The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #101

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I will answer your question with a question - what do get when you type jazz sax scales on Google images, and what when you type jazz guitar scales?
    I have no idea. I've never had an urge to do that. Not even at this moment. This is for both sax and guitar. Simply put, I do not lok up (Google) for scales.

    For the second part of your above post, why don't you think as a strings player, then, including (Contra) (Double) (Upright) Bass? They shorten their strings without much looking at and instrument's physics and organization are much closer tto guitar's than of the horns. Bass in it's guitar (fretless) version is almost exactly the same, isn't it?
    Last edited by Vladan; 01-27-2016 at 05:36 PM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    The C on the guitar always sounds like a C also, if it is tuned like C. Same with piano. Let me ask you this question, then - this shape is for B major, G minor, C dorian or Eb Lydian?
    Never said anything about sound. I don't know that we're having the same conversation.

  4. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I am not a horn player, but I believe it is about shortening an air stream inside a tube, the same way you shorten the length of a string and you get a higher pitch. So I think it is better to know those divisions inside out and know how they relate to the sound, instead of conditioning your brain to think in terms of images.
    I played saxophone for many years in school, and piano for the last 25 years of my life , and you just don't know what you're talking about.
    Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 01-27-2016 at 05:55 PM.

  5. #104

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    Vladan, you are right, but I think that now we are getting into unnecessary details. It doesn't matter if we compare that to a horn, string, piano, mallet or any kind of instrument. I am talking about approaching guitar playing in a more musical, instead of more mechanical way.

  6. #105

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    So I think it is better to know those divisions inside out and know how they relate to the sound, instead of conditioning your brain to think in terms of images.
    The images are a starting reference. It's not like I'm always seeing them while I play. They're not needed once you know them. They're like a map you follow to get somewhere, but once you've driven there a few times, you don't need to check the map.

  7. #106

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    I played saxophone for many years in school, and piano for the last 25 years of my life , and you just don't know what you're talking about.
    The shorter the sound source material is, the higher the pitch is, I think I know that much. And piano is tuned also, isn't it? As a matter of fact, I didn't understand your statement that Bb flat feels like any other key on the guitar. If that is so, than you admit that there is a problem, because formally trained musicians are trained to recognize keys, chords and intervals by hearing, not by playing or knowing where to put their fingers. That's the whole point of solfege, and hearing and making a distinction between different keys and types of tonalities is essential to improvising.

  8. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    The shorter the sound source material is, the higher the pitch is, I think I know that much. And piano is tuned also, isn't it? As a matter of fact, I didn't understand your statement that Bb flat feels like any other key on the guitar. If that is so, than you admit that there is a problem, because formally trained musicians are trained to recognize keys, chords and intervals by hearing, not by playing or knowing where to put their fingers. That's the whole point of solfege, and hearing and making a distinction between different keys and types of tonalities is essential to improvising.
    Good luck, dude.

  9. #108

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Good luck, dude.
    Thanks!

  10. #109

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

    But you know, if you play scales on a single string, there is still a pattern: whole step, whole step, half step (and so on, depending on which scale one is playing.) A scale is a pattern, after all.

    My point of reference is chords more than scales---it's needing to know, without thinking / looking, where the alterations for this or that voicing will be, and where all the chord tones are wherever I happen to be on the guitar.
    Of course that scales by themselves are pattern of sequencing half-steps and whole steps. And I agree about the reference you are talking about, that is thinking in intervals. I was talking about paying that much attention to the positions, 7 or 5, or 3 notes per string, depending on the school of thought, with a fixed root position, fixed reference finger, fixed picking pattern...I mean, maybe it works for some people, but I find that to be too restricting, and if it happens so that you wind up in an unusual place for the fingers, and an unusual pick stroke, you get confused. At least, that is my experience with these patterns.

  11. #110

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    Vladan, you are right, but I think that now we are getting into unnecessary details. It doesn't matter if we compare that to a horn, string, piano, mallet or any kind of instrument. I am talking about approaching guitar playing in a more musical, instead of more mechanical way.
    In the begining, when you start on guitar, you learn notes on individual strings and develop general sense for "shortening". Then you start using advantage of having more then one string, so you don't have to unnecessarry move arround, you can just switch to another string and "shorten" that one more easy. You start developing sense for switching. Then you start analysing what, where and when are the best and most useful ways, places and moments to switch strings. Then you find patterns and schemes in it. Not because you want to, but because brain works that way, finding patterns all the time, all on it's self. And so on ...

