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Re. the chords, it depends what you are using them for. If you are just playing the underlying chords, or 'accompaniment' (called 'comping' in jazz), then you would tend to use chords with root on 6th, the other notes on strings 4,3,2 and skip the 5th string. Or you would use chords with root on the 5th and other notes on 4,3,2.
Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
If however you are trying to harmonise the actual melody of Autumn Leaves, i.e. play chords which have the melody as their top note, this is usually called 'chord-melody'. For this you would tend to use chords with root on the 4th string and other notes on 3,2,1, or chords with root on the 5th and other notes on 4,3,2. Or you can use just about any permutation for chord-melody really, whatever works best.Last edited by grahambop; 04-10-2016 at 04:58 AM.
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04-10-2016 04:55 AM
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These are the chords I was taught by Dave Cliff in my first ever jazz lesson:
Cm7 8x88xx
F7 x878xx
Bbmaj7 6x77xx
Ebmaj7 x657xx
Am7b5 5x55xx
D7 x545xx
Gm7 3x33xx
Each chord contains only 1, 3 and 7. It's a great starting point.
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lawson-stone: believe it or not that is not the most common lick I was thinking of: the one I had in mind would have to be considered an "old blues lick,' but it is played in rock A Lot...If i ever find an example of it on YouTube I'll post it.
dasein: I read you loud and clear but you are nonetheless mistaken--I'm not posting on threads looking for an easy way out: I wouldn't ordinarily mention this because it's all my problem and my concern, but I have suffered great physical and mental damage in years passed and after my accident I had to work my way out of the darkness and into the light. After a long struggle I'm stable, healthy, happy, and even pursuing a dream of mine, a dream that started 13 years ago at Atlanta Institute of Music when I looked down at a fella's hollow body and even though I was a Jackson wielding metal maven at the time the guitar and the tunes found their place in memory so here I am present day determined to learn jazz, and while some things may work against me, time is on my side. Take care---
dort... Not saying I won't not saying I will but maybe I'm serious enough about jazz, which you, and ya'll Don't Own that I will use resources I have, and I have plenty, to teach myself the styles of jazz I want to learn...
grahambop: I'm using the Guitar Grimoire scales and modes for that study, I've got an ebook of Jazz Arpeggios then I play jazz chord progressions from print and perhaps most importantly I go to YouTube and practice chord progressions, improvisations and try to learn tunes. You have shown me some kindness and respect so I am letting you know that I will not be back to the forum and it's good riddance because this is hardly the only place I can talk jazz and I don't care what anybody says There were no "wrong" questions and my feeling I have to leave now is not my fault. But this little let down is a blessing in disguise: from now on instead of wasting time writing posts to people who don't care about what really matters I can spend all my time playing jazz, writing poetry and living my life to the fullest. To those who showed me respect and kindness, thank you and I'll see you at the top. RoscoeLast edited by Roscoe T. Claude; 04-10-2016 at 07:27 AM.
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Roscoe,
A lot of people here for a while were working through the method in a book called "Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing." Here is a sticky with many of the threads:
https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/impro...ead-index.html
It could be a good fit for you. In fact, I believe in the introduction, the author (a teacher at GIT) says it is aimed at people with an extensive background in blues, rock, metal, etc, who want to get into jazz. It's about two things, which are also the two things many people on this thread are advising:
* Learning chord tones (arpeggios) all over the neck in time with chord changes and
* learning vocabulary (licks) to go over common chord changes
You don't really even need to buy the book, although I found it useful. Just perusing those threads might prove useful as you formulate your practice approach.
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No worries Roscoe, just keep on playing and learning and enjoying the journey. There's a great thing Herbie Hancock said, which is that when you struggle with a problem, or you make a mistake, see it as a positive thing. Because you will learn from it and get better. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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So here's an exercise you can try with Autumn Leaves since you're working on that: If you haven't done it already, take a chord (Start with the first chord - Am7) and find all the chord tones all over the neck. Do that with all the chords in sequence. So you want to find every A, every C, E and G. Do the same thing with D7 and GMaj7. Then play over the first phrase using only chord tones. If you want to be really strict, just play quarter notes (like a walking bass line, but without worrying about staying in the low register). The idea here is that you're kind of getting familiar with the "geography" of the progression. You'll start to see moves and obvious points of resolution between the chords. Once you've got the first phrase down where you can do this all over the neck without thinking about it much, move on to the rest of the chords in the song.
