The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanslider
    Curious how much time every day, or if days vary, every week are you practicing?
    I try to play daily approx. 1-2 hours per day. The first 2 years mainly Modern Method for Guitar Vol 1 and 2, Melodic Rhythms for Guitar, and Realbook tunes.

    These days mainly Realbook and major and minor blues in addition to band. I also watch Youtube and pick various exercises. This site has also been a great source for inspiration.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #77

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    Right with you- Now, like me, you're just starting to know the fundamentals you've neglected. I think I've always had attention deficit problems so hard to stay with one thing at a time. Don't bite off more than you can chew. This is memorization, mine sucks, so this depends on your memory. I'm also approaching 7th arpeggios in one position and try not to get frustrated with slow progress. I have to take off days so to go back into the "woodshed". Really, this will take months to learn, for me. I'm seeing now, I need to devote a certain length of time, per day, to this to keep it fresh and not burn out. It's good you have a teacher.

  4. #78

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    I have nothing to contribute. But I have to say, I think this topic wins Best Topic for the board. What a great question, and put so brutally honestly.

    There is a passage in the Bible where someone says "Sir, the well is deep, you do not have anything with which to draw the water!" That's my Bible Verse for Jazz Guitar.

  5. #79

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    I have nothing to contribute. But I have to say, I think this topic wins Best Topic for the board. What a great question, and put so brutally honestly.

    There is a passage in the Bible where someone says "Sir, the well is deep, you do not have anything with which to draw the water!" That's my Bible Verse for Jazz Guitar.
    [Self deceivers are] "like a man who tries to find water by digging a little here and a little there and who will die of thirst; whereas a man who digs deep in one spot, trusting in the Lord and relying on Him, will find water; he will drink and give others to drink."

    --Shaykh ad-Darqawi--Letters of a Sufi Master

  6. #80

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    It is that hard no matter Your talent level. If you love it and find someone that inspires you to push then you will get good. Gotta love the music though. If you do it because you think it will make you better at rock or blues , it will but not in the way you think. It’s just that gradually , and for us regular folks I mean it’s really gradual ,the ear just gets better and better. The ear is everything really. There is a Ted Greene quote in one of the books about the gradual sometimes only slightly noticeable improvement year by year in the ear. He also had a quote that wasnt in the books about the world being littered with naturally talented people who don’t push, and the earnest souls who do push. I wish I had the exact quote. It’s a ton of work to play high level music, and it has to come from love.

  7. #81

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    back in the day when I was starting out and struggling I asked my teacher why it was taking me so long.
    his response was "you gotta learn to crawl before you can walk"

    you may approach a concept and at first and think 'I'll never get this' but once you make a little breakthrough it should serve as inspiration that you can do it. then once you get it down you'll think 'that wasn't so hard after all'

  8. #82

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    Democritus: "We know nothing of reality, for Truth is hidden in a well."

  9. #83

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    Yeah, it’s hard to play jazz well. After learning the basics re blues and rock for a few years my teacher sent me to his teacher, who was a great jazz guitarist. I knew major scales, diminished, harmonic minor, etc but not particularly well except for major and pentatonic. I understood what modes were. I knew chord construction. Didn’t really have much in the way of arpeggios under my fingers. I had studied a few dozen standards. The new teacher, in addition to adding some scale applications, had me study standards by learning to comp the chords, play the melody, improvise over the changes, and create a chord melody. He said learn 40 tunes like that so I could work. I thought it was a solid approach but being a kid, I wanted to rock out. At 27 I started studying flamenco. Never became a real jazz player but the stuff I learned back in the late 70’s is all still with me. Get a really good teacher and work ur butt off if u really want to play jazz.

  10. #84

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    Your teacher suggested learning Autumn Leaves. Good idea. It moves you away from using the pentatonic scales as the framework to see the guitar with...... and into more of a 'chordal thinking' approach.


    Many (most) beginners learn the pentatonic minor or blues scale 6th string root, (in A usually, lol) as the first thing to make some noise on the guitar, (I did). Cuz you can noodle around and it sounds almost like music ;-) But it's a quick fix. Instant gratification. Junior goes home and Mom sees he's happy about being a Rock star now, and that she's not wasting money on the guitar lessons.

    Then maybe soon after the kid realizes there's a Major pentatonic scale and a Major blues scale as well.

    Fine and dandy.
    But what happens usually is they continue for years to use those "colors" (and only those) as the steering wheel to drive the car, so to speak. As the "Interface" to operate the guitar. Pentatonic / blues scales are not a good operator interface to operate a guitar.

