The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    I could hold my own. I wouldn't be blowing anybody away but I also wouldn't be on the receiving end of any tomatoes.
    excellent. could you teach yourself a few nice sounding lines and figure out the fingerings on your own? maybe with regard to the principle that we attack the off-beats and slur/slide into the beat? because this is an aspect that is often ignored when we talk about fingerings in mainstream jazz.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by djg
    excellent. could you teach yourself a few nice sounding lines and figure out the fingerings on your own?
    Yes and no? My ear is pretty good so I can pretty easily pick out the notes. The trap I find myself falling into is not seeing the fretboard as notes but instead as patterns and shapes. Just seeing patterns and shapes doesn't help when I know I want to reach for any given note. It's not like the piano where a Bb looks the same everywhere (I know I'm stating the obvious). This is where I thought a good method book would be appropriate - to help me learn the fundamentals of how the fretboard is laid out and the relationships that allow one to build lines, intervals and chords.

    Quote Originally Posted by djg
    maybe with regard to the principle that we attack the off-beats and slur/slide into the beat? because this is an aspect that is often ignored when we talk about fingerings in mainstream jazz.
    This I did not know - thank you! I've been transcribing more horn players than guitar players lately which is also probably holding me back in this whole endeavor. I'll fix that.

  4. #28

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    The ex. #18 is very simple Cmaj scale pattern. Typically you would just play in 7th position. If the point is to be able to move between two position... it should be pointed out and with fingerings and string indications.

    And the point of the study would be to train your fingers, and head to develop technical skills to move between positions. And most important... teach you the basic techniques of how to move between positions without ackward and problematic movements and needing to stare at your fretboard. ( use of common fingers or strings )

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    Yes and no? My ear is pretty good so I can pretty easily pick out the notes. The trap I find myself falling into is not seeing the fretboard as notes but instead as patterns and shapes. Just seeing patterns and shapes doesn't help when I know I want to reach for any given note. It's not like the piano where a Bb looks the same everywhere (I know I'm stating the obvious). This is where I thought a good method book would be appropriate - to help me learn the fundamentals of how the fretboard is laid out and the relationships that allow one to build lines, intervals and chords.



    This I did not know - thank you! I've been transcribing more horn players than guitar players lately which is also probably holding me back in this whole endeavor. I'll fix that.
    Try playing scales and speaking the names of the notes out loud

  6. #30
    My understanding is that Peter Sprague its primarily a nylon string player who plays some steel string as well -- as opposed to the other way around. This rolling technique is not as viable or important for nylon/classical playing for multiple reasons. If you're going to play mostly nylon, he may be right.

    A lot of steel string players consider that left hand roll technique to be important -- to at least be AWARE of. Other teachers, like William Leavitt, probably consider it more in the category of "vital/ essential" steel string technique.

    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    Thank you for the reply!

    Peter Sprague, in his course "Jazz Guitar Foundations" really discourages the 'flattening" or "rolling" of a finger to play notes on two adjacent strings. I can kind of see the argument for it but I'm not proficient enough to know (or have a strong opinion one way or the other) whether this makes much of a difference in the long run.

  7. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Try playing scales and speaking the names of the notes out loud
    Yes, I've been doing a lot of this. Not only with scales but with nearly everything I'm playing. I'm old, so my short-term memory isn't what it used to be. I think I just need to reconcile myself with the fact that this will be a slow, brute force, process.

  8. #32

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    If the goal is to learn the fingerboard, I'd recommend doing it by learning to read.

    I'd suggest a typical beginner's book, like Mel Bay (which I used) or Berklee (after my time).

    Then, Complete Rhythms by Colin and Bower. Play everything in first position, then up an octave.

    At that point, you can start reading out of the Real Book both the Concert edition and the Bb and Eb editions to expand the range of keys you can read.

    6 months and you know the fingerboard and you can read, which is a useful skill.

    Being able to play out of scales requires knowing where the notes are and there are two main ways to accomplish that.

    One is to know the names of the notes in the scale and where those notes are on the fretboard.

    The other way is to memorize patterns.

    If you do it the first way, you start with C major, then add one sharp at a time, then one flat at a time, until you know all of them to F#/Gb.

    Then melodic minor, by flattening the thirds of all of the above.

    Then, whichever additional scales you want to use.

    Same thing for chord tones.

