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I'd recommend that somebody considering embarking on that path consider this alternative.
Learn to read with graded material. All over the neck. A few months work.
At that point, you will know all the notes on the guitar.
Then, memorize the notes in the chords you want to use, by name. At that point you can find anything you need. This will take a while, but, IMHO, is worth it.
Grips are helpful, so you can start with Chuck Wayne's system (which I recently presented in a different post) and enhance it by studying chord melodies -- which you now read or get by watching videos.
When you're done you'll be able to read, you'll know the fingerboard, you'll be able to find your own voicings and you'll know Chuck's. You'll have a good foundation for further development.
Of course, if this isn't appealing there are lots of other paths up the mountain. Some great players don't know any of this. And, some players who do know this stuff aren't great.
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05-12-2023 04:07 PM
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Yea... Rick's post is simple and works. (disclaimer... Rick's a friend, but I like his playing and he can HANG... that's why I always invite him to sit in some gigs. He doesn't have monster chops, and he'll probable be the first to tell you, but he can contribute to the music at the speed of Jazz. How was that Rick, LOL).
I have trouble understanding how someone would even be able to play Jazz without knowing what the notes are and how they are organized on the fretboard.
Watch whom ever is teaching you to play, do they need to watch the fretboard, do they struggle playing at faster tempos. Very few of us have incredible ears and natural skills etc...I don't) To become a good, I'm not even talking about great etc.... just be able play at the speed of Jazz without having to workout every thing you play etc... you need to get your basic starting technical skills together.
An understanding of how the fretboard works, and a few different methods of being able to navigate playing jazz without having to work everything out and stare at the fretboard the whole time.
Most good jazz players can read music, not that many can sight read well enough to.... Sight Read in live time. But there are lots... I perform all the time players that can.
Part of knowing the notes should also be understanding what the notes mean. How they are organized into Music etc... All the theoretical BS will also make knowing the notes etc...much easier.
You'll learn to recognize note patterns and what those patterns imply in a context... a tune etc...
All this BS is incredible easy to have access to .... If you haven't developed whatever skills your after.... at some point you need to think about WHY.
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Some players (maybe many players) have a mental map of things that I don't readily understand.
Originally Posted by Reg
And Reg, I do have monster chops, if the monster is The Blob. (The Blob was slow-moving, for those who haven't seen the movie).
Having Blob chops means that you have to find other ways to get to the end of the tune at the same moment as everybody else. <g>
Reg, btw, has The Flash chops and musicality to go with it. I keep recommending his videos, because there is real jazz to be learned there. And sitting in on his gigs is like a guitar lesson every time.
We're in Albany tonight if you want to come by and play a couple of tunes.
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I don't really remember having a problem with learning the fretboard when I started - it was just something that I learned because I needed to know it. I started out playing Chet Atkins stuff where you have to figure out pretty much every inversion of every chord and know where the bass notes and melody notes were in each one of them. Might've helped because I had about 5 years of violin behind me before I took up guitar in 9th grade and played them both on through high school. Ended up being a whole lot better guitar player, though. Another thing that helped was, I got a job teaching in a music store when I started Jr college in '63 and they were using the old Oahu system with individual lessons each week and I took the lessons home to learn and stay ahead of the kids. That was about the same time that I learned what notes were in which chords and how to spell them and discovered that I didn't need that fancy chord dictionary that my parents bought me for my birthday. Of course, all this was long, long ago and far away.
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I've listened to interviews with Jim Hall and Bill Evans and both have said there is a lot they can't play, but they add skills whenever one of those things they can't play needs to be played and don't bother learning things that won't fit their vocabulary Originally Posted by Reg
Basically, add new tools when the ones you have aren't enough to say what you want to say. One of those tools is learning to read better for me right now. My reading has limited my playing several times so it's a tool I need to sharpen. For others notes on paper may never be a road block to them saying what they want in their music. I like this approach because all skills and theory are based on making music and being expressive.
To bring this back to the topic, when I read and translate the notes onto the guitar neck I'm learning the fretboard. For me that works far better than memorizing. I've always been the kind of learner who likes to get 5% of the information and then work on it on my own to get the rest.
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This is really good advice I think. Lots of material for learning to read that way too. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I also feel like I sort of started “getting it” when I started learning three string triads all over the neck. Pick a string set at a time and learn the inversions. You just have to find a lot of notes a lot of times. Hard not to memorize them that way. I have some luck with that with students too.
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Great thread. Re: Diamond and Z, please check out pg 28. (This appears to be made free by the author). http://guitarencyclopedia.com/zzEncy...dFingering.pdf
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I learned the notes on the fretboard in a hodgepodge fashion.
One thing I picked up from Carol Kaye tied it all together for me. Start on the low E string, third fret. Play that major triad: G. (These are two-string triads, not three string ones.) Go up a string and play C, go up a string and play F, go up a string and play Bb, go up a string plus one fret and its Eb. Now go back to the low E and you will play Ab, then Db, Gb, B, (go up a fret as well as a string), E, then back to the low E and you're at A.
Run this up through the 12th fret and back for a few days or a week or however long it takes you---won't be too long---and you'll know the names of all the notes well. (Helps to say the root names out loud.) Cyclic chord movement is crucial for all forms of music but especially jazz standards. Just knowing the names of the notes is not as helpful as knowing their names and what root is likely to come along next.
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This is really cool. Thanks for posting Originally Posted by SedanDelivery2022
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Originally Posted by SedanDelivery2022
a very complete book...like taking parts of Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene and super charging it
of course knowing all those chords without a context or how and why to use them may be very frustratingLast edited by wolflen; 06-11-2023 at 06:21 PM.
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Thanks for including this. I got it from Jim Gleason book. But I didn't know these are in the Public domain. Good for all of us. Originally Posted by SedanDelivery2022
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Doesn't work with Android? Apple only?
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It's a link to a pdf. Pretty sure those work on android. Originally Posted by jumpnblues
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Originally Posted by AllanAllen
It says on the app site it is only available for iPad and iPhone.
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That’s really weird
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Do you have a PDF viewer installed? If not look for one in the Google Play store. Of course take a free one. Then download the PDF and it should open. I am again and again surprised at how simple things people fail regarding computer stuff. Originally Posted by jumpnblues
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Oahu system? Never heard of it. What is it? Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
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Thanks for that. I had wondered what was meant by the Diamond and Z shapes. Now I know! Cool. Originally Posted by SedanDelivery2022
(Re: posts about this not opening. Opened right up for me on my Windows PC.)
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