    Can a lot of music be made solely with them? Yes, of course, some of my favorite music is pentatonic blues-based loud-ass guitar of my youth.

    But, seeing / using pentatonic scales (and in my opinion all scales) as the FRAMEWORK................. i.e. your "steering wheel" to operate a guitar is very limiting and you will not get the full capabilities out of yourself or the guitar. Ultimately it's like driving a Ferrari with no steering wheel..... but you rigged up a crescent wrench tightened on the steering column to steer with..... some guys are very clever too, they have TWO crescent wrenches attached to the steering column (to stretch the analogy to it's limit, lol).

    If you read the original CAGED book from the 80's (70's?) the author makes a great case for it being the operator interface for the guitar. I agree. But to use a computer analogy, it's like Machine Language. Bottom level. Even more basic than Unix. And Unix is nerds-ville, baby.

    People like to use easier more comfortable higher level languages (abstractions) like C, etc. same thing on the guitar.

    But there are plenty of CAGED videos and books, many of them are great beginner level too. You don't have to do a deep dive, to start with. I think it's the smarter (way smarter) method to learning the guitar. Yes, it's slower, MUCH slower. But you'll, after a certain point, progress faster and continue to progress if you understand the CAGED system. You won't regurgitate the same 7 blue licks you know over and over.

    More importantly........ and here's the big climax of my post, lol ............understand chord progressions and the structure of jazz standards. AABA, etc. Learn the most popular standards. Look for a list of the ten or twelve most used chord progressions in jazz and work on those. You might find, counter-intuitively, you learn how to solo by learning and understanding chord progressions as you learn about leading tones.


    OK, I'm done, sorry for the mini-novella.

  11. #85

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    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

    Having learned how to play major scales all over the fretboard, what does the CAGED guitarist do next?

  12. #86

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

    Having learned how to play major scales all over the fretboard, what does the CAGED guitarist do next?
    ....cost you 20 bux to find out
    Amazon.com


    "Part Two teaches the tone groups of music - Chords, Scales and Arpeggios - by building them in the context of this pervasive pattern organization, and thereby eliminating the usual guesswork and rote memorization associated with these areas of a guitarist's education. This alone can take years off the learning curve."

    .....quelque chose comme ça.


    *edit: Found you a free copy.
    325655568-guitar-fretboard-logic-se.pdf [en5k3j3821no]
    Last edited by ChazFromCali; 10-15-2022 at 03:27 AM.

  13. #87

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

    Having learned how to play major scales all over the fretboard, what does the CAGED guitarist do next?
    He learns what his fingers play.

  14. #88

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

    Having learned how to play major scales all over the fretboard, what does the CAGED guitarist do next?
    Learn to skate.

  15. #89

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

    Having learned how to play major scales all over the fretboard, what does the CAGED guitarist do next?
    play all your scales with one left hand finger from the lowest to the highest note on the instrument

  16. #90

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    It came to me that a reason why music takes such a long time to master is that it has to be in time to be effective. That requires more mastery than something where time isn't an issue like visual art. You have to have all your mechanics programmed in to be able to execute them in time with good rhythm and that takes a while since we're not computers.

  17. #91

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    One problem with self-study is that it is a matter of "the blind leading the blind". Most of us probably would not go on a hike in the Amazon jungle (not the site, instead the South American jungle) without a guide. Self-teaching can be just as treacherous, considering how many years can be wasted going down a blind alley.

    However, self-teaching through a well defined study plan could be successful as long as we have the self-discipline to stick with it. With all these internet sites and forums and youtube, there is ALWAYS a shiny new thing to distract us. Sometimes I think the best way to self-teach would be to find a comprehensive proven study plan and associated materials and just leave the internet alone for a few years.

    The best idea would be IF you could find a decent teacher who would be committed t the long term. Such a teacher would determine your goals and set out a real plan to get there. Unfortunately, such teachers can be difficult and time consuming to find outside a school curriculum. But school is another story altogether. If I were to invest in an education today, it would be in a field I could make a living in once I graduate. This would most likely be technology or medicine, possibly law, with music as a life enriching sideline.

    Another consideration is, as David Sudnow usd to say, learn everything in the context of the song. Whatever you learn should immediately be applicable to the music you want to play. That is a great approach to filtering through all the information available today to get to what you need to know and leave the rest for somebody else.

    For me, I really don't understand why so many people want to "solo over changes" unless there is a real band/jam session in which to do that. For many of us, that isn't a reality today, so it can eventually seem pointless to be learning all these scales and copping licks to do ... what with? I suppose BIAB would be a reasonable substitute, much as a girly magazine would be for a schoolboy as a substitute for the real thing. My point is to pursue an aspect of music that would be fulfilling in the real world. For me, that is playing solo guitar where I am playing the whole thing myself so I am not dependent on other people to provide most of the music that I would then play within. Each of us has to find what that thing is for us individually, that thing that inspires us to put in the effort day by day to continue learning.

