The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    I've been doing a lot of work on Pat Martino lines and a "perpetual motion" exercise by David Baker. I really appreciate this group because it gives me the nudge to keep at this and try to post in a timely fashion.

    Haven't experimented much with fingerings. That may change...

    The minor third progressions are the most challenging for me because I'm not used to them but I think they will do me a lot of good, especially when we get to diminished patterns.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #127

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    Quote Originally Posted by android
    Sounds good - i have been going over the history on this thread, so basically, you are just repeating the pattern
    through all notes of the chromatic scale - starting on the 6th string, so is this like 'Arpeggios' where you are sounding out the notes of the chord?

    Thanks
    Andy

    The first 28 exercises are arpeggios moving through four different root cycles (minor seconds, major seconds, minor thirds, fourths).

    There is nothing dictating where you play the patterns on the fingerboard. I'm working with 3 string sets (EAD, ADG, DGB) and different starting fingers for each set of drills. It's really up to you how you want to go through this stuff.

    As far as reading goes, even if you just played everything straight eighth notes, you'd still get a lot out of running the root cycles.

    .

  4. #128

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    Here are the fingerings I'm using for major 2nds in 7th and 8th position. I've decided to stick with non-stretch fingerings for this weeks work.

    For the octave C and Db arpeggios, I ascend with fingers 4 3 2 and descend with fingers 1 2 3


    Major Arpeggios - 2nds - 7th-8th Position.pdf

  5. #129

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    This is a great way to learn to read! It starts with major triads, root, third, and fifth. (Triads are line-line-line or space-space-space in treble clef.) Then you just repeat the pattern on the other chords. It's the same pattern for each chord, and the rhythms (early on, anyway) are the same. So it's really ideal for starting to read music!
    Thanks, think i have a grasp on the basic idea- sounds like this is not a strict thing, as long as you play the correct notes,

    im reading the 1st pattern as C E G C G E C
    so i can start 8th fret low e string,

  6. #130

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    Quote Originally Posted by android
    Thanks, think i have a grasp on the basic idea- sounds like this is not a strict thing, as long as you play the correct notes,

    im reading the 1st pattern as C E G C G E C
    so i can start 8th fret low e string,
    Don't feel badly. I've been on lots of more 'advanced' study groups, learned Jimmy Raney solos, etc. but I'm finding these patterns hard to play fluidly, especially the ascending-descending patterns. It's revealing a bunch of gaps in my knowledge of the fretboard. I haven't posted much because I just don't feel it's worth posting yet, but I will as soon as I can get through it without too many clams.

  7. #131

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    Quote Originally Posted by android
    Thanks, think i have a grasp on the basic idea- sounds like this is not a strict thing, as long as you play the correct notes,

    im reading the 1st pattern as C E G C G E C
    so i can start 8th fret low e string,


    Yes you can start on the 8th fret of the low E string. Then take that pattern of notes and follow the chord progression laid out on top of the staff.

    .

  8. #132

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    Here are the fingerings I'm using for the chromatic sequence. I was going to leave this out of my practice set this week but thought it would be interesting to see how it would go above the 12th fret.

    I'm using only fingers 1-3 except for the ascending F chord where I use my 3rd and 4th fingers The D and E chords use a completely different fingering for ascending and descending.


    Major Arpeggios - Chromatic- 14th Position.pdf



    Looking ahead, I noticed that minor triads get only two exercises. That seems like an afterthought having gone through 12 exercises for major triads. Are minor triads something that jazz players tend to be less involved with?

    .

  9. #133
    Interesting. Ascending/descending triads mostly. .

  10. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    Looking ahead, I noticed that minor triads get only two exercises. That seems like an afterthought having gone through 12 exercises for major triads. Are minor triads something that jazz players tend to be less involved with?.
    Yeah. The book is front loaded pretty heavily with the major stuff. I figure that the beginning is about learning a lot of the rhythms, patterns and cycles etc as much as it is about learning "major". There are also pages like 61 and 80 with instructions for how to apply previous patterns etc.

  11. #135

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Yeah. The book is front loaded pretty heavily with the major stuff. I figure that the beginning is about learning a lot of the rhythms, patterns and cycles etc as much as it is about learning "major". There are also pages like 61 and 80 with instructions for how to apply previous patterns etc.


    I thought maybe that was the case... getting familiar with your instrument in the beginning and with that familiarity going after more complex stuff.

  12. #136
    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    I thought maybe that was the case... getting familiar with your instrument in the beginning and with that familiarity going after more complex stuff.
    To me, major triads are theoretically easier maybe , maybe easier on the brain at first etc., but they're actually technically more difficult to play than the sixth or seventh chords in my opinion.

  13. #137

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    Here are my fingerings for the chromatic sequence in positions 9 and 10. All the fingerings turned out to be pretty straight forward in this location. The Bb chord was a little awkward, so I opted to reach down to the 8th fret for the root on that one.