    It's a lot of work, but, so is doing it by patterns. In the pattern method you need separate patterns for the same scale in multiple places on the neck and you have to know the patterns so well that it doesn't matter which note you play first. For me, that was harder, but apparently most people do it that way. It may make playing faster easier.

  9. #33

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    yea... it should be just a given... that you need to be able to sight read. But that's just the way it is... guitarist have a different mind set.

    So your having a conversation with Christian that is great... but you don't sound like you have the technical skills yet.
    This from one of your post above...

    "Yes and no? My ear is pretty good so I can pretty easily pick out the notes. The trap I find myself falling into is not seeing the fretboard as notes but instead as patterns and shapes. Just seeing patterns and shapes doesn't help when I know I want to reach for any given note. It's not like the piano where a Bb looks the same everywhere (I know I'm stating the obvious). This is where I thought a good method book would be appropriate - to help me learn the fundamentals of how the fretboard is laid out and the relationships that allow one to build lines, intervals and chords."

    1) it's the same thing as piano.... you just can play and understand the technical skills of playing the notes on the piano. You may not have chops... but you can play the instrument. Your trying to play the guitar and you don't seem to have an understanding or technical skills of the instrument...

    I'm not big on analogies but like trying to play the piano with just your thumbs...

    You need fretboard organization with fingerings before you start learning melodic patterns. Which include fixed references and fingerings. If you start somewhere in the middle... that's where your end up.

    I'm not a baby sitter and am not looking for $.... my only goal is for guitarist to get better.

    Can you play a Cmaj scale anywhere on the fretboard starting on any note... without going through much thinking. I would guess you can easily do that on the piano.

    You need to be able to play the notes before you can play what you hear.

    Most usually supplement different fun or performance material with developing the technical fretboard skills.

    It's not the opposite... you don't supplement technical skills while learning tunes and performance skills. ( even though that seems like what's goes on).

    Anyway... good luck.

  10. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    If the goal is to learn the fingerboard, I'd recommend doing it by learning to read.

    I'd suggest a typical beginner's book, like Mel Bay (which I used) or Berklee (after my time).
    Thank you. I have the Leavitt book and I see there's a guided study section here in the forum so will reference that and try to navigate around the 'dead wood' that an earlier poster mentioned.

    BTW I went ahead and ordered the first Mickey Baker book. Amazon let's me see the first few lessons online while I wait for the print version to arrive. Already I have buyer's remorse (to the degree one can, spending $9USD). Lesson One is "Learn these 26 chords..."

    No, no, no. I want to understand how triads are built. Up, down and across the fretboard. They're the foundation. Only then do I feel like I could begin to construct a D13b9 or G7b5. This is what I like about Fisher's book. Baker's book seems aimed at someone who's already unlocked the fretboard and 'simply' wants to learn jazz.

    Thanks again!

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    Thank you. I have the Leavitt book and I see there's a guided study section here in the forum so will reference that and try to navigate around the 'dead wood' that an earlier poster mentioned.

    BTW I went ahead and ordered the first Mickey Baker book. Amazon let's me see the first few lessons online while I wait for the print version to arrive. Already I have buyer's remorse (to the degree one can, spending $9USD). Lesson One is "Learn these 26 chords..."

    No, no, no. I want to understand how triads are built. Up, down and across the fretboard. They're the foundation. Only then do I feel like I could begin to construct a D13b9 or G7b5. This is what I like about Fisher's book. Baker's book seems aimed at someone who's already unlocked the fretboard and 'simply' wants to learn jazz.

    Thanks again!
    Triads are built in intervals, as you know. You need to know the notes in the triad you want and where they are on the fingerboard. Learn to read and learn a handful of formulas and you're there, if the goal is simply to learn how to find triads.

    BTW, I've looked at the Leavitt book and I think Complete Rhythms may be a little more fun -- which might help someone who is resisting the task. It's old fashioned (now, not when it was written) syncopated swing lines. With chord symbol and some harmonies iirc.

  12. #36

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    No, no, no. I want to understand how triads are built. Up, down and across the fretboard. They're the foundation. Only then do I feel like I could begin to construct a D13b9 or G7b5. This is what I like about Fisher's book. Baker's book seems aimed at someone who's already unlocked the fretboard and 'simply' wants to learn jazz.
    Well... what's so bad about learning 24 chords? MB book is practical, it gives turnarounds and sequences that are applicable to real song context and sound jazz.
    Why not play D13b9 right away?