    Still, you never loose that sense for "shortening". On the contrary, it get's developped, becoming better and better over time.

  12. #111

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    Hey aleksander... your missing much about fingerings... and even more about how where you perform notes on the guitar.

    Both fingering and where you play notes can have big differences with a performance. I guessing your just having fun. Those are very standard and obvious facts to most guitar players.

    The points about having a basic reference such as fixed 2nd finger on low 6th string and the resulting fingerings that move up the neck... are somewhat like... when you play a root position 7th chord on piano... the fingering is generally the same in any octave. You obviously don't need to or always have to... but generally when you play a 4 note 7th chord voicing in root position with your right hand.... your going to use your thumb for the root.

    And just as there are basic reference fingerings for playing piano... there are basic reference fingerings for guitar, most just don't know them or have that basic organization on guitar.

    And in the end... the neck becomes one big fingering and guitar players generally think of patterns, because there are very different choices of how to perform music. The process of having to think... flat or sharp notes is an extra step that's not needed if you already have the neck fingerings and patterns already figured out. You don't get confused because you have and understand the entire fret board... it doesn't matter where your playing, you have choices.

  13. #112

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    @Reg, I guess conversations about styles and schools of thought sooner or later reach to a point when it's fair to say - to each his own. I have tried the 7 position scale organization, and for a long time I used to prefer it to the CAGED and 3nps systems, and I discovered the system you are a talking about a long time ago, while I was trying to figure out fingerings for the modes. But as I said, as soon as I started to practice different tonalities, and then add to that the melodic and harmonic minor and their modes, it all became one big mess, because as I said, the fingering for, say, A Dorian, contains the same notes that are in G Ionian (or G major), E Aeolian (or E minor), B Phrygian etc. So I decided to simplify all that, because, as Bruce wisely said: "It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger (that Kurt is showing :P ) or you will miss all that heavenly glory"
    Last edited by aleksandar; 01-28-2016 at 11:17 AM.

  14. #113

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    Any organization of how to finger playing music on guitar can work...it justs needs to be able to repeat. Generally performing jazz you don't want to need to figure out how to play, or need to memorize how to play. Glad to hear you've found that heavenly glory...Would love to hear some .

  15. #114

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    Is this a challenge for a guitar fight? :P Well, let me quote Bruce once again: "The best style of fighting is the art of fighting without fighting."



    Seriously though, I am yet to reach that heavenly glory, actually, to be honest, although I like the view of it. But I am giving you the credit for one thing; I watched that clinic with Kurt, and he is also talking about dividing the neck into visual patterns, and then you start to see the neck as a one big fingering. Great! Works for you, apparently worked for Kurt, but it is not working for me.

    Yesterday I typed in the Google search bar something like "classical guitar positions", and I found a topic on some forum about that, where one guy said the same thing I am talking about. He said that he is coming from a piano background, and he can't relate to the visual patterns, because he thinks of notes as - notes, continuous string of notes. And there are two topics about this on Kurt Rosenwinkel's forum, where one guy, who before starting to play guitar was a trumpet player, said that when he was studying the trumpet, he would first learn the note, and after that he would figure out how to finger it. I am citing now, approximately: "It seems to me that guitarists are learning backwards".

    And I relate to that, because when I was starting with the guitar, I had this book, which, save for the chords section in the middle of it, didn't have no diagrams, nor tabs, just notation. And from that book I learned the C minor pentatonic, the first scale I learned, the first rhythms, extended chords etc. So, this morning I think I found a great material for rediscovering my playing (the educational material tab):

    Alex Noppe - trumpeter, composer, educator

    I can't wait to find the time to immerse into it, because that seems to be the most logical way to study music in my view.

  16. #115

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    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    And I relate to that, because when I was starting with the guitar, I had this book, which, save for the chords section in the middle of it, didn't have no diagrams, nor tabs, just notation. And from that book I learned the C minor pentatonic, the first scale I learned, the first rhythms, extended chords etc. So, this morning I think I found a great material for rediscovering my playing (the educational material tab):

    Alex Noppe - trumpeter, composer, educator

    I can't wait to find the time to immerse into it, because that seems to be the most logical way to study music in my view.
    I looked at Noppe's teaching material. (The name sounded familiar and it turns out I had downloaded one of his 40-page booklets recently.) I haven't read them all yet but I have read enough that he stresses, in this order,: fundamentals, technique, then playing music. He's all about scales, arpeggios, ii-V7-I licks, patterns, what have you. It all seems solid but I didn't see anything that spoke to fingerings, let alone the organization of a guitar's fingerboard.

