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I agree about "guitaristic quirks" ... I used to be big into the flatwound 13s, no bends, no open strings thing. Now I'm the opposite and it's become a bit of a pet-peeve. I definitely agree w Mr Beaumont that evenness of tone is often a concern that might lead a player to not play open strings often. I hate it, though, when players avoid using them and other guitaristic things because they're not idiomatic to jazz. You play guitar for a reason ... That reason probably had a lot to do w power chords or open string cowboy chords. Play guitar not "things that are idiomatic to typical jazz music as realized on guitar"
Originally Posted by Jonzo
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03-02-2015 09:24 PM
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I dunno. Wes Montgomery sounds pretty good to me. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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While he doesn't play "open position" as such, he tosses in a lot of open notes in his lick and comping.
Several open string bits in this.
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Think about it for a moment. In the key of F, you have several important intervals that can be played on an open string.
F - G - A - Bb - C - D - E - F . That would be the major third, the sixth and major seventh. So you avoid using open strings? Why? I get the thing about evenness of tone, but there is also something to say for sustain. Try playing a chord melody of Georgia On My Mind and avoid the open strings. Of course you can do so, but certainly this is a non-issue in my mind.
On another thread is a version of Nuages played by Stephan Grappelli and my favorite classical guitarist of all time, Julian Bream. Open strings and all.
Jay
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Joe was great all over the guitar. Originally Posted by Flyin' Brian
Something he says here has been mentioned elsewhere in this forum: never play two songs in a row in E, A, or D. ;o) The open string "drone" (-Joe's term) will put an audience to sleep.
He mentions G being a good key for guitar and I think he's right about that. One can use open strings in G (-many bluegrass and country players do) but even without them, in G, you have the whole key to your right. The same goes for F, but F isn't as comfortable. (I mean starting at the first fret.)
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I don't apply specific time or thought to open positions/open strings. It is a position like any other. It has its own sound, just as all other positions have their own sound. Use it if you will, don't if you won't.
When working on chords, I try to finger the chords using all possible fingerings I can think of. If this means using an open string, then that is what I'll do. If applicable, I will use an open string in my chord regardless of where I am on the neck.
x35x3x = x3x03x
x5x453 = xx0453
To access multiple fingerings, sometimes a jump across the fretboard is required.
1x021x = 13x12.14.13.x
My teacher doesn't believe in using open strings, as it cannot be transposed.
While playing with other people, I rarely use open positions. Sometimes I'll use harmonic on open strings to get E minor.
Re "guitaristic quirks" : I am also of a similar belief. Guitar players can and should use (when appropriate) the unique aspects of their instrument such as bending, harmonics and open strings.Last edited by pushkar000; 03-03-2015 at 12:30 PM.
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I agree that open position isn't the most important for a jazz guitarist although it is good to be familiar with it and is usable at times. I came up with a good exercise which addresses this issue as well as helping develop the pinky. It uses only the notes up to the fourth fret including the open strings. Each left hand finger has it's own dedicated fret. First finger only frets the first fret. The second finger for the second fret , etc. Don't use the 5th fret at all. And don't use the 4th fret on the G string. Play that note, B, as the open 2nd string. Just one octave for each scale except for the last one. Here goes -
Play the E major scale from the open 6th to the second fret on the D string, Then run F major from the 3rd fret 4th string descending to the 1st fret 6th string. Next: F# major ascending from 2nd fret 6th string to the 4th fret 4th string. G to G descending ( open G string down to low G on the 6th). G# ascending (4th fret low E to 1st fret G string). A major descending from the 2nd fret G string down to the open 5th string, Bb major ascending from the 1st fret 5th string up to the 3rd fret G string. B major descending from the open 2nd string to the 2nd fret 5th string. C to C ascending from the 3rd fret A string to the 1st fret 2nd string. C# major from the 2nd fret B string down to the 4th fret 5th string. D to D ascending from the open 4th to the 3rd fret on the B string. Then D# descending from 4th fret B string down to 2nd fret 4th string. Then E from 2nd fret 4th string up to open 1st. F major, 1st fret 1st string down to 3rd fret 4th string. F# from the 4th fret 4th string to the 2nd fret 1st string. Then finally descend from G on 3rd fret of the open 1st string down 2 octaves to the 3rd fret on the 6th string.
It's really pretty basic. To use an overworked expression; It is what it is. Just don't use the 5th fret. Or the 4th on the G string. And of course this exercise can be applied to to any scale or mode. As simple as it seems it's a challenge for me to play it all the way through, in time, without a mistake. I feel that open position facility is important for any guitarist regardless of style. And that this will translate into, and help, position playing up the neck. It's of note that a lot of even pretty good jazz players have a somewhat limited vocabulary of finger patterns. With this exercise each scale has it's own unique fingering just like a horn or piano.
I'm writing this post without having a guitar available (doing it in my head) so excuse a possible mistake on my part.
ChrisLast edited by mrcee; 03-09-2015 at 12:36 PM.
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I play a fair amount of classical guitar which has plenty of repertoire from beginning to advanced that makes full use of the open position as well as moving up the entire fretboard. When playing jazz however, I prefer to comp using movable 7th chord based shapes. When I solo, I just base my soloing on these movable 7th chord shapes. So my comping and soloing are almost identical in what positions and shapes they are based on. It just so happens jazz comping is much more hip (imo) when using movable shapes than when using open chords. I mean, just try comping through any jazz standard in only the open position...it just doesn't work well, that's probably why nobody does it. Part of the reason for this I think is because we like to use a lot of voice leading and chromaticism when moving from one chord to another and this just doesn't work in open position very well. Anything that could be played in the open position, i'm 100% sure I can play it, but that doesn't mean I need to force myself to use it when it's not appropriate or needed. As was pointed out, by Mr. B I think, you should be competent in any position.