    Major Arpeggios - Minor 3rds- 9th Position.pdf


    Now to get these all worked up and recorded.

    .

  14. #138

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    A bit of a struggle for me technically and I didn't do myself any favors trying to do it to a swing drum track...


  15. #139

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    To me, major triads are theoretically easier maybe , maybe easier on the brain at first etc., but they're actually technically more difficult to play than the sixth or seventh chords in my opinion.

    I meant more complex harmonically. The minor section seems to jump right into min7 stuff and run through those chords quite a bit. It just struck me as odd that so little focus is given to minor triads.

    .

  16. #140

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    Out of curiosity, has anyone tried playing the examples on single strings?
    Any 2 adjacent single strings would allow completion of each example.
    While doing so is likely to evoke a slower tempo, it offers an opportunity to improve shifting skills.
    Anyway, it is an additional fingering experiment I would suggest giving a try.

  17. #141

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    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    Yes you can start on the 8th fret of the low E string. Then take that pattern of notes and follow the chord progression laid out on top of the staff.

    .
    Thanks. there seems to be a lot of variations on the patterns that can be tried
    just need to memorise so i can at least play through one time!

  18. #142
    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    A bit of a struggle for me technically and I didn't do myself any favors trying to do it to a swing drum track...]
    Sounds great, Frank. Thanks for posting these. I like the swing feel a lot.

  19. #143
    Quote Originally Posted by FwLineberry
    You seem to have this first material under your hands pretty well even in your rough takes. Is that from having gone through this book already or just from general familiarity?
    In thinking about this some more the last couple of days and about something Lawson mentioned above, I thought I would just post my thoughts on some technical aspects. First of all, let me just say that I think this week's patterns are just stinking difficult on guitar. If you can somewhat get through, it doesn't get much more difficult TECHNICALLY in the following weeks IMO. At least not at the same progressive rate.

    The main problems probably aren't chord form problems or fretboard knowledge problems as much as technical. All of these factors contribute to the basic issues of greeting the notes out on time, but personally, I think the technical ones are the biggest bottlenecks.

    I posted a somewhat rambling video on this, but basically to answer Forrest' s question, I DID a lot of work on this stuff the last 2-3 years on other material. It's actually somewhat unrelated musically, but THAT'S the very REASON that I think these issues are mostly TECHNICAL: because the benefits of that work pay off in interrogated musical contexts.

    The main issue with ascending/descending lines in different positions on guitar IMO is mostly to do with THUMB/hand position and awareness. If you find a position which basically works as a kind of better average position for ALL notes in position, it will help overall, even if it feels weaker at first on STARTING notes etc.

    So, whatever feels good for the bottom note, may feel worse for the top note and vice versa. There needs th be a compromise position. I personally like to work on this by playing VERY slowly and not lifting a finger from its previous location until absolutely necessary. This teaches your hand a good position for the ENTIRE position, rather than just the starting pitch(es). I personally wonder about the likelihood that mostly problems with descending lines stem from playing them with an ascending-favoring hand position etc.

    Also, shifting up or down a fret/frets can wreak havoc (at least for me). I finally got around most of this a couple of years ago by making one mental switch: I stopped thinking about where my next FINGER was going to be planted (like index, middle etc) and started beginning with THUMB placement as being the first thought.

    This one visualization adjustment gave me immediate and profound technical improvement with Randy Vincent's shift-intensive exercises.

    Anyway, there are a few other thoughts as well. I personally believe that implementing a few of these earlier on would have saved me some time. So, I thought it'd at least share. Take what you like and leave the rest. :-)


  20. #144

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    I'm having a bit of indecision on how to finger (left hand) some of these exercises. I've never ran across so many difficult left hand fingerings, it makes me wonder about the practicality of these exercises when trying to stay within 5 frets. Usually when I play I tend to skate up and down the fretboard, maybe that's why I don't usually have these fingering issues.

    When learning a classical piece you proceed slowly and figure out the best fingerings to play the piece smoothly.

    When improvising I'm thinking you don't have that luxury, at least once the tempo increases and it's a long string of continous eighth notes or faster I don't have time to figure out the optimal fingering. In the improvising case I would go to my default fingering.

    The following image shows the same notes and position for both measures with one change in the left hand fingering (the numbers above the notes are the left hand fingerings). The first measure is my default and I'll call that my improvising fingering. The second measure is how I would finger those notes if I was memorizing a piece of classical music. The only difference is on the fourth note (G), improvising I play with my 2nd finger which leads to an awkward same finger, same fret, double string skip to the next note (Bb). Playing this as a memorized piece I would use my 3rd finger on that fourth note so I can smooth out the transition to the next note.