    By the way, I wrote to Bert Ligon (-a highly regarded jazz educator who also plays guitar) and asked how he advised his students to organize the fingerboard. I hope he responds; if so, I'll mention it here.

  17. #116

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I looked at Noppe's teaching material. (The name sounded familiar and it turns out I had downloaded one of his 40-page booklets recently.) I haven't read them all yet but I have read enough that he stresses, in this order,: fundamentals, technique, then playing music. He's all about scales, arpeggios, ii-V7-I licks, patterns, what have you. It all seems solid but I didn't see anything that spoke to fingerings, let alone the organization of a guitar's fingerboard.

    By the way, I wrote to Bert Ligon (-a highly regarded jazz educator who also plays guitar) and asked how he advised his students to organize the fingerboard. I hope he responds; if so, I'll mention it here.
    That's exactly my point, Mark. I think that the fingerboard will organize by itself once you learn the position of each note on it and when you learn and practice the scales by heart. The thing is, this way you won't be seeing the fretboard in diagrams and sections anymore.

    I like Noppe's material precisely because of that. I think it is well organized, concise material, and you learn all fundamentals you are speaking about through learning songs. Just like when you learn a language. You don't just study the grammar rules all the time, but you learn a rule and then you see how it applies in a text example.
    Last edited by aleksandar; 02-01-2016 at 06:27 AM.

  18. #117
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    That's exactly my point, Mark. I think that the fingerboard will organize by itself once you learn the position of each note on it and when you learn and practice the scales by heart. The thing is, this way you won't be seeing the fretboard in diagrams and sections anymore.

    I like Noppe's material precisely because of that. I think it is well organized, concise material, and you learn all fundamentals you are speaking about through learning songs. Just like when you learn a language. You don't just study the grammar rules all the time, but you learn a rule and then you see how it applies in a text example.
    Piano pedagogy is pretty well established and largely uniform in this regard: fingerings from the very beginning. Guitar and piano aren't quite the trumpet. I'd have to see the book myself, and I'm sure the guy who wrote it knows something about playing.

    But everything YOU'RE saying is purely hypothetical, based on your FEELINGS or whatever. Meanwhile, you're arguing with people who have played and/or taught for years, many for decades. Imagine this conversation in real life , and it would be seem ridiculous.

    You're standing around talking to actual pianists, guitarists, and teachers of the same. I'm sure they would even talk to you about it up to a certain point. But at some point, purely HYPOTHETICAL grows tiring , if you can't already play and read in the way that you're advocating. Of course in real life, people can just walk away when the conversation grows this tedious.

    It may be more helpful for you to go and master this way of reading and playing , so that you can come back and speak from actual EXPERIENCE

    But it is the Internet after all....

  19. #118

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    That is right, it is Internet, and a free conversation board, where everybody is entitled to state his opinion, right? It is not your classroom. I am not arguing or insulting anybody, nor I am challenging your precious authority as a teacher, so no need for such hostility. Somebody may agree with you, somebody may find a truth in what I am saying, but the world won't end because of that.

    As for the experience, well, speaking from experience, I find that every 20-30 minutes that I can shed for guitar practicing these days is much more fruitful in the way I am talking about, because I am not thinking about this string, that fret, that diagram, that finger, but I am just thinking I need this note now - and I am playing the scale all over the neck, note just 2 notes per string, 3 notes per string, but sometimes 4, 5 notes per string, or playing sequences or the whole scale on one string. Much more fun. Speaking from experience.
    Last edited by aleksandar; 02-01-2016 at 07:39 AM.

  20. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    That is right, it is Internet, and a free conversation board, where everybody is entitled to state his opinion, right? It is not your classroom. I am not arguing or insulting anybody, nor I am challenging your precious authority as a teacher, so no need for such hostility. Somebody may agree with you, somebody may find a truth in what I am saying, but the world won't end because of that.
    wasn't speaking for myself in that regard. I'm not a jazz teacher. Furthermore, I wasn't arguing that you didn't have the RIGHT or shouldn't have, but was actually stating inversely that, I guess, you have the RIGHT to do this to yourself on the Internet if you choose. It's somewhat embarrassing, but knock yourself out.

