The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    Hi All,

    First of all, I think this is my first post here so I may break a dozen rules. Let me know.

    Second, I'm not sure what the protocol is for linking to songs, especially when they are not available anywhere but streaming services. I could make a snippet of the section I am seeking help, which i suspect is fair use when used for study, with but I don't know what the best way to attach or link the file is.

    As for my actual request, I'm trying to figure out Road Stop by Jimmy Day, and can't figure out the chords at 7 seconds to 12. I will post a link or snippet once i figure out how, but its on all the major streaming services.

    The song is hoot, so worth a listen whether you can help me out or not.

    - David

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2
    If this isn't a good place for this sort of request, can anyone direct me to a forum that might be better?

  4. #3
    I've posted a snippet of the tune in question, and a slowed segment:


  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by dvdwmth
    Hi All,

    First of all, I think this is my first post here so I may break a dozen rules. Let me know.

    Second, I'm not sure what the protocol is for linking to songs, especially when they are not available anywhere but streaming services. I could make a snippet of the section I am seeking help, which i suspect is fair use when used for study, with but I don't know what the best way to attach or link the file is.

    As for my actual request, I'm trying to figure out Road Stop by Jimmy Day, and can't figure out the chords at 7 seconds to 12. I will post a link or snippet once i figure out how, but its on all the major streaming services.

    The song is hoot, so worth a listen whether you can help me out or not.

    - David

  6. #5

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    Jimmy Day's name is new to me, but looking at his biography I see he plays on several albums I own and love. Nice to make that connection.

    The 'turnaround" section you slowed down is basically

    C - Bb7 - A7 - A7 | D7 - G7 - C - C| ...

    You are on the right track with slowing the music down to apply your microscope.

    The next step is to listen closely to what the bass player is doing, and try to identify the single notes the bass plays. The bass player's job in a genre like western swing is to provide clear "road signs" about what the current chord is and chose notes that lead into the next chord in a very smooth and obvious manner. So the "walk down" from C to Bb7 to A7 at the beginning of the section is not hard to figure out once you isolate what is happening with the bass line. Note that a good bass player may jump up an octave in the middle of a "walk down" to create the sensation of the music moving in two directions at once (the chords moving down while the bass note goes higher). So here, the Bb note is up an octave from where it might be if the bass player were trying to play the walk down in the most simple way possible.

    After you figure out the bass notes, start playing chords with those notes (C - Bb - A) as the root note of the chord, and try to figure out if the chords on the record are major or minor, and so forth. Try playing minor, major, dominant 7, see what sounds closer. Knowing what a diminished and half-diminished chord sounds like will help here for jazz and some fancier western swing.

    Also at this point, try to identify the main melody note on top and figure out its relationship to the bass note. For that G7 chord, the high melody note is an "E", a major 6th in relation to the "G" note in the bass. That's a classic western swing sound, the major 6th chord (I'm assuming you've already figured out that the G is a major-type chord with a B natural being played somewhere, and not a minor chord with a Bb.)

    If there's also an F natural (the dominant 7th) in between the bass G note and the high melody E note, you have a 13th chord, which has the sweetness of the 6th and the tension of the dominant 7th, all in one chord. You'll hear that 13th sound in western swing a lot, along with the simpler major 6th chord sound.