Once you can play chord tones on all of the quarter notes, start filling in the off-beats between them with non-chord tones. They can be diatonic notes, or they can be chromatic passing tones. But the idea is that you want to be able to hear how they set up the chord tones. Stick with major scale harmony to start with. Don't worry so much about musicality at first, just get it to work technically. Once you know what works technically, you can start picking out phrases that mean something to you.
Once you've done all this, get the Miles Davis recording, and learn Miles' solo. Pay attention to the stuff Miles did that's different from what you're doing, and think about why he might have made that choice.
At that point, if you think you're getting something out of the exercise, you can either find another tune to work on, or learn another solo (say, Cannonball's) to get some different ideas about what you can do.
This approach really helped me when I was starting out. I mentioned in another post that I tried playing chord scales at first, and they sounded terrible. Working with just chord tones helped me understand an important principle - that scales are a pool of notes you can draw from, but the chord tones tell you what the important notes are, and they give you a strong sense of resolving from chord to chord.
(One of the big differences between jazz and rock is that in rock, the solos tend to kind of float over the accompaniment, whereas in jazz, they're integrated.)
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Roscoe, could you post a clip of your jazz playing as it stands right now? I'd be concerned that modes of melodic minor scales are too advanced if you're also working on the melody for Autumn Leaves.
A clip would help everyone here give you appropriate advice and guidance.
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Hey Roscoe,
Yea performing live jazz is not for most musicians, but you can always just play jazz tunes. Which seems more of a comfortable direction for you.
There are two basic points you should still become aware of...
There are two basic types of practice,,,
1)All the BS I mentioned above, the technical skills and,
2)The use of those skills performing.
And yes...it is all about learning at your own pace. I'm just trying to give you a understanding of where your trying to go, the end of the goal.
I've at least given you very physical details of what performing on guitar in a jazz style usually involves. I didn't really get into rhythmic concepts, and again there is organized very physical details of how to develop those skills...
If you want to be able to perform in a jazz style... without memorizing everything you perform as the method for being able to repeat or perform live. It takes development of technical skills and musicianship.
What generally happens... most guitarist develop skills they like or enjoy etc... and then down the line they become pretty good at what they know. They then spend most of their time trying to force what they already know to cover everything.
It works... Your practice routine sounds cool. MM sweeps are basically just playing chords from MM. There are 7 basic chords constructed from each scale degree. So your have 7 basic sweep shapes, just like sweeps from the other scales.
You might become aware of what each sweep has as a reference... Start with root references.
So your sweeping G-maj7 chord, become aware of the top or bottom note, which ever note you want to become the TARGET NOTE...the note that the sweep approaches or makes most important with reference to root G.
Then move up and be able to make the A-7 sweep be able to have as reference to G-maj7. By being aware of the TARGET NOTE and the filler notes of sweeps... you can control the harmonic implication of sweeps.
Obviously each note can become the target etc...
There is also different organization of harmonic implications when using MM. That means how the chords constructed on each scale degree related to each other. There are a few different harmonic and melodic organizational concepts for using and developing when using MM. Jazz harmony usually doesn't just use maj/min functional organization. MM can become very modal , not just V I function etc...
So sweeps are generally just arpeggios, right. If you take the time to organize arpeggios... they will take care of themselves.
I generally worked on...basic two octaves arpeggios in all seven positions. The guitar repeats after 12 frets right.
The order I used was,
Triads... starting on each chord tone. So that means 2nd position two octaves starting on 3rd fret, 6th string G, up and back down. Then moving up to 6th position and starting on 3rd or "B". The 7th fret, 6th string "B"... playing G triad from fingering of B-7 or 3rd position of 7 basic fingerings... then up to the 5th or "D" up in 9th position.
7th chords... same thing
9th chords... same thing... starts to become more difficult
13th or complete arpeggios... don't really need to start on each degree... but you can just to help be able to hear the difference between playing B-7 with "B" phrygian reference as compared to "G" Ionian reference.
Yea then on to performance skills, being able to perform using what you've been practicing actually playing tunes.
I don't know the comping book you mentioned ... but.... LEARN HOW TO COMP before learning how to solo. Again most guitarist don't know how to comp... your going to be comping most of the time.... we are rhythm section players. If you just want to solo, maybe learn a different instrument. Sorry... not fair statement. But 99 out of 100 guitarist don't have a clue what comping is ... let alone be able to lay something down for a soloist and work with in a rhythm section.
