The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    For me the augmented scale mostly means whole tone playing, but I've worked a bit with the diminished. Say you have a G7 dominant chord resolving to a Cmaj7 tonic. Martino would play lines over a D-7 shape. But by thinking diminished scale over the G7, you arrive to 3 more dominant chords to serve as a dominant motion resolving to the tonic chord. These would be Bb7, Db7 and E7 (these chords are contained in the G half-whole diminished scale). So over the original G7 - Cmaj7 progression (or even as more outside playing over a single Cmaj7 chord), we now superimpose E7 - Cmaj7 (B Dorian lines), or Db7 - Cmaj7 (Ab Dorian lines), or Bb7 - Cmaj7 (F Dorian lines).

    Substitute melodic minor for Dorian and you have different colors to work with. Or one can play more modern and just combine triads or arpeggios of the four dominant chords.

    Martino demonstrates all that towards the end of his second videotape lesson. I wish he'd spent more time on his clinics talking about that and not about chord building. The way he does it is incredible!

    Wes does a lot of that too, but not so much of it is based on minor shapes, and you don't hear so much of outside playing either. There are a lot of traditional bebop vehicles aka working with chords and chord movements in Martino's approach.
    I hear what you say. In fact, I'm pretty sure this subject has been discussed on the forum before.

    Knowing one can sub in m3rds isn't new - i.e. G7, Bb7, E7, Db7. It can be explained in other ways too. Bb7 is the backdoor, E7 is borrowed from the relative Am and gives a 13b9 effect, Db7 is the tritone.

    Similarly, D, F and Ab melodic minors are all recognised subs over G7. B melodic I'm definitely not sure about and that may be one of those cases where the theory breaks down.

    Whole-tone scales simply repeat themselves up the neck, of course.

    The way he does it is incredible!
    Well, that's just it. That's the genius playing of Pat Martino. It's not because these ideas are revolutionary.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by DS71
    Which video? Would like to check this out.
    thanks!
    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    I believe it was his earlier vhs "creative force" series video lessons, the second one, or the last one. You can find it on YouTube


    Is this the section you're referring to?


  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    There seem to be three prevalent ideas.

    One is that altering one note in diminished chords yields dom7 chords - i.e. Eo = Eb7, F#7, A7, C7.

    The other is that altering one note in augmented chords yields both major and relative minor chords - i.e. E+ = E/G#m, C/Am, Ab/Fm.

    The third is about playing ii over V - i.e. Dm7 over G7. But I think we knew that, it's not something new.

    That's about the size of it with one correction. Pat details how he plays minor fingerboard shapes over everything, not just ii over V. So really ii over ii, ii over V and iii or vi over I.

    To be fair, though, I never get the impression that Pat is coming off like he thinks he has the secrets of the universe figured out. It's just that people won't except "I play minor fingerings and make it work over everything" as an answer. They keep asking him how he does it.

    Several books, magazine articles, instructional videos, and internet discussions later, and it still really comes down to those three areas. Only the third area really holds any clue for the person trying to play like Pat, but that gets obscured by focus on the other two areas and trying to figure out what Pat is getting at.



    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    As regards the dim/aug thing, it's theoretically quite right but I'm not sure what the practical application is. We all know a 7b9 is tantamount to a diminished chord but the augmented thing eludes me. Playing aug scales/notes over major chords isn't something I do a lot. Playing them over minor chords is valid, though, as it creates a harmonic/melodic sound. That I do use.

    Pat waxes on in his True Fire course about approaching the guitar with a child's curiosity. Having gone through his miraculous recovery from his brain aneurysm, I don't doubt that he's speaking with some experience. His medical condition may be what inspires his fascination with geometric patterns philosophically and symmetry on the guitar fingerboard.

    One way of looking at this stuff is that it's just a way of arriving at the basic chord forms. Telling somebody to drop a note a half step in an augmented chord to get a major chord isn't really any different than telling somebody to drop a note a half step in a major chord to get a minor chord. They're just different forms of organization.

    I've never spent a lot of time messing around with augmented chords, so one thing I picked up from Pat demonstrating the connections between augmented triads and major/minor triads is that I can voice lead through Caug to get from Cmaj to Fmin, Amin or Dbmin. That's something I can use compositionally.



    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Spending aeons finding all the different combinations to me is just a theory-game. I'd rather get on with playing music. If a tune calls for a M7#5 I can find it, it's not something difficult.

