The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    I'm not so sure, if the band were playing a tune at 80bpm and he knew breaks at 120 then I think he would have zero problem playing them, but if Happy Traum asks him he doesn't. But why not keep a little mystery ? He defined the sound of a style and didn't get paid as well as he deserved.

    Perhaps it is MOST important to remember that even if Tony couldn't describe it that don't mean that it can't be described.

    By the way thanks for the heads up on that channel with Tony's talk on I just watched this John Hartford and am completely blown away. The best time feel exercise ever is demonstrated at the start and then whenever he feels like it, I just gotta get some tap shoes and a sand board, I'm only about forty percent joking.

    It is amazing that Hartford has such complete control over and independence between the different levels of rhythm in music, his voice calm and slow soaring freely and his feet padding away at 140 in semiquavers. What a master he was !!!



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  3. #27

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    Spancil Hill, not Shady Grove. Shady Grove is bitonal ( six note scale Minor Tonic triad plus the magor triad on the flattened seventh) and So is Spancill Hill I think that is what you are hearing.

    There are more bitonal fiddle tunes than modal ones.

    Spancill Hil has a completely different Harmonic rhythm from Shady grove in fiddle tune rep, it's one of the things that makes seven note scalar theory inappropriate for Bluegrass, it violates of the melody by adding the sixth from either the dorian or aeolian mode.

    Lydian augmented fourth is nice though for variety (OOPS, I meant Dorian augmented fourth, sorry)

    I LOVE shady grove, play it most days, real challenge to improvise over without violating the form.

  4. #28

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    Talking about Blackberry Blossom, anyone seen this? Don't just pop in, stick with it to the end. You'll see why.

    Heh heh


  5. #29
    David is a machine. One of the best at the style. This is most likely at their annual convention in Nashville in 2011. I remember seeing him jamming in that shirt in that hall.


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  6. #30

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  7. #31

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    I've had a great time reading this thread with 'jazzers' trying to describe and analyze bluegrass music - it's been a real hoot. If you want to understand bluegrass music, go spend a weekend at Galax during the fiddler's convention and maybe, just maybe, you'll figure it out. You don't learn this music, you grow up with it in your psyche - it's part of your heritage and is not to be analyzed and taken apart note by note - it's to be played, enjoyed and danced to - not explained by some musicologist who sees it as just some aboriginal art form to be examined as one would an amoeba. I was fortunate enough to know the whole Rice family - dad Herb (mandolin player), Ronnie (bass), Larry (RIP, mandolin), Wyatt (a monster player at 10 years old!) - never got to meet Tony, though. This music was in their blood - it was part of them - they didn't have to learn it. I think you'll find that true bluegrass music is multi-generational and passed down through families. True, Tony Rice may not read music but I'd defy anyone to outplay him when he was in his prime - same goes for Norman Blake and Doc Watson. Listen and learn.....that's the best way, IMHO. as always, YMMV.

  8. #32

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    I grew up listening to my dad playing accordion, mostly Irish and Scottish ceilidh tunes, no more than a few thousand, also any tune he ever heard since he had perfect pitch and an uncommon memory.

    Bloody awful technique though, so many mistakes, lazy bugger never practiced, and he couldn't read a note. Mind you damned if he ever lost a single beat.

    Yet somehow I enjoy reading music, thinking for myself and avoiding glib homespun schtick.

    And I try not to laugh TOO hard at those who do, or at least not till I have played with them.

    D.

  9. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
    I've had a great time reading this thread with 'jazzers' trying to describe and analyze bluegrass music - it's been a real hoot. If you want to understand bluegrass music, go spend a weekend at Galax during the fiddler's convention and maybe, just maybe, you'll figure it out. You don't learn this music, you grow up with it in your psyche - it's part of your heritage and is not to be analyzed and taken apart note by note - it's to be played, enjoyed and danced to - not explained by some musicologist who sees it as just some aboriginal art form to be examined as one would an amoeba. I was fortunate enough to know the whole Rice family - dad Herb (mandolin player), Ronnie (bass), Larry (RIP, mandolin), Wyatt (a monster player at 10 years old!) - never got to meet Tony, though. This music was in their blood - it was part of them - they didn't have to learn it. I think you'll find that true bluegrass music is multi-generational and passed down through families. True, Tony Rice may not read music but I'd defy anyone to outplay him when he was in his prime - same goes for Norman Blake and Doc Watson. Listen and learn.....that's the best way, IMHO. as always, YMMV.
    Yeah this kind of stuff you can talk about every style of music. Not everybody has the opportunity to live in a big Bluegrass Family or get it through their "Blood" or something. That's stuff that nobody helps.

    You can transcribe every kind of music and can collect Information what the guys do or did. The same thing was made with Jazz. The First step is to take a look at the music and transcribe the Music, but than you can take analyzing what they do. Out of this you can took certain kind of rules or point out typical things which this guys do.