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Hey Roscoe... forgot another important practice detail... when you work on any technique etc... always make sure the exercise fits in a standard rhythmic pattern and form. Generally either in 4/4 or 3/4 and within a typical number of beats or bars. Make the exercise groove rhythmically.
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"give me one
week, or we'll say till next Wednesday to have Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa
and the Melodic modes mastered. Doesn't sound like a lot but I'm setting
a reasonable goal and telling others so I'm obliged to do it."
And maybe by then you might also learn to post a clip of all this for all to savor.
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Yep, one week to master Autumn Leaves, a tune a cat like Chet Baker played for the better part of 40 years...sounds likely.
You gotta slow down and smell the roses, man. It's not a fucking race.
If you do things right, you'll never have mastered anything in jazz. "Good" just keeps getting further and further away as you get better.
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mr.beaumont: Thank you for putting things in perspective for me and letting me know time is on my side--until I'm dead, then I'll be on the other side--I digress. I am so happy that jazz is kind of like a wheel of the Circle of 5th's spinning around never still never mastered: I have always wanted there to be no ceiling on what I do. I am a poet and language is my gift but I feel jazz in my heart and mind and when I see and hear Wes Montgomery playing jazz on an acoustic with nothing but his thumb and fingers I think "Man that's cool!" Jazz blues, Jazz fusion, whatever you call Shakti, I love it so I guess I seem to be in a race to learn it. But if I don't stay up all night playing then crash for a few hours and do it again I will feel I have cheated myself, but, I drink a lot of water and take breaks.
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love it al, listen to it all, play it all. Take it all in. The journey is the destination.
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Got a philosophical bent to you there don't you mr. beaumont?
I mean that as a compliment as it's a rare thing in this world
for someone to have a mentality like yours...most are so
caught up in "be this,get this,no this I want it all?) I'm not
usually like that but I got a fever, and the only prescription
is playing jazz guitar...Now for a music question: When I
get the melodic minor scales down, I mean when I'm confident
with them should I move onto the harmonic minor or spend
more time with tunes? The poet Lynda Hull may or may not
have played an instrument but she often wrote about the jazz
and a quote I remember is "if you don't live it, it won't come
out your horn." That's something to keep in mind I think. Oh
yeah seems like Lynda was a dancer on the jazz scene.
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Not meaning to eat up the thread, but I just tried playing a minor swing at 150 (not too tough, huh?) using root 5th and 6th chords. I know all the basic root four chords but want to get the "bigger" chords down first so I can offer some variation in the tune. Any hey just generally made a mess out of the minor swing but it was my first...I will improve
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You should be working on tunes in parallel with working on technical stuff. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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IMO, At this point, learning some tunes well diatonically is more important than so much focus on scales incorporating chromatics. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
That can come later, after you get an ear.
From another post today:
https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/jazzg...tml#post639697Last edited by boatheelmusic; 04-13-2016 at 05:20 AM.
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Boston Joe, glad to know you think that because it's what I do anyway...
I purchased the ebook Jazz Guitar Arpeggios a week or so ago and I
haven't done scratch with it, so when I get a higher level of mastery
over the melodic modes I'm going to study the arpeggios along with
Autumn Leaves and Blue Bossa (B.B. looked quite simple but I found
it somewhat challenging...probably just me). I used to work on scales
and songs at the same time when I played rock but the tunes were
usually my own as I didn't learn many covers. My goal in jazz is not
to learn the most tunes but to play the best music I can play and
let the rest worry about itself...at the stage I'm at now I see the
importance of learning the masters, but eventually I want to paint
pictures on my own canvas so to speak. Lastly, when I was at guitar
school in Atlanta, all the jazz players I knew taught for a living, either
as a professor or private teacher, depending on their education level.
Forgive my ignorance, but does anybody make a living just playing
jazz (I ask this knowing that the vast majority don't make a living
playing anything). Take care!
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I think you'll find that learning more tunes will help you with your compositions. The best composers I know are also the guys who seem to know every tune in the world. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
Well, I mean, the guys you've heard of do (Metheney, Scofield, Frissel, Stern, etc.), but it's a relatively small pool. I doubt much of anyone in Atlanta is making a living just gigging. I would imagine the only places you can really do it are New York, and maybe New Orleans and Vegas. (That's in the US. I think the prospects might be a little better in Europe.)Lastly, when I was at guitar
school in Atlanta, all the jazz players I knew taught for a living, either
as a professor or private teacher, depending on their education level.