    All subject to correction, naturally; I could well be missing something. All responses welcome.

    That's why I think only the third idea as you laid them out above is valuable for somebody who just wants to draw some influence from Pat and play over standard chord progressions.



    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I hear what you say. In fact, I'm pretty sure this subject has been discussed on the forum before.

    Knowing one can sub in m3rds isn't new - i.e. G7, Bb7, E7, Db7. It can be explained in other ways too. Bb7 is the backdoor, E7 is borrowed from the relative Am and gives a 13b9 effect, Db7 is the tritone.

    Similarly, D, F and Ab melodic minors are all recognised subs over G7. B melodic I'm definitely not sure about and that may be one of those cases where the theory breaks down.

    The thing that I picked up from Pat harping on the minor third diminished sequence that I've never seen mentioned anywhere else is the graduating level of "outside" tension when looking at melodic minor over a dominant chord:

    Pat's D minor over G7 = MM up a 5th = 1 9 3 #11 5 13 b7

    Pat's F minor over G7 = MM down a whole step = 1 b9 3 11 5 13 b7

    Pat's Ab minor over G7 = MM up a half step = 1 b9 #9 3 b5 #5 b7

    Pat's B minor over G7 = MM up a major 3rd = b9 #9 3 #11 5 13 7


    This may have more relevance to playing over non-functional or modal dominant chords than functional dominant chords.

    .

  5. #29

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    Pat uses the diminished 7th chord and augmented triad as his starting point to organize the neck because they are symmetrical., They invert automatically as you move them up the neck, with no need to adjust your fingering. He compares this to the white keys of the piano, where the C major scale just 'happens' automatically. It's more about finding a consistent way to invert major/minor triads and dominant 7th chord voicings than a 'play augmented over major' strategy. Whether it's grounding or cumbersome to approach the neck this way is a matter of individual taste....

    PK
    Last edited by paulkogut; 01-04-2019 at 07:36 PM.

  6. #30

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    Is this the section you're referring to?
    yeah i think he goes through it somewhere towards the middle of the tape..

    Well, that's just it. That's the genius playing of Pat Martino. It's not because these ideas are revolutionary.
    Generally i wouldn't disagree with that, or with your analysis, there are always more than one way to see things. However his is still a unique approach, just listen to the playing, and it is a unique concept and style. Of course the basic ideas he approaches are more or less the classic bebop era ideas, fathered by Parker etc.. But to me he does sound very different than most players from his time.

    Personally not many jazz guitarists move me the way Martino does, and i 've always felt each player has some elements in their playing that are their strongest points, and the ones more beneficial/interesting to study. I feel Martino's are the flow and quality of the lines, the technique, the sound. My ideal playing would mix these up with other stuff (and Martino himself used to do that more before the aneurysm).

    .. To me he 's just like Paco de Lucia .. So iconic i don't even need to hear them play, just look at them standing there with a guitar makes me smile, feel good and want to play..

  7. #31
    Pat Martino is a player I want to not like. Too busy. To un-Melodic. Ear fatiguing outside playing. But I can’t. Somehow every time I’m ready to switch him off he plays something so sweet and so right I can’t help but be dragged back in.

    As I said in the OP, if you sort through his pretentious talk his concepts are not that strange. After all, Barry Harris also talks of the chromatic universe, whole tone parents, and diminished siblings. Even Robert Conti, the most blue collar anti-intellectual educator out there talks about playing the minor 5 of 5 for dominants and a minor third above for altered dominants.

    It’s HOW he plays those notes that I think makes Pat unique. When he does these scalar runs. When he skips, holds, swings, and blisters. When it’s chromatic. That’s why I was focusing on the two tiny segments on TrueFire where he talks about how he fingers and how he builds his lines.

    I can’t include those segments here for obvious copyright reasons. I wish I could. But i would love a deeper dive on that aspect of his playing.

    That said, I’ve enjoyed the discussion on his note choices over the changes. I’ve been reading every post and getting a lot out of them.

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    That's about the size of it with one correction. Pat details how he plays minor fingerboard shapes over everything, not just ii over V. So really ii over ii, ii over V and iii or vi over I.
    I use them too! I was only mentioning that one.

    It's just that people won't except "I play minor fingerings and make it work over everything" as an answer.
    Which it isn't, of course. It's one idea and it works.

    the person trying to play like Pat
    They better get a brain condition then. I'm not being disrespectful but we'll never be like anyone else. Or, worse, we'll end up second-rate copycats and I don't see a lot of point in that. Which is not to say we can't pick up stuff from other players.

