The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hello folks,

    I’m looking for tips/advice regarding polyphonic improv. How do you change keys? Are you thinking about specific chords or voice-leading?

    here is a short improv I filmed last week to give you a sense of where I’m at.



    Edit (after reading all the comments you kind folks took the time to write): There have been a lot of helpful recommendations re: videos/books. I've watched all the videos you folks recommended and I'm trying to decide which book to start with. I'm still sorting out my tone, and so I really appreciate the compliment, good to know I'm on the right track (blend of a large diaphragm condenser on f-hole and a solidstate amp). I have been playing Strats most of my life (despite studying mostly jazz), and so I'm still discovering how to play a full hollowbody. Krantz was one of my early influences and I was fortunate to study with him for a few years. A lot of my improvisations tend toward more rhythmically and harmonically interesting (to me anyway) ideas than melodic. As a practiced meditator I have tried to bring some of those elements into my musical practice. You can always tell I'm in the flow when I start accidently grunting.

    I think the conversation re: polyphony vs counterpoint is interesting, and I'm honestly not sure where I stand. I studied 8-string Charlie Hunter style guitar for a few years and got pretty comfortable walking simple basslines or bossa grooves and improvising melodies on top. I'm also competent at walking bass and comp changes. I studied fingerstyle and counterpoint extensively in University (jazz/classical guitar major). All of these elements have informed what I guess I'm referring to as 'polyphony'. I feel comfortable analyzing the theory behind the music I look at, but I struggle to improvise true counterpoint (Jostein Gulbrandsen comes to mind), which as one poster pointed out, feels like a pastiche coming from me. So I suppose I'm trying to practice a variety of different elements; walking bass/comping, improvising melodies w/ bassline, chord-melodies, and reading various Bach. Then when it comes time to improvise a piece I'm putting it all together subconsciously in an effort to create something new that sounds like what I'm hearing in my head.

    Thanks again to everyone who took the time out to give me a listen and help point me in new directions. This was my first time posting in the forum (long time lurker) and It's nice to see how helpful and supportive everyone is.
    Last edited by Hartguitars; 01-26-2023 at 04:14 PM. Reason: Update

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I liked that, and the tone is lovely. At parts it reminded me of the rhythmically clever style of Wayne Krantz.

    I personally try to have both a melodic and harmonic movement, so I don't feel it being static for too long. Not thinking about specific chords, more like "what would sound good here" or "what would sound surprising here". Kind of trying to find a balance between tension and release. It doesn't always work, but it's a semi-conscious awareness. Trying to maintain the polyphonic aspect is not that easy, and to help that, I practice certain fingering combinations and phrases, to get them ingrained so I can use them as building blocks.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hartguitars
    Hello folks,

    I’m looking for tips/advice regarding polyphonic improv. How do you change keys? Are you thinking about specific chords or voice-leading?
    some nice ideas in that video and I enjoyed the meditative vibe you have. I’m mostly hearing this as a linear spontaneous composition. When I think of polyphonic it’s more about contrapuntal movement and orchestral inner voice movement within some harmonic stacks. Not to say all chords all the time, far from it. By any chance, if you’ve listened to any of the vids I post here i very much like to go to the poly side of things.

  5. #4

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    See if you can find some things from Jimmy Wyble (not sure I spelled the last name correctly).

  6. #5

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    Some cool playing there, but I’m not hearing much in the way of polyphony. Nice, though.

  7. #6

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    Here's a transcription I found on YouTube of Wyble doing Out of Nowhere. Really really nice. Wyble published etudes demonstrating his approach. Could be worthwhile to get those!


  8. #7

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    Nice playing and very cool improv. As other have said very Krantz. As others have said, I’m not hearing a huge amount of polyphony, which I understand to mean different voices intertwining and complementing each other on the guitar

    Atm I’m playing a load of Bach; working on a couple of two part inventions. There’s also a three voice fugue transcription by Ted Greene from the Well Tempered Clavier. These certainly open up possibilities of ways to express chords in a contrapuntal texture and how to embellish chords into more linear sounding ideas in various voices; even if the aim is not to pastiche a baroque style but play more modern music.

    One problem I find with this in general is jazz guitarists often tend to play such pieces as a succession of chords and it can be hard to hear the different voices in the way you can with a good pianist or classical guitarist. So part of it is definitely learning to play written polyphonic music in such a way as it sounds polyphonic. Which is a whole area in itself. This may in fact be less about technical aspects but more musical ones.