    Tony

  18. #92

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    Quote Originally Posted by ChazFromCali
    ....cost you 20 bux to find out
    Amazon.com


    "Part Two teaches the tone groups of music - Chords, Scales and Arpeggios - by building them in the context of this pervasive pattern organization, and thereby eliminating the usual guesswork and rote memorization associated with these areas of a guitarist's education. This alone can take years off the learning curve."

    .....quelque chose comme ça.


    *edit: Found you a free copy.
    325655568-guitar-fretboard-logic-se.pdf [en5k3j3821no]
    Chacun à son goût.

  19. #93

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    Other playing tunes from fakebooks, applying what I have learned, this is my sole daily warm-up:

    1. Ted Greene's exercise for learning the notes of the fretboard from Chord Chemistry. I select one note at random, just plopping a finger down somewhere on the fretboard. If that note is the same as I did yesterday, I try again. Then I find it along each string from 6th to 1st and back down again.

    2. I use that note as the root to run through the 5 CAGED forms and for each form, play the major scale.

    3. I use that note as the root to play that major scale along each string up and down (from Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrick).

    4. I use that note as the root to run through the Conti chord forms from "Chord Melody Assembly Line".

    5. Randomly pick a lesson from Conti's "The Formula" to review.

    After that (all of which takes about 10 minutes at most), the rest of my day consists of grabbing a fakebook and playing a chord melody off the top of my head using variations of Conti's chord forms. For me, what is important is to know the fretboard cold so I instantly can look at any finger and know what note it is playing, what notes make up any chord I am playing, be able to quickly play on sight any melody presented in a fakebook, transpose as needed to a key that suits chord melody (if necessary to fit chords underneath), and have a working vocabulary that allows me to instantly know a starting point for voicing a chord under any possible melody note.

    Note that I am not suggesting this regimen to anybody, but instead using it as an example of how I filtered what made the most sense to me to get where I wanted to go (i.e. open to any tune in a fakebook and play that tune as a solo piece). The better defined your goal and intention is, the better defined will be your path to get there.

    I refer to "Conti" a lot. This is Robert Conti, because his materials are so logical and easy to work with and readily apply to making music. Here is his site: Home • RobertConti.com. Also I appreciate that he doesn't need to make "stretchy" chords to get his music across. He says he has "stubby" fingers and such chords would be too difficult to get into and out of smoothly. Joe Pass said something similar when he talked about how if it is difficult to play, it will be difficult for the audience to hear.

    There are many people teaching and I do tap other resources too, such as Barry Greene (Barry Greene Video Lessons) and Rich Severson (| The Guitar College Library), but no matter what else I choose to study, Conti is the foundation for me. His method is how I understand anything else.

    What I enjoy is simply quickly working out arrangements of tunes from fakebooks. I am not much for memorizing so this approach suits me. I am no longer interested in performing or making videos, but will always enjoy playing music. I wouldn't doubt that what I do and what my goals are, are very different from the real jazz folks around here. Honestly, I don't consider myself a "jazz" guitar player, but instead I freely borrow from that genre's sense of harmony and rhythm.

    Tony

  20. #94

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    ....more of my opinions.

    I think just about ANY program, almost anything..... any graded step by step lessons for beginners that avoid the minor pentatonic scale, "boxes" "blues boxes" or nonsense like "position 3a is your third finger on..." (i.e. making up MORE unneeded nomenclature), is better than what I went thru as a beginner.

  21. #95

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    I suppose BIAB would be a reasonable substitute
    specially if you have the Wes,Grant,Kenny,Johnny,Herb,Emily,Jim..Joe...files made for band in a box...plug and play....Search in Django books and start playing music.not scales or regimented ideas.....good luck

  22. #96

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    The most advanced players in the world view themselves as lifelong students. Ron Carter always says his target is playing the next note so that it makes the band sound better. The love for the music is what drives everyone. Nothing else matters.

    Learning jazz is about determining what role you’d like to play. Personally I’m perfectly happy to put my own stamp on comping standards, being able to accompany a singer and to do some solo finger style versions of songs I love. That’s an achievable goal. I’ll never be Martin Taylor. That’s an unachievable goal.

  23. #97

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    Is it really that hard or am I simply not talented?

    It's hard even when you've got tons of talent! But the talented tend to work at it harder because they're aware of their own potential. Which makes it easier.