    What do you think is better for the purposes of these exercises?
    Attached Images Attached Images Patterns for Jazz study group - March 2019-jc-1-jpg 

  21. #145

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    Hey Matt, we are fellow Squire players. I have a Classic Vibe 50s tele and a Japanese Squire Strat from the mid 1980s. Great values.

    I started that previous post before I saw your post. Both technical, glad that we weren't adressing the same issue.

  22. #146
    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    I'm having a bit of indecision on how to finger (left hand) some of these exercises. I've never ran across so many difficult left hand fingerings, it makes me wonder about the practicality of these exercises when trying to stay within 5 frets. Usually when I play I tend to skate up and down the fretboard, maybe that's why I don't usually have these fingering issues.

    When learning a classical piece you proceed slowly and figure out the best fingerings to play the piece smoothly.

    When improvising I'm thinking you don't have that luxury, at least once the tempo increases and it's a long string of continous eighth notes or faster I don't have time to figure out the optimal fingering. In the improvising case I would go to my default fingering.

    The following image shows the same notes and position for both measures with one change in the left hand fingering (the numbers above the notes are the left hand fingerings). The first measure is my default and I'll call that my improvising fingering. The second measure is how I would finger those notes if I was memorizing a piece of classical music. The only difference is on the fourth note (G), improvising I play with my 2nd finger which leads to an awkward same finger, same fret, double string skip to the next note (Bb). Playing this as a memorized piece I would use my 3rd finger on that fourth note so I can smooth out the transition to the next note.

    What do you think is better for the purposes of these exercises?
    Interesting. This is actually something I'm touching on as well. For me, the default is super important. I've noticed that I basically play much faster and cleaner if I'm using a more awkward default fingering which I actually KNOW, vs less familiar fingerings which may actually solve surface level issues.

    I'm kind of compartmentalizing some of this. I'm taking the opportunity to flesh out less familiar fingerings. I'm imposing somewhat arbitrary "rules" for patterns and fret ranges etc for the purpose of keeping things simpler for my own understanding.

    Anyway, it's complicated. Shedding the transition between 2 patterns which are giving trouble pays a lot of benefits toward unrelated technical situations down the road. The fear of lost opportunity cost thing can really way heavily if you haven't experienced enough of this. I always hear things like "When are you going to play a chromatic chord sequence in 12 keys that way in real music?" etc. Those kind of things always strike me as coming from a place of never hanging seen a technical process through to its end.

    Sorry to ramble. Whatever you're doing seems to be working, Frank. Very relaxed looking left hand and good technique from what I can see.

  23. #147

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    In thinking about this some more the last couple of days and about something Lawson mentioned above, I thought I would just post my thoughts on some technical aspects. First of all, let me just say that I think this week's patterns are just stinking difficult on guitar. If you can somewhat get through, it doesn't get much more difficult TECHNICALLY in the following weeks IMO. At least not at the same progressive rate.

    The main problems probably aren't chord form problems or fretboard knowledge problems as much as technical. All of these factors contribute to the basic issues of greeting the notes out on time, but personally, I think the technical ones are the biggest bottlenecks.

    I posted a somewhat rambling video on this, but basically to answer Forrest' s question, I DID a lot of work on this stuff the last 2-3 years on other material. It's actually somewhat unrelated musically, but THAT'S the very REASON that I think these issues are mostly TECHNICAL: because the benefits of that work pay off in interrogated musical contexts.

    The main issue with ascending/descending lines in different positions on guitar IMO is mostly to do with THUMB/hand position and awareness. If you find a position which basically works as a kind of better average position for ALL notes in position, it will help overall, even if it feels weaker at first on STARTING notes etc.

    So, whatever feels good for the bottom note, may feel worse for the top note and vice versa. There needs th be a compromise position. I personally like to work on this by playing VERY slowly and not lifting a finger from its previous location until absolutely necessary. This teaches your hand a good position for the ENTIRE position, rather than just the starting pitch(es). I personally wonder about the likelihood that mostly problems with descending lines stem from playing them with an ascending-favoring hand position etc.

    Also, shifting up or down a fret/frets can wreak havoc (at least for me). I finally got around most of this a couple of years ago by making one mental switch: I stopped thinking about where my next FINGER was going to be planted (like index, middle etc) and started beginning with THUMB placement as being the first thought.

    This one visualization adjustment gave me immediate and profound technical improvement with Randy Vincent's shift-intensive exercises.

    Anyway, there are a few other thoughts as well. I personally believe that implementing a few of these earlier on would have saved me some time. So, I thought it'd at least share. Take what you like and leave the rest. :-)

    Thanks for posting. I'm enjoying your rambling videos too.

    I think you've got a very good point about thumb position. That's something I'm struggling with at the moment. My hand positions have gone to pot. A combination of age, getting too fat and the last seven years hanging on to a steering wheel for ten hours a day as a long haul truck driver have left my hands and wrists pretty stiff.