    Even with a single note approach it may be possible to suggest many voices in the manner of a solo Bach partita. Atm I’m looking at the partita for solo flute. The way Bach uses leaps and ostinato figures is worth careful study I think. One way of working up to more ‘fugal’ or imitative counterpoint improvisation might be to play a little subject or motif in different registers, keys and scalar positions, answering yourself.

    I think Gilad Heckselman has done a lot of work on this stuff? Doesn’t he have an instructional vid out?

  9. #8

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    I think you're got to be pretty good to play/improvise polyphonic lines on the fly! That sort of thing is usually worked out beforehand.

    As for changing key, it's normal to introduce, however briefly, the V7 of the new key, but not obligatory. You could simply move to a chord which occurs in both the current key and the new one and go from there.

    CM7 - Dm7 - Em7 - A7
    Dm7 - Gm7 - C7 - FM7
    BbM7 - Cm7 - Dm7 - EbM7
    Dm7 - G7 - C6 - %

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Nice playing and very cool improv. As other have said very Krantz. As others have said, I’m not hearing a huge amount of polyphony, which I understand to mean different voices intertwining and complementing each other on the guitar

    Atm I’m playing a load of Bach; working on a couple of two part inventions. There’s also a three voice fugue transcription by Ted Greene from the Well Tempered Clavier. These certainly open up possibilities of ways to express chords in a contrapuntal texture and how to embellish chords into more linear sounding ideas in various voices; even if the aim is not to pastiche a baroque style but play more modern music.

    One problem I find with this in general is jazz guitarists often tend to play such pieces as a succession of chords and it can be hard to hear the different voices in the way you can with a good pianist or classical guitarist. So part of it is definitely learning to play written polyphonic music in such a way as it sounds polyphonic. Which is a whole area in itself. This may in fact be less about technical aspects but more musical ones.

    Even with a single note approach it may be possible to suggest many voices in the manner of a solo Bach partita. Atm I’m looking at the partita for solo flute. The way Bach uses leaps and ostinato figures is worth careful study I think. One way of working up to more ‘fugal’ or imitative counterpoint improvisation might be to play a little subject or motif in different registers, keys and scalar positions, answering yourself.

    I think Gilad Heckselman has done a lot of work on this stuff? Doesn’t he have an instructional vid out?
    Great post.

  11. #10

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    Coincidentally the other week I shared a memory on facebook which was a video of Julian Lage discussing polyphonic jazz guitar -

    Facebook

    And here is a article by Lage about it -

    Digging Deeper: Learning Tunes in Three Dimensions - Premier Guitar

    I also recommend Martin Taylor's books Beyond Chord Melody and Walking Bass For Jazz Guitar.

  12. #11

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    To change keys introduce a note from the new key before the actual key change then use a little 251 or 451 etc in the new key to arrive.

    I'm very interested in improvising in a polyphonic style. As mentioned above study Bach and get Martin Taylors Beyond Chord Melody book.

    The following video is based on Martins book where you have bass movement, inner voice movement and the melody line not happening all at once though.

    Nice playing btw


  13. #12

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    I haven't actually found a good recording of anyone well-known playing polyphonic lines on the fly. That is, two distinct melodies intertwined yet not contradicting each other. Plus, I assume, with a harmonic or partly harmonic background.

    If anyone could do it, it would probably be Julian Lage though there may be others.

    Incidentally, I'm not convinced that counterpoint is the same as polyphony. I see most contrapuntal sounds as being support lines
    rather than melodies in their own right. Perhaps one could say all contrapuntal melodies were polyphonic but not all polyphony is contrapuntal...

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I haven't actually found a good recording of anyone well-known playing polyphonic lines on the fly. That is, two distinct melodies intertwined yet not contradicting each other. Plus, I assume, with a harmonic or partly harmonic background.

    If anyone could do it, it would probably be Julian Lage though there may be others.

    Incidentally, I'm not convinced that counterpoint is the same as polyphony. I see most contrapuntal sounds as being support lines
    rather than melodies in their own right. Perhaps one could say all contrapuntal melodies were polyphonic but not all polyphony is contrapuntal...
    'Anyone well-known playing polyphonic lines on the fly' strikes me as an odd sentence. Presumably you possess a good recording of someone unknown doing that?