    As for triads... you said you play piano... so I guess musically you know how to build them.
    Then just build up the patterns on guitar....

    On three adjacent strings, skipping the strings... inversions... not so many things to do.

    I would go for standard 7th chord fingerings to ... so called Drop2 and Drop3

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I've often thought this.
    i take it for granted that you've read your pirsig? this might very well be about fingerings:

    "'value traps': these can be described generally as an inability or reluctance to re-evaluate notions due to a commitment to previous values."
    (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Wikipedia)

  14. #38

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    You mention classical and jazz; might I ask some leading questions?

    When you play jazz piano, are you:

    - playing from sheet music? Sticking to the score? Embellishing, interpreting, or improvising from the score?

    - playing from a lead sheet with just a scored melody line and chord symbols indicating the harmony? Constructing the chords' voicing, inversions, left hand, etc.?

    - playing familiar tunes based on memory? Memory of chord names? Progression schema? Able to arbitrarily transpose? Based on knowledge of key signatures?

    - some of these? Something else?

    Asking because it sounds like you have considerable music knowledge from piano. How much of that might be transferred to the guitar, how to do that, and whether to even think of it that way is really what is being discussed.

    I admit bias; I concede that the guitar while mechanically challenging seems conceptually relatively easy, even more so if approaching it with musical experience on the piano. Musical understanding (questions above) may end up partly portable, but the mechanics not so much.

    My bias leans to favor learning the guitar by brute force figuring things out, which would usually describe a bottom up kind of approach (worked well for me). Someone already suggested issue with top down - approaching the guitar with an established ready reservoir of music knowledge. Might that cloud or interfere with absorbing some of the foundation of "guitaristic" knowledge naturally acquired with learning curve time on the instrument?

    I'd like to understand more about what is going on (especially what and how you are thinking musically) when playing jazz piano...

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by djg
    i take it for granted that you've read your pirsig? this might very well be about fingerings:

    "'value traps': these can be described generally as an inability or reluctance to re-evaluate notions due to a commitment to previous values."
    (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Wikipedia)
    A few years back - that’s a good quote!

  16. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    Well... what's so bad about learning 24 chords?
    I liken it to learning a bunch of big words in a new language without first understanding the grammar of how sentences are constructed.

    I've in fact been doing that (learning the big chords) for years, thinking I could 'shortcut' the process of learning the fretboard that way. The opportunity cost - where I could've been spending that time learning the fretboard - is unavoidable, at least in my case.

  17. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    BTW, I've looked at the Leavitt book and I think Complete Rhythms may be a little more fun -- which might help someone who is resisting the task. It's old fashioned (now, not when it was written) syncopated swing lines. With chord symbol and some harmonies iirc.
    Thank you!

    Google isn't finding a book called "Complete Rhythms". Was it renamed? I found this by Leavitt: "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar".

    https://berkleepress.com/guitar/melo...ms-for-guitar/

    Is that it?

  18. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    You mention classical and jazz; might I ask some leading questions?

    When you play jazz piano, are you:

    - playing from sheet music? Sticking to the score? Embellishing, interpreting, or improvising from the score?

    - playing from a lead sheet with just a scored melody line and chord symbols indicating the harmony? Constructing the chords' voicing, inversions, left hand, etc.?

    - playing familiar tunes based on memory? Memory of chord names? Progression schema? Able to arbitrarily transpose? Based on knowledge of key signatures?

    - some of these? Something else?
    Thanks for your reply!

    I can read, but more often than not I'll use recordings to ingrain the melody and changes in my head. I'll refer to transcriptions if there's a particular set of changes that I can't sort out by ear immediately. I'm familiar with all the signatures and feel comfortable transposing. When coming across licks or entire solos I'm especially fond of I'll learn them in all 12 keys as it's the best way I've found to really assimilate them into my vocabulary.

    Yes, you've correctly diagnosed my aim: how do I take all the concepts and knowledge that I know and can apply on the piano, and transfer them to the guitar in the most efficient and effective way possible. To my mind it's all about the mechanics, as you say.

    Thanks again.

  19. #43

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    I enjoy this book, Book 1, as a primer for beginners or as a practice guide for more advanced players. It's well organised with good visuals to discover or hone fingerboard skills for fingering and fingerboard pattern selection. Also, it explains the triads, their layout and inversions within the context of the harmonised Major Scale.

