural spaces/pauses in a line that punctuate it giving it more impact. This results in a far more interesting and listenable line than the typical guitar player endlessly running the scales/modes with little pauses to “breathe”.

    As Miles said: “Play the rests”.

    Chord or harmony wise it can be done but it requires a great set of ears, along side the fact that other chordal instruments (ie piano) allow close voiced harmonies that are just physically impossible on the guitar. (Due to the intervals between strings.) Howard Roberts harmonies I think came closest to the spirit of keyboard harmony on the guitar, check out his Praxis method.
    I did study harmony with a great jazz pianist, didn’t last long we drove each other crazy with ‘Why cant you do that on the guitar/Hey I can’t do that on the guitar!”

  11. #10

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    First of all, why would you.

    Second, are you going to carefully filter jazz you listen to to make sure before you listen that the combo doesn't have a guitar player. I'm not sure it's possible.

  12. #11

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    Django started out on banjo, as did many of the early guitarists. I suspect many influences were involved for all of them.

  13. #12

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    If someone burst onto the scene that caused some waves and claimed that he/she never listened to guitar players, I'd be very interested to hear them. Great way to sound original!

  14. #13

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    I've been playing strings for almost 60 years, but the music that tickles my ear the most is usually wind driven. I spent a lot of time trying to play like them. It tends to lead to looking at the guitar as series of problems that need some pretty heroic solutions. Eventually it might lead to some unique music.

    At some point you turn it around and realize the guitar is not a sax or a piano. We can do a lot of things they can't do. Doesn't hurt to listen to someone letting the guitar be a guitar.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    If someone burst onto the scene that caused some waves and claimed that he/she never listened to guitar players, I'd be very interested to hear them. Great way to sound original!


    I used to hear that claim a lot. Used to say it myself. How true that might be is very hard to test

  16. #15

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    I rarely listen to guitar. My playing was derived from pianists and horn players.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    If someone burst onto the scene that caused some waves and claimed that he/she never listened to guitar players, I'd be very interested to hear them. Great way to sound original!
    You could say I burst onto the scene. My jazz standards has garnered a lot of attention. About 30 or more positive reviews and more coming. It peaked at #20 on Jazz Week radio chart. Still on the chart, but barely. It’s been on since March. I almost never listened to guitar.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  18. #17

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    Jimmy Bruno has said he didn't listen to a lot of guitar players. He certainly likes some of them--especailly Hank Garland--but he always listened more to horn players.

    There are at least two kinds of listening: 1) for things you might be able to use (-I think this is how many muscians took phrases from Charlie Parker and 'did their own thing' with them) and 2) listening to things you enjoy but aren't going to imitate (say, stride piano or Dixieland or old Return To Forever albums.)

    Jimmy's dad played guitar and that may be the reason Jimmy picked up one instead of a sax.
    I once heard Jack Wiklins say there was a time he wanted to quit the guitar because he couldn't do it what piano players could do and THAT is what he wanted to do. Glad he got past that!

    I wonder if sax players ever talk about not learning from (or listening to) sax players.

  19. #18

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    Brecker listened a lot to rock guitar players.

  20. #19

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    The other day, I said in another forum : "jazz guitar is not a guitar !"

  21. #20

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    There's no need to do something like this today, and "today" started in the 1930s.

  22. #21

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    The chicken or the egg ?

  23. #22

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    What you shouldn't do is what I did too much of in my life: listen to ONLY guitar players.

    Yes, I have that disease.

    I'm exaggerating, but I am somewhat guilty of this cardinal musical sin. At least I do listen to guitar players of all types. Classical, jazz, acoustic, rock, blues, folk. I'm the guy who reads every word in Guitar Player, Vintage Guitar, and Fretboard Journal magazines. I love it all. (Well, most of it.)

    It's not the best path. I'm too old to care about "getting better" anymore, so I just do what I want. But I know the path to becoming a better jazz guitarist would involve listening to a lot more horns and piano than I have.

    I know Monk, Bird, Trane, and Miles, and have many of their albums. But I am just not as steeped in it as a good jazz player should be.

    So that's the other side of the coin.
    Last edited by Flat; 08-20-2020 at 12:41 AM.

  24. #23

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    Of the top of my head, I remember Ernest Ranglin commenting in an interview that he listened to horn players more than other guitarists. Pat Metheny, to an extent, also.

  25. #24

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    In some respects if you are the only guitarist in a band, or you are playing solo, you can’t help but listen to the guitarist - it’s you. It’s actually a requirement.

    As far as influencing my playing, I used to avoid listening to guitarists as much as I could and went for horns, other strings like violin, and piano. However, I eventually let temptation get the best of me and I listen to guitarists a lot more often now. I think that I somehow found myself needing to recognize how guitar can be more of an integral part to an ensemble. Less of an oddball.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    If someone burst onto the scene that caused some waves and claimed that he/she never listened to guitar players, I'd be very interested to hear them. Great way to sound original!
    but this is really quite absurd, and the sort of thing only a guitarist would say. How the hell would they learn to play to begin with? Would a sax or piano player ever claim “ I never listen to other players of my instrument”? ISTM this ‘im a special snowflake who never listens to other players” is really just an ego statement showing a lack of respect for the history and tradition of the instrument.