    His medical condition may be what inspires his fascination with geometric patterns philosophically and symmetry on the guitar fingerboard.
    Possibly.

    Pat's B minor over G7 = MM up a major 3rd = b9 #9 3 #11 5 13 7
    What do you mean 'Pat's Bm'? Has he got a special one?

    B melodic minor (over G7) is:

    R - b9 - 3 - b5/#11 - 5 - 6/13 - 7 (really M7)

    The #9 isn't there and the 7 (M7) is an anachronism. A lot of players use it in the blues because it kind of melds in but it's a risky note... the other notes seem good enough.

    This may have more relevance to playing over non-functional or modal dominant chords than functional dominant chords.
    Yes, I'd go with that, I think. I'm not ruling out B mel but I think it needs care.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    That's about the size of it with one correction. Pat details how he plays minor fingerboard shapes over everything, not just ii over V. So really ii over ii, ii over V and iii or vi over I.
    I have friends who are big Martino fans. Particularly one I study with.

    They always tend to want to say convert to Dorian, but reading through Linear Expressions that seemed incomplete. To me, like you pointed out he converts to minor. Generalizing.


    Page 51 in Linear expressions....
    Under example II he converts CMaj6, Cma7 and Emin7 to a relative minor family.

    And C7(Gm) and Cmin7b5(Ebm6) back to a secondary minor(dorian).


    Bringing II V IV and vii into one related grouping. Say Dorian.

    And vi I and iii into another into another group, natural minor.


    This is kind of how I do it, good or bad.
    But I think of it as a Dominant family and Tonic family.
    Last edited by DS71; 01-04-2019 at 10:53 PM.

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    What do you mean 'Pat's Bm'? Has he got a special one?

    It depends on how you interpret the mandala he provides with all the lines connecting various points on the circle of 5ths.


    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    B melodic minor (over G7) is:

    R - b9 - 3 - b5/#11 - 5 - 6/13 - 7 (really M7)

    The #9 isn't there and the 7 (M7) is an anachronism. A lot of players use it in the blues because it kind of melds in but it's a risky note... the other notes seem good enough.

    B melodic minor is B C# D E F# G# A#

    Over G7 there's no root being played. A# would be the #9.

    As to the M7, the same objection has been raised about playing minor pentatonic ascending in half steps from the ii on a ii V I (minor pentatonic from the b6 of V) but players still do it.
    .

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by rlrhett
    It’s HOW he plays those notes that I think makes Pat unique. When he does these scalar runs. When he skips, holds, swings, and blisters. When it’s chromatic. That’s why I was focusing on the two tiny segments on TrueFire where he talks about how he fingers and how he builds his lines.

    The problem is he never really "gets into" how he constructs those lines. The only thing a person has to work with is dissecting the examples he plays. That's my approach. I'm working my way methodically through the stuff I have access to from oldest to newest. I've got a hundred other things I'm working on at the same time, though, so it's taking a while to progress through the stuff.

    .

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    It depends on how you interpret the mandala he provides with all the lines connecting various points on the circle of 5ths.
    Sorry, don't know anything about the mandala, never seen it. But when you say 'depends how you interpret' that I can relate to. Can I be honest? I don't interpret, period. It's either clear or it's not.

    B melodic minor is B C# D E F# G# A#

    Over G7 there's no root being played. A# would be the #9.
    Agh! My mistake, I was rushing. Quite right, A#/Bb is the #9 of G7, obviously.

    As to the M7, the same objection has been raised about playing minor pentatonic ascending in half steps from the ii on a ii V I (minor pentatonic from the b6 of V) but players still do it.
    Yup, I've seen it done too. I think it's horrible :-)

  13. #37

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    Actually, you can make almost anything work over the V.

    A lot of these things work because they slip neatly up or down into the major, like Ebm - Em, Bbm - Am, F#m - G, Fm - Em, Abm - Am, Cm - Bm, etc (over G7 - CM7).

    It's a bit cheap, though

  14. #38

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    His medical condition may be what inspires his fascination with geometric patterns philosophically and symmetry on the guitar fingerboard.
    I took 2 or 3 lessons with Pat in 1971 or so. I can say with certainty that his interest in symmetry goes back well before his medical situation. His coffee table was filled with books of art, architecture, philosophy and esoterica.
    Fascinating person who developed a very individualistic approach.