    Jodie Fisher's tab, for the scale sequence of Pattern 18 (1345, 2456), indicates 6/4 fingering. You may use the 6/1 fingering, but it is awkward, and one would instinctively not go there. That's why JF indicates 6/4. So, if you decide to use 6/1, it's a good finger exercise (a challenge), but certainly not of practical use if you had to play a singular 1345 sequence... !However!,

    However, when playing a chord such as C Major in first inversion (3x153x), pattern 6/1 would be handy for melody or a single-note fill. That's why it behooves us to be able to play everything in every way, all over the fingerboard, or at least to play the music of our current interest. Often, it is musical advancement that dictates the usefulness of obscure fingerings and fingerboard patterns.

    We prepare ourselves for this when practicing. Playing chord 3x153x along with a 6/1 scale is part of the D Form arpeggio according to the CAGED system. The D shape and 6/1 is also preferable for many major pentatonic passages, (especially if you're a bass player... it's quick and ergonomic with glissandos and hammer-ons).

    Yes, 1345 sucks in 6/1 because of the fingerboard distance between 3 and 4, but to play within a C Major or CM7 first inversion 3x153x, the 6/1 fingering is under the hand and offers a lot of possibilities for other melodic sequences.

    Mix and Match the scale fingerings (1 2 4) with the CAGED chord forms and arpeggios and the possibilities are a 3x5 matrix for 15 possibilities. Not all are always useful, but at least you will know your window and your limitations. I find that fingerings are simply a "standard" or "nominal" point form which to start. You will often modify a fingering to suit the music you are playing. Blues loves three fingers while classical loves four. Guitar loves 1234 while bass loves 124 Simandl (or 134 Italian).

    Fingering is definitely not the grist for polite discussion, as it is personal and arbitrary as it depends on genre, style, players' physiology, neck scale/width and how you angle the guitar. I like to play seated with the neck at 45 degrees and the fingerboard tilted, not so that I can see the neck, but to allow the fingers to execute even the most difficult of chords. Look at the old photos of big bands and archtop players. Teachers used to teach students how to hold the instrument. Today, they'll tell you "oh...whatever makes you comfortable".

    No matter the terminology, how you "see" the geometry of the fingerboard is personal and dependent upon your playing interests. Study all that comes your way and select what works for you. Also, be inventive and modify the paradigm to your benefit.

    I know that in CAGED, the E Form arpeggio also contains the F Form. The E Form covers the six strings, but I like to also look at the Top 4 strings of the E shape as the F shape. The F Shape is the C Shape translated horizontally across the fingerboard. CAGED for me is GCF-EAD...
    G translates to C which translates to F. Then E translates to A which translates to D. The tuning of the G-B strings to a M3 "warps" each form as you translate it across the fingerboard.

    You get a nice FM7 chord (xx1357) and a few other treasures to add to your playing, like a bluesy F7 chord (xx1357b). In the end, it's all about how "YOU" organise the fingerboard. There ain't enough years remaining for anyone to know it all. One could spend some time in the keys of F, Bb, Eb and Ab (99% of jazz tunes) and learn how the CAGED chords, arpeggios, and scales are fingered in each neck position, but I'm sure that even George Benson, Salvatore Massaro, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery knew where to draw the line with fingerboard technique and concentrate on what was needed to "send" the musical message.

    Also, is it really smart to learn Jazz first while you still can't play the instrument? Jazz is not for beginners. My attempts at jazz guitar improved as I branched into classical, folk, rock, country, bluegrass, ragtime, latin, popular and blues. Mell Bay's series and Leavitt's 123 helped me considerably. Reading is a critical tool - mapping the fingerboard gamut to the staff (F & G Clefs). Jazz is a "fancy-dancy" way of playing all of the above. It behooves the beginning guitarist to broaden their vista before embarking on the jazz journey. Learn all the tunes, like Joe Pass did, then jazz them up. This establishes an appreciation for what jazz, chord extensions and alterations and swing rhythm and syncopation is all about. Apply jazz harmony and rhythm to your music. Often, jazz is just music from Broadway Musicals played in a particular way.

    Instrument popularity and portability alone, do not bode well as reasons for starting the guitar. Select an instrument by how much you love their sound and then investigate how it is played. If you love a particular sound produced on the guitar and love the feel of the strings under your fingers, you will be successfully motivated. You may like strings, but perhaps find a special affinity for the sound of the double bass or banjo. In any case, make time to play some piano. It is the king of instruments for all musicians to enjoy and learn reading and harmony. $33 at Walmart gets you on your way.
    ...