Forgive my ignorance, but does anybody make a living just playing
jazz (I ask this knowing that the vast majority don't make a living
playing anything). Take care!
But even some of the big names still teach. Pat Martino for one. Teaching is a great way of learning, and of solidifying the things you know. (You have to know something pretty well to be able to explain it to others. I know about this. My job is explaining things.) So just because someone is teaching doesn't mean they're not doing decently by gigging.
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The trick with a lot of jazz standards is to look for the common progressions in them, such as ii-V7-I. This simplifies all those chord changes into something easier to understand. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
In Blue Bossa in the key of C minor, the first 2 chords are C minor and F minor, but after that, it's really just three "2-5-1" progressions in a row.
So the next thing you get is Dm7b5, G7, C minor. That's just a 'minor' 2-5-1 turnaround going back to C minor.
Then you get Eb minor, Ab7, Db major. That's just a 'major' 2-5-1 turnaround going back to Db. I just think of it as a chunk of stuff in Eb minor going to Db. Think of it as starting a minor third up from the initial C minor stuff.
Then you get something like Dm7b5, G7, C minor again. Easy because that's the same 2-5-1 as the first time.
So I just think of the whole progression like this:
1) Some stuff in C minor and F minor, returning back to C minor (using a 2-5-1).
2) Some stuff in Eb minor going to Db (using a 2-5-1).
3) Turnaround back to C minor again (using a 2-5-1).
So the whole tune is just 3 'chunks' to me. If you learn to play lines and phrases on major and minor 2-5-1s, and apply them to different keys, you will find that about 50% of the chord changes in jazz standards contain this stuff.
Which really simplifies things.
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Boston Joe, thanks for reminding me--I saw Pat Metheney in concert way back when I was about 20, and even though he's not a favorite of mine it was still a valid introduction to jazz guitar performance. Back then I was heavy into the acoustic side of John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola (think Friday Night In San Francisco) and I loved real fast playing. I've told this before, but I brought my guitar teacher the album, he listens to it for a minute or so then, as if reaching a grand conclusion, says "Man...licks. If you knew a thousand licks, you could play that!" Ironically I don't remember him teaching me any licks so I sought instruction elsewhere. I could write a thousand licks before I could commit a thousand licks to memory. Wouldn't I remember my own licks? Not without using a mnemonic device---some form of association or link method or chunking like grahambop recommended. There may be several techniques I could use that work but I know one that doesn't: standard blackboard rote, so to speak. I know me, if I use rote I'll get bored and start making up my own music, but like you say the best know the most tunes. It seems to me, and this has been pointed out before, when it comes to learning jazz there is no cook book recipe. I've heard different opinions on scales, tunes, what have you and I don't take any of it with a grain of salt, I just find what works with my practice and go with that.
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Regards your statement that you will "master" the modes of melodic minor by the middle of next week:
I listened to a Hal Galper video recently where he said it took him 15 years to get good at modern, intervallic improvising, and he was a working pro, at a pretty high level-recording with Bergonzi and Scofield, among others, and teacher during this time.
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StanG, I stand corrected: i will TRY to master the melodic modes as well as the other scales, arpeggios and chords of jazz before I perish, but, depending on when I die, that may not prove to be possible. To tell you the truth---I'm not that caught up in being a master of any kind of jazz: a few mins ago after I practiced Autumn Leaves I played a Latin jazz progression that had (I believe) three triad chords and one dominant. I'm gonna try Misty next: slower, more complex chords. Any hey I'm just enjoying the journey and the more listen to jazz the more I get it: most recently when I played Autumn Leaves I looked away from the screen and "felt" the changes, heard the intricacies of the chords what I was getting wrong and right. And there's plenty I need to fix before I start improvising but I love the experience or I wouldn't do it--The only person I can think of who has mastered not only jazz in theory and practice but also every type of music that is sound enough to have a name is Prince. To some he is a mentor, to others an idol, and perhaps to anyone resembling a musician, a god...
a
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That's the whole thing right there. Get those II-V-Is in your bones. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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Roscoe, sounds like you are doing the right thing. From what you say, you have plenty of skills and knowledge, you shouldn't be afraid to start trying to improvise over a tune like autumn leaves--you can't hurt anything.
My advice would be to do it a slow enough tempo that allows you to think of what you are going to play next, and work on targeting chord tones on the next chord--for example, play something over the Cm7 that lands on the A in the F7 chord, then play something that lands on the D, Bb, or F in the Bbmaj7, and so on.
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