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Sorry, don't know anything about the mandala, never seen it. But when you say 'depends how you interpret' that I can relate to. Can I be honest? I don't interpret, period. It's either clear or it's not.


    That was just an attempt at humor on my part. The "mandala" looks like the circle of 5ths that somebody took their Spirograph set to. It was displayed some years ago in this thread:

    Pat Martino Nature of the Guitar


    There's a more elaborate version include with the material from his Creative Force video.
    .

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by bako
    I took 2 or 3 lessons with Pat in 1971 or so. I can say with certainty that his interest in symmetry goes back well before his medical situation. His coffee table was filled with books of art, architecture, philosophy and esoterica.
    Fascinating person who developed a very individualistic approach.

    I didn't mean that as a slight in any way. His fascination with geometry and architecture is part of the appeal for me. I have always visualized music in a geometric fashion.

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by bako
    I took 2 or 3 lessons with Pat in 1971 or so. I can say with certainty that his interest in symmetry goes back well before his medical situation. His coffee table was filled with books of art, architecture, philosophy and esoterica.
    Fascinating person who developed a very individualistic approach.
    That's what I would have said too. He's just got that kind of a brain. He didn't get abducted by aliens after all

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    That was just an attempt at humor on my part. The "mandala" looks like the circle of 5ths that somebody took their Spirograph set to.
    Ah. Coltrane did something similar, I recall. And Leonardo Da Vinci.

    There's a more elaborate version include with the material from his Creative Force video.
    Probably one's enough :-)

    I have always visualized music in a geometric fashion.
    AH! Well, there you go! Explained!

  19. #43

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    The only way I can see to play a bit like Pat Martino is to work on some examples of his playing. I’ve worked on a couple of the patterns in Linear Expressions and the Just Friends solo in the Steve Khan transcriptions book, just those 2 examples have given me a lot of mileage.

    Of course a lot of it is in the way he plays those lines, i.e. heavy strings, amazingly accurate time and powerful forward momentum. Not easy to replicate.

  20. #44

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    I'm a big fan of investigating how diminished and augmented relate to jazz harmonies and discovering ways of using them to support those harmonies. Whether one conceives diminished and augmented as "parental" (primary or fundamental) thus generating dominant chords and major/minor chords as it looks like Pat does, or whether one attributes the parental role to dominant and major/minor chords from which diminished and augmented emerge, or whether one sees all of them as already fundamentally "there" with numerous relationships among them is really a matter of one's personal perspective, growing from one's history of development and the order of which these things were grasp.

    I don't have a system for these things as one playing exclusively by ear, but when I examine what I play I find what could be described. After reading this thread I'm moved to do that a little to encourage discussion and maybe help, so here is a peek using my clumsy way of describing it in the language I don't use when playing... using some of my explorations of Wave this evening as an example.

    D69 - D major

    A#dimb6 - from the 6th G WHdim

    Am7 (A7sus4 better) - from the 6th F# WHdim

    D9 (G# 9b5 or Daug/C better) - continuing F# WHdim (so played through the A to D chord harmony change). This is the kind of thing I like to find - the WHdim starts during the A# chord, slip down a half step with the A# to A chord shift, then stays and holds through the A to D(or G#) chord shift

    G69 - G major

    C13 - Lydian Dominant or E WHdim

    F# 13/E - from the 9th G#aug or from the 6th D# WHdim (what is happening here and with the next three chord shifts provides a wide expanse of complex possibilities from what is really a very simple scheme)

    Baug/A - from the 9th Gaug or from the 6th D WHdim

    E13/D - from the 9th F#aug or from the 6th C# WHdim

    Aaug/G - from the 9th Faug or from the 6th C WHdim

    (Hope I got all of that right)

    Things I notice here:

    - dominant harmonies that I hear supported by both augmented and diminished lines

    - one -> four change series that I hear supported by chromatic descension of either augmented or diminished lines

    Things I have noticed generally:

    - I never use the whole tone scale; closest I get is the five contiguous notes of Lydian Dominant separated by whole tones

    - I found Lydian Dominant before Melodic Minor or Altered, so backwards from convention I hear those as "modes" of Lydian Dominant

  21. #45

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    have you seen my videos on the subject? I have a lot of pat martino lessons on my youtube site as well as discussions on inside / outside playing. A lot of it is based on copying (and studying with) martino.