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    Thank you!

    Google isn't finding a book called "Complete Rhythms". Was it renamed? I found this by Leavitt: "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar".

    https://berkleepress.com/guitar/melo...ms-for-guitar/

    Is that it?
    It's this. You can see a couple of pages on this site. They call it Rhythms Complete ... but I remember it the other way.

    Rhythms Complete – Charles Colin Music

  21. #45

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    The layout of the piano with white keys for naturals and black keys for sharps and flats is brilliant. Makes identifying the notes easy. And every octave is the same.

    Learning the fingerboard on guitar is a little harder. You have 72 notes to learn (6 strings x 12 frets). But, if you learn where the naturals are (that is, the notes of Cmajor) you really get the rest for free.

    It's a couple of months of work, best done, IMO, by learning to read.

    Eventually, the fact that the B string is tuned a third higher instead of a fourth higher than the next-lower-string, makes no difference. The adjustment becomes automatic.

    So, you learn C major, then you sharp the F's and it's Gmajor. Flat the B and it's F. Proceed like that, one key at a time.

    Much later, fingering difficult passages can require some thought. I think that my experience is somehow different from some other posters (including players I admire). I read stuff all the time and I never think about fingerings. In fact, I think it would get in the way if I did.

    You glance at the page, check out the lowest and highest notes, that gives you an idea of where to begin. Pick an octave. Then, if the tempo is slow enough, you can play the notes anywhere. As the tempo gets more challenging you have to start solving problems. For me, fingering patterns don't help a bit with that process. What helps is a repertoire of techniques to facilitate picking -- because the bottleneck (for me) is almost always in the right hand -- sweep pickers may not have this problem.

  22. #46

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    hey Maroon.... here is a thread I was asked to start back in January 2010... it's full of information and examples. The concepts all have basic References and why I chose different aspect of learning to perform. They are complete concepts... they have a beginning.... and an end.

    You may choose a different approach... but maybe it will help you at least understand that choices have results... Performing jazz isn't fair... different approaches have different results. About the only thing you really need... is to... understand yourself, how you work.
    If anything looks interesting... I have new PDFs of fingerings for every details of the fretboard... scales, chords, arpeggios etc...(lots of them). There was another thread from back then, but I can remember was the name was...
    Reg's Thread... live at the speed of Jazz

  23. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    hey Maroon.... here is a thread I was asked to start back in January 2010...
    Reg's Thread... live at the speed of Jazz
    Thanks very much Reg, this looks really helpful.

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
    I liken it to learning a bunch of big words in a new language without first understanding the grammar of how sentences are constructed.

    I've in fact been doing that (learning the big chords) for years, thinking I could 'shortcut' the process of learning the fretboard that way. The opportunity cost - where I could've been spending that time learning the fretboard - is unavoidable, at least in my case.

    A child does not learn how to speak by first learning the alphabet, grammar and phrasing. They learn that white tasty stuff is called bottle and they say bah. Then they learn that nice lady is mommy and they say ma, and that big fun one is daddy, and they ddy. Eventually they get it right, but first they learn some basics to get by. This is what Mickey Bakers book does. Also, skip lesson 1. It's more practical to learn the chords as you need them in the book.

  25. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    A child does not learn how to speak by first learning the alphabet, grammar and phrasing. They learn that white tasty stuff is called bottle and they say bah. Then they learn that nice lady is mommy and they say ma, and that big fun one is daddy, and they ddy. Eventually they get it right, but first they learn some basics to get by. This is what Mickey Bakers book does.
    The analogy is an imperfect one. Children and adults learn languages differently. I think they might also learn music differently (that's actually an interesting question I'd not considered). Anyway, the point is that they start with small words and simple sentences before taking on larger words and more sophisticated syntax.

    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    Also, skip lesson 1. It's more practical to learn the chords as you need them in the book.
    Ah! Thanks for this! I'll take that advice.

  26. #50

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    I still think the underlying point stands, even as an adult you don't learn a new language by leaning all the rules first. You learn bathroom, hospital, and maybe hotel (similar to a few chords) and then have at it. Is it better to dedicate 10 years to learning Italian before you visit Rome? It might be, but you'll probably lose interest in the language before you ever use it due to lack of well, using it.