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I went through a big period of learning everything in closed positions. Obviously for us jazzers the reason to focus on closed positions are clear:
1) uniformity of tone
2) ease of transposition
3) The fact that many jazz situations involve playing in keys that aren't the most friendly to open strings
For this reason when I started getting into reading a few years back, I decided to focus on position V as a start, as it sits nicely in the middle of the neck (if you are playing acoustic or a fat archtop, at least)
However, studying more guitar centric forms of music, such as Bossa or Gypsy Jazz, where many of the tunes are in G, C, D and A etc, one becomes aware of the many beautiful musical effects that one can get using open strings. In fact in a gig situation where there isn't a horn (duo with a singer, or a guitar trio) it seems odd to carry on playing in Db or Bb (and yes, I do it anyway haha.)
In the case of Bossa, the tunes are often written in sharp keys originally. The voicings that you can get using open and stopped strings are extremely beautiful, colouristic and fundamentally guitaristic, with loads of lovely scrunchy seconds which would be otherwise hard to finger - once you start getting into the authentic voicings, it's then hard to hear these songs with standard jazz guitar grips in Bb real book key or whatever. Yuck!
While most jazz harmony seems based around imitating what the piano can do badly (interval clusters through the scale are straightforward on piano, traditional jazz harmony is difficult almost because everything has to drop 2 or drop 3 etc) it seems that this is an area where the guitar can really be itself.
In any case playing straightahead gigs in standard keys, there are still many opportunities to grab voicings with open strings - the bridge of All the Things, for example. While simple, the other players usually comment on how beautiful these voicings are. That's a telling thing, I think. Non-guitarists do on the whole want the guitar to sound like a guitar.
Metheny obviously got a lot of compositional mileage out of the James Taylor open chords meet #11's thing :-)
Furthermore, I've noticed with players like Wes it does seem that he will play lines in open position as well as closed - at least that's how it seems to my ears - anyone care to comment?Last edited by christianm77; 03-09-2015 at 08:06 AM.
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Hey do you think you can elaborate a little on this? Sounds really interesting. Originally Posted by christianm77
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One good source of authentic chords are the Bossa Nova Songbooks by Almir Chediak. These are hard to get here in the UK, not sure about other parts of the world. They are written in Portuguese and give the songs as songbook style (e.g. lyrics and chords above) and in sheet music. The chord shapes are given as diagrams. Originally Posted by pushkar000
Quite a few of the chord changes he gives for well known Bossa standards - e.g. Manha de Carnaval are quite different to the real book chords played by jazzers.
Obviously there are a lot of tunes that aren't well known among jazzers! Bossa is a deep thing, and I've only scratched the surface myself. I kind of feel that I need to be able to speak Portugeuse to really get into it properly.
Anyway - if you hunt around you can probably find some scans, but obviously I wouldn't want to endorse copyright infringement. It's just very hard to get hold of legit copies of these wonderful books.
Failing that, the Brazilian Guitar Book by Nelson Faria (mentioned elsewhere IRC) has some nice, idiomatic voicings in it. much easier to find, and well worth a look.Last edited by christianm77; 03-09-2015 at 09:43 AM.
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BTW with the bossa thing - it's really song based, learning by ear and learning grips on the guitar, not so much theoretical. You will learn a lovely voicing for B minor, say, but it won't be much good for C minor.... But after a while you will see how you can use open strings to enrich standard voicings.
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Thanks a lot for the leads - will look them up.
If its not too much trouble, could you maybe also post a youtube link or two of some music with good examples of authentic bossa guitar?
I've been trying to delve into a few other styles than jazz such as bossa, gypsy music, fusion, fingerstyle etc.
I can't say that I've tried very hard, but bossa and gypsy so far seem to be a little tougher to learn/get exposed to than other styles.
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I agree with guitarzen completely and would like to add that just because one's style of music doesn't really "use"
what's practiced in a given exercise doesn't mean that a guitarist should avoid it. It's really the same as a basketball player doing calisthenics during their practice routine even though he /she won't do them during a game.
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Man, anything with Joao Gilberto, Baden Powell, Luiz Bonfa, and loads of others. Guinga is great too, although a bit later on than 50s/60's Bossa. Originally Posted by pushkar000
You might also want to check out some old stuff, such as Choros and later stuff such as Caetono Veloso. Joyce's album Hard Bossa is brilliant and has some great guitar playing on it.
This is one of my favourites though, so swinging. In Gilberto's playing the guitar is completely at the service of the song. It's a very pure style. It's less intimidating from a fingerstyle chops point of view than Baden Powell say, but completely intimidating from a groove perspective!
There's a ton of material on Gypsy jazz guitar. Just hang out at Djangobooks.com. They've got some good lessons there as well.
If you look at the chords to Django stuff it's often quite similar to Bossa stuff grips wise - take a look at Tears for example.Last edited by christianm77; 03-09-2015 at 12:15 PM.
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Excellent! Originally Posted by christianm77
I'll be taking a look at all this stuff - thanks a lot!
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No problem man ;-)
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"open" sounds are a nice offset to a series of close voiced 7ths..Eric Johnson uses them to great effect in his playing..ted greene used them in many surprising places Originally Posted by pushkar000
to extend your example xx0453 - 10x01011x 10x01110x 9x0910x 7x0910x xx0975 play this slowly one note at a time so you can hear the effect of the voicings..then experiment with different strumming rhythms
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I'll check em' out thanks for thinking of me. In the 60's I was involved in the folk revival thing, and accompanying singers, different tunings etc. also Folk Blues. It's where the true orchestra potential of the guitar lies. Classical Guitar and Flamenco could not exist without it.
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Very nice voicings! Originally Posted by wolflen
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