    I gave up playing electric that entire time. Now that I've dug them back out of the cases I'm having a hard time making friends with them again. I haven't found the right strap height or angle to work from yet.

    One thing that I do like about doing these arpeggio drills is it's helping me to get some relaxation and positioning back into my hands.



    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    I'm having a bit of indecision on how to finger (left hand) some of these exercises. I've never ran across so many difficult left hand fingerings, it makes me wonder about the practicality of these exercises when trying to stay within 5 frets. Usually when I play I tend to skate up and down the fretboard, maybe that's why I don't usually have these fingering issues.

    When learning a classical piece you proceed slowly and figure out the best fingerings to play the piece smoothly.

    When improvising I'm thinking you don't have that luxury, at least once the tempo increases and it's a long string of continous eighth notes or faster I don't have time to figure out the optimal fingering. In the improvising case I would go to my default fingering.

    The following image shows the same notes and position for both measures with one change in the left hand fingering (the numbers above the notes are the left hand fingerings). The first measure is my default and I'll call that my improvising fingering. The second measure is how I would finger those notes if I was memorizing a piece of classical music. The only difference is on the fourth note (G), improvising I play with my 2nd finger which leads to an awkward same finger, same fret, double string skip to the next note (Bb). Playing this as a memorized piece I would use my 3rd finger on that fourth note so I can smooth out the transition to the next note.

    What do you think is better for the purposes of these exercises?

    I opted for the second fingering for the purposes of this approach. In a live playing situation, I would most likely go to the Bb with my index finger rather than go for the G with my ring finger. I've been approaching these exercises more as etudes, though.

    .

  24. #148

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    To note the obvious... these patterns highlight precisely the challenge of playing guitar. On a horn, or on a piano, the notes are just one one place. Middle C is only at Middle C and one single pattern repeats. The guitar is rich because say, Middle C is in several spots, patterns shift, the geometry as it were is much more complex until one has the "Reg Moment" in which the entire fingerboard coalesces into one position. My efforts on this are still humiliatingly awkward, but exactly where they get awkward is where I need to be working, so it's all good. I don't make a living at this, which is probably a good thing.

  25. #149

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    Holy cow... It's funny, because I was gonna make a post about the technical aspects of these exercises and how I had pretty much decided to go back to horn playing...

    First of all, my time got very limited over the last week and a half and it's spreading into this week as well.

    I finally got through 5 and 6 to the 160 tempos in all permutations and boy, I'm running in to all kinds of technical aspects that are showing up as weak points in my playing. I'm currently getting 7 and 8 up to tempo and looking ahead to the next couple of patterns. Sorry for not posting my examples as I want to stay current with the accountability aspect of this but I have been swamped lately and it's been rough. But I will get some examples up soon.

    I'm trying to use my best intuition with regard to fingering - balancing what I perceive to be logical finger choices vs not giving up on something just because it's so dang difficult. I've made progress and some things that were seemingly impossible have gotten better. I agree, it's not about fretboard knowledge and it's much more about fingering choices and practicality.

    So, I'm trying not to fall apart here at the seams and I've relaxed on a few ideas about strict position. I've gone to a more general approach of playing in a wider area to solve some fingering issues while trying to maintain some logic of moving through the various pattern intervals.

    The short story is I'm trying not to get too hung up on confusion of fingering choices at the cost of moving through the book at a reasonable pace and simplifying my approach a little bit so I can proceed with the larger benefit, in my mind anyway, of understanding the relationships of movement in the various intervals. I feel in general these are early phase growing pains and I am benefiting in a satisfactory way from this study. For example, I didn't catch on initially that the minor third intervals were moving in 4ths and once I had resolved this it got easier to navigate.

    Re: Minor triads - I read on page 26 (around pattern 40 something) that the student can adjust the scale degrees, like flatting the third to suit minor lines when practicing these exercises over real chord changes so I think some aspect of this is left up to us to explore further on up the road. Also, when we get to 7th chords, we will naturally be playing minor triads as part of the chord extensions too. Right now I'm content to go along with this study as written and exploring this further after I get over the technical bumps that I'm running in to right now.

  26. #150
    Here's my proposed schedule for April:

    April 7: 13-15
    April 14: 16-17
    April 21: 18-21
    April 28: 22-23

    That breaks up the odd 5-patterns for the next would-be grouping and might allow a breather and some catch-up time for this week, as it's one of the more difficult ones IMO. The 6th chord patterns should be much more manageable really.

    Please post late rather than never. I always posted late on practical standards and wished others would as well. I actually love it when newcomers post their progress on fep's Modern Method threads, years later. I think that's the way it should be for something like that.

    Thanks for all of the great posts and input the last couple of days. I think the more we post and discuss very specific issues or problems, the better the thread will be.