    There are Books about Bluegrass Playing and if you believe or not, they give advises which scales you should try to use about which chord etc. Only for example.

    So if i hear that, for example Tony Rice is using a Major Blues Scale or outlining Guidetonelines. If i see that he is using it. Why i am not allowed to name it.

    So for myself it helps me a lot, to analyse and took it by name what this guys do. To look what the guys play on which kind of degree in the form is a logical way of learn the music. For example - if they dissolve the Melody to the root, when playing the tonic in 90% case, so i can say "ok this is a kind of rule for the sound".

  10. #34
    Okay. Zombie thread, dead horses , whatever. I've been shedding bluegrass-type stuff for a casual jam of old timers close to where I live.

    Who cares that people learn stuff a different way from the beginning necessarily. That's one aspect. Yeah. The question of how you might use what you ALREADY know in a different context is an interesting one. Period. I'm somewhat of a bluegrass hack, but the guys I've played with enjoy the chord tone aspects. It at least gives you a distinct voice.

    I will accept that basically just shedding the TUNES is most of it, but there are some jazz- type approaches which work in bluegrass or country settings as well. A lot of them are the same things. For me, the big part of it is targeting 6 chords for major and avoiding maj7 as a target. If you haven't worked on that as much in jazz setting, it takes a little adjusting . Anyway, if you know minor seven language, you can learn to simply target the relative minor of your maj 6.

    This really opens up using chromatic approaches from jazz vocabulary to those minor7/maj6 chords, and they work pretty well. (Again, if you have some of that together, why NOT use it in a different context? Bluegrass players use this stuff too.) Minor7/maj6 is is "pentatonic-minus-1" anyway. Actually, simple chromatic passing tones between pentatonic notes is probably better sounding approach, but I personally don't know those as well, but that's more where I'm going now.

    For blue notes, the IV7 of the major chord of the moment works really well, if you already know those arps. Make it Lydian dominant vocabulary if you KNOW that. (If you DON'T know Lydian dominant vocabulary and can play it, don't troll on this idea as being too complicated. I'm talking to someone who already knows how to PLAY it. Otherwise, of COURSE this is not a simpler approach for someone who doesn't know either approach.)

    For me, the easiest to hear licks are going to be based on resolving to the 1 of the target chord. So, if you're playing over C-major, an F7 (Lydian dominant) lick which resolves to C is really easy to hear and basically works straight off the shelf.

    There's also a nice enclosure resolution , targeting the third of the target chord, but for me personally, that one will take a little more shedding to learn to handle without thought. Anyway, to my ears, these IV7 approaches are very strong for major in country/ bluegrass. Straight mixo probably works even better for its added blue note against the target.

    Again, I'm not really interested in people questioning why you should "have to think that way". This is not for anyone who would have to "think" to play IV7 as an approach. Simply words to describe what is done "without words" by ear.

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    Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 07-27-2018 at 01:06 PM.

  11. #35

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    You get chromatic passing tones by filling the gap between the tones in a pentatonic scale. You can also add the fourth as a diatonic passing tone. In general it is best to leave the other two minor thirds intact as adding a sixth or seventh involves a choice and will invoke the sound of a mode. This might be good as an effect but not as a go to.The chromatic passing tone between the first and second in a major pentatonic is pretty weak though.

    The easiest way to see how things are put together is to take a Tony Rice lick, in say G, and transpose it by ear in open position over all other chord forms, ESPECIALLY Bb.

    Really just do that.

    I hate listening to the guys who shred bluegrass, keep you place or shut up is the way to go. Never follow bad examples.

    D.

  12. #36

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    When I was five years old I won every argument, to my own satisfaction.

    It was easy, simply miss the point and use that as the evidence.

  13. #37

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    Same notes as Lester Young, different rhythmic feel.

  14. #38

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    Leicester Young, I like it! Midlands jazz...

    (BTW Americans, Leicester has the same pronunciation as Lester.)

    I think any collection of '78 recordings from the late 30s will have all the good stuff. Shoe Shine Boy, Lady Be Good, Lester Leaps In... Just dive in... Maybe the knowledgable can suggest the best recordings for audio....

  15. #39

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    Maybe Leicester Young is a soft cheese. Then there is the communist trumpet player Red Leicester.....

    D.

  16. #40

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    You know what? I've spent my whole life hating Red Leicester - then I tried some proper stuff made on a local farm with unpasteurised milk or some shit like that.... And it was AMAZING!

  17. #41

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    There must be a way to slip Lester's "pork pie" into the thread drift.


  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
    There must be a way to slip Lester's "pork pie" into the thread drift.


    I prefer cheese with my pickles, pork pie is old hat.



    D.