    I know of this, at least:


  15. #14

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    Well, I'm sure we can find lots of videos of unknowns trying to do it :-)

    The Ben Monder, of course, is very good, I'd forgotten about him. I'm not sure what he's doing but it's certainly good, thanks.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I haven't actually found a good recording of anyone well-known playing polyphonic lines on the fly.
    Mark Kleinhaut – Polyphonic Guitar

  17. #16

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    Okay, not bad, what now?

  18. #17

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    I think the Muthspiel/Goodrick was probably true polyphony. Not solo, but I don't think that matters.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I haven't actually found a good recording of anyone well-known playing polyphonic lines on the fly. That is, two distinct melodies intertwined yet not contradicting each other. Plus, I assume, with a harmonic or partly harmonic background.

    If anyone could do it, it would probably be Julian Lage though there may be others.

    Incidentally, I'm not convinced that counterpoint is the same as polyphony. I see most contrapuntal sounds as being support lines
    rather than melodies in their own right. Perhaps one could say all contrapuntal melodies were polyphonic but not all polyphony is contrapuntal...
    the way I understand it, polyphony is many voices going on at the same time, while counterpoint is the art of combining polyphonic lines.

    So the former describes a textural feature of the music, and the latter describes the compositional approach used to write it if that makes any sense and to me. (i.e. Palestrina is Renaissance polyphony, species counterpoint is a way to study Palestrina’s technique. Bach fugues are polyphonic compositions written with virtuoso contrapuntal technique, and so on.)

    On the other hand there are polyphonic styles of music which don’t use counterpoint technique - perhaps modern classical works, or Gamelan music for example. Traditional jazz frontlines and so on, some free jazz ensembles etc.

    You would also see contrapuntal principles applied in homophonic music such as Bach Chorales and so on.

    usually I think jazzers say counterpoint when they actually mean ‘polyphonic texture.’

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vihar
    lol, well, I try, don’t I.

  21. #20

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    Check this colleague of mine:

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    the way I understand it, polyphony is...
    I don't think there's any need for personal interpretation, all the dictionaries make it very clear what it is. I looked it up exhaustively before I posted!

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I don't think there's any need for personal interpretation, all the dictionaries make it very clear what it is. I looked it up exhaustively before I posted!
    if that satisfies you. Otoh many dictionaries give what I regard as a bad definition of musical improvisation, for example, so ….

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    if that satisfies you. Otoh many dictionaries give what I regard as a bad definition of musical improvisation, for example, so ….
    Och, the whole world's out o' step except our Willie :-)

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Och, the whole world's out o' step except our Willie :-)
    Said without a trace of irony?

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    None at all.

    Anyway, gird your loins. You must correspond immediately with all the dictionaries and other resources that you consider misguided and tell them so. Who knows, if they are swayed by your faultless insight you may be immortalised in future editions for decades to come!

    Dear OED,

    Hello, I'm Christian, and your definitions of polyphony suck so I'm going to put you right. It's like this...
    Well I don’t know that I spend much time thinking about dictionary definitions for things that are quite multifaceted. Speaking of which - the dictionary definition of jazz! Do you know I’ve never looked it up….

    jazz

    noun
    • a type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. Brass and woodwind instruments and piano are particularly associated with jazz, although guitar and occasionally violin are also used; styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz.

      Not terrible… Could have saved us the fuss of all those arguments over the years! (Or not - given a lot of jazzers don’t even agree it’s a noun…. :-))


    perhaps I’m stretching a little bit, re counterpoint (especially since the explanation I gave fits in with the dictionary def anyway) but tbh the wider point is I don’t really care about dictionary definitions that much when it comes to musical stuff.

    Dictionaries are clever in how they boil info down though so people can get a surface level gist of the word; but they won’t get its nuances (see also - why Thesauruses suck.)

    So…. the dictionary definition of musical improvisation (this is randomly chosen but most of not all are similar):

    a performance that an actor, musician, etc. has not practised or planned:

    does not really describe what any of us do … maybe some situations more than others, but not all. It’s pretty bad. although tbf it may describe what you do quite well. I don’t know. Less so Miles Davis etc.

    for everyday use the definition is probably perfectly fine. For understanding how musicians come up with jazz it’s not helpful. Luckily no one uses the dictionary as a how to guide for playing and composing music.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 01-26-2023 at 03:13 PM.