  21. #120

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    You are not a jazz teacher, but your nickname is somewhat suspicious. Anyhow, now you are arguing for the sake of arguing. "Somewhat embarrassing", heh...Whatever, dude.

  22. #121
    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    You are not a jazz teacher, but your nickname is somewhat suspicious.
    You're right, I suppose it's possible that I'm a professional jazz teacher pretending otherwise. Honestly, it's a stupid username that I just pasted from another usage early on , before I knew what I was getting into. Talk guitar otherwise for many years , but I'm not harping on the qualification here. I was talking about others you're arguing with here.

    Quote Originally Posted by aleksandar
    I forgot to respond about the pianist's fingering. Well, pianists may be studying fingerings, but note detached from their contents, as is often the case with the "movable guitar fingerings".
    I don't know. Pianists learn fingerings before context. Every time. There is always the initial "place these five fingers here" when learning piano. The fact that the layout of the piano makes this process much simpler than playing the guitar at the neck is beside the point.
    Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 02-01-2016 at 09:34 AM.

  23. #122

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    You're right,spaz I suppose it's possible that I'm a professional jazz teacher pretending otherwise. Honestly, it's a stupid username that I just pasted from another usage early on , before I knew what I was getting into. Talk guitar otherwise for many years , but I'm not harping on the qualification here. I was talking about others you're arguing with here.


    I don't know. Pianists learn fingerings before context. Every time. There is always the initial "place these five fingers here" when learning piano. The fact that the layout of the piano makes this process much simpler than playing the guitar at the neck is beside the point.
    Well it is not what I meant by suspicious. About the piano, as it can be seen from the links above, every professional method is about learning the intervals, note lengths etc, and in those materials I do not see diagrams or tabs.

    I believe that the 'five fingers here' thing has to do more with the ease of movement of the hand than with some kind of organizing per se, unless the goal is just to learn the melody of Twinkle, twinkle.

  24. #123
    I need to log off for the day I guess. The above quote contains a speech recognition error which I guess is obvious by looking at the words following, But anyway, good luck.

  25. #124

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    This is not a complicated or change the world or even your personal live thread. It's not about being musical.... Being musical comes into play.... WHEN YOU PERFORM.

    The very physical and technical issues about how to learn how the guitar is designed and what are the best techniques to be able to perform on the guitar...is not about being musical. It's about developing the skills to perform on the instrument.

    The design of the guitar is different from other instrument.... Classical approach and technique.... does not work very well for performing Jazz.... it is designed for performing classical music and in other similar styles of performance. Just as classical maj/min functional understanding of how music is organized... doesn't work well for performing jazz.

    This doesn't imply that their wrong etc... they just don't cover all the details needed to perform jazz.

    aleksandar.... if your still looking for answers... you obviously still don't have it figured out. If you do... why are you here?

    This thread is about.... again the very physical aspects or learning how to navigate and understand how to realize music on the guitar.... not about being musical. Basic technique... of which organized fingerings are part... come way before being musical. I understand the act of being musical can come into play anytime if one chooses...But generally when teaching guitar that is a different subject and requires the skills of which this thread was about.

  26. #125

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    OK, Reg, what now I see into play is "defending the thread", or "defending the gospel" or "defending the doctrine" from the "intruder" kind of thing, with all these "why are you here" implyings. Well then, let this be my last post on this thread. I was just commenting on your system, simply saying that, again, instead of concentrating on fingering patterns, diagrams and such, by learning the scales by heart (not necessarily all of them, for start just the ones I need for a particular song) and where the notes are on the WHOLE of the fingerboard, the fingerings are sorting out by itself, I am noticing a better improvement by that, and I am certainly enjoying the process more.

    I mean, bunch of diagrams, which would be handy to fill out 100+ pages in a book, instead of explaining how the chords (or scales) are built, which would take approx 2 to 3 pages might be handy for writing a book, but it does not serve a proper musical purpose.

    But that is just the way I see on things, I am not starting a new religion, as I said jokingly few pages before. So,

    PEACE!