The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Fellow jazz guitarists,

    I hope you all stay healthy during this epidemic.

    Over the 40+ years that I’ve studied jazz guitar I have learned what seems like a million chords — triads, four part chords, etc — and all their inversions up and down the neck. And it’s gotten to the point where, when I solo a single note line, I am always aware of how it relates to some underlying chord shape. And I use the underlying chord shapes and their inversions to move my lines up and down the guitar neck. I don’t think of this as a problem but rather a useful orienting technique. It unifies my chord knowledge with my single note ideas.

    Do others of you have this experience? I think it’s a great means of finding your way around the neck as you connect your single-note lines. And if you practice this intentionally, I’d be interested in any exercise you came up with to support this technique.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Absolutely!

    I don't see chords and scales/lines as separate things. It's all a pool of notes.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rsilver
    Fellow jazz guitarists,

    I hope you all stay healthy during this epidemic.

    Over the 40+ years that I’ve studied jazz guitar I have learned what seems like a million chords — triads, four part chords, etc — and all their inversions up and down the neck. And it’s gotten to the point where, when I solo a single note line, I am always aware of how it relates to some underlying chord shape. And I use the underlying chord shapes and their inversions to move my lines up and down the guitar neck. I don’t think of this as a problem but rather a useful orienting technique. It unifies my chord knowledge with my single note ideas.

    Do others of you have this experience? I think it’s a great means of finding your way around the neck as you connect your single-note lines. And if you practice this intentionally, I’d be interested in any exercise you came up with to support this technique.
    yes, and I do practice it intentionally- I will try to end each line on a chord.

    my ideal is to have a spectrum of possibilities from pure chord playing to single note lines and everything in between so I can adapt to whatever situation is required.

  5. #4

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    Same here. It's the heart of the much-maligned but highly utilized "C-A-G-E-D" system. I keep noticing bop lines that use the core of the chord shape I associate with (say) Amin6/D9/Fm7b5. Also, while learning "Donna Lee" I kept noticing repeated interval sequences in the more "outside" phrases. I plan to have a closer look at those to link the ear to the fingerboard better. As I"ve thought about this specific thing, I keep hearing ghostly voices whispering something that sounds like "Barrrrrryyyy Haaaarrrrriisssss...."

  6. #5

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    Definitely. A lot of people start the other way round, taking the lines from the shapes. Herb Ellis certainly, possibly Joe Pass, etc etc.

    Probably not rigidly all the time, though.

  7. #6

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    On piano it's visually obvious, the chords shapes are linear interval stacks. Not so much on guitar, it's more like a game of Twister, imo.
    Last edited by rintincop; 03-17-2020 at 03:55 PM.

  8. #7

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    The more you do it the easier it gets. More guitar!

  9. #8

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    Wow... what's happening to this forum.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Wow... what's happening to this forum.
    Curious what this means.

  11. #10

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    Sorry... it's that I've been been saying this since I joined this Forum. And usually many get on the melody train and never get off.

  12. #11

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    The only way I could visualise chords tones was to use the CAGED arp but then I'm using CAGED scales!
    I know what I mean

  13. #12

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    In a Joe Pass video he plays a line and then says it comes from the following chord sequence. Then he plays it. The two were related.
    Pass was very big on the necessity to be able to play whatever idea you heard in your head wherever you happen to be on the guitar. (This idea wasn't original with him, but he made more educational books and videos than most other great jazz guitarists, so many students learned about this through Joe.)

    For him, that meant knowing where all the notes are in relation to whatever chord he happened to be playing. (He thought of chords as major, minor, and dominant, with diminished and augmented chords having a dominant function in various situations.)

    Ron Eschete figured out the "CAGED" system from Joe Pass records. (He wondered how Joe could be so fast and accurate, having lines to play wherever he happened to be on the neck, and he figured it out. He later asked Joe about it and Joe said, yes, that's what he's doing. Ron made a video for us at the Forum explaining how he figured this out and how he learned to play in all 12 keys in a six-fret range. Very generous of him.

    Josh Smith (who started out as a strict blues player) learned a lot from Bruce Forman who would ask Josh to play some stock rhythm moves (such as sliding into a chord from a half-step above or below) and then say, "Okay, do that in a melodic line." Josh said when he learned to do that, it really improved the quality of his playing.

    Some of that is in this excerpt:

  14. #13

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    There is an ancient VHS converted to youtube of Joe Pass playing and being interviewed... at one point the guy asks him, "What was that last chord?"

    Joe fingers the chord (stock G13th, rooted on the sixth string G a la 3x345x) and just stares at his hand for about four seconds before he's able to answer; clearly he was not basing his playing on knowing the name of the chord.

    This thread asked about "seeing" chord shapes; hearing them is more difficult to describe, but that's more how it works.

    Seeing chord shapes under lines-sll-jpg

  15. #14

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    Peter Bernstein.

  16. #15

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    I have a few licks that are based on chord shapes. I will occasionally begin an improv, or land somewhere in the middle, based on a chord shape. But, mostly, I don't try to think or play that way. My idea is to imagine a melody and play it -- ideally, without reference to anything about the geometry of the guitar. I can't always do it, but it's the goal. My experience is that when I get away from that notion during a solo (and think to play from a shape or an idea based on some CST type "rule"), that's when the solo heads south.

  17. #16

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    I like the way Peter says 'how about I don't know how it sounds and then just play the shape and hear how it sounds' haha

    He's got some gigs, so I guess it doesn't actually matter ;-)

    In seriousness, I suspect you spend a while being obsessed with the 'hearing what you play' shit and then you start getting lots of gigs, family and NO sleep and then you don't really care any more and just do the thing and the jazz comes out, and its fine.

  18. #17

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    Ron Eschete told me practice all 12 major scales starting from the 6th string but starting on only either the 3rd or 4th fret. Then likewise but from only the 4th or 5th fret . Then 5th or 6th and so on.

  19. #18

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    Audio (only) of a Joe Pass seminar. He talks about playing from "CAGED" forms (as barre forms), etc.