chord/scale relationship and song key

[ten left thumbs]

For example, if I see G7, the fretboard immediately lights up with G's, B's, D's and F's.

It does? Mine doesn't! Where can I get one like yours?

[JonnyPac]

It does? Mine doesn't! Where can I get one like yours?

[ten left thumbs]

That's not a G7.

[JonnyPac]

lol. Looks like a G sus.

[Reg]

Hey Jamesbdean55... Jazz can be very difficult, (it is). You eventually simply play what you hear, or react to what you hear or play. The difficulty is training your ears what to hear. You not only need to be aware of what's implied harmonically, which may be thought of as the vertical collection of notes. Can be thought of as scale, chord tones, arpeggios or what ever you want to call the complete collection of notes implied at any one attack on any horizontal point in the tune your playing. But you also need to be aware of all the different choices that could be implied at that one attack or note you played. Jazz players rarely simply play or pull from the basic analysis of what ever tune their playing. A simple way to think might be... your playing...
/ G-7 / C7 / Fmaj7 / Fmaj7 /. Simple 4 bar phrase. simple analysis would be II-7 / V7 / Imaj7... so could be thought of as very diatonic, or one key. If I played over that progression, depending on context of course and not worrying about a melody, I might hear as... /G-9, D7alt, G-9, Db7#11 / C13, Db13, C13, C7alt / F6/9, D7#9, G-9 C7alt / F6/9, Bb13, A-7, Ab13 /
And that would be a fairly straight version, by that I mean... I'm playing what I would consider pretty straight harmonically. I could and do play all the time. So those chords could be thought of as harmonic areas to pull from for soloing... scales, chord tones, arpeggios or how ever I want to hear/play for soloing.
Basically you need to be aware of the three minors and all the scales or sometimes called modes of each.
Natural min.( the 6th degree of Maj.)
Melodic Min.
Harmonic Min. (Old pop jazz, all the show and musical tunes)
Anyway that's the three scales and seven versions of each, which makes 21. Each version has a chord, scale, arpeggio etc...
Take the time to wright out each scale and it's seven versions, with chords and arpeggios.
This probable needs cleaning up... but is the basics and a good start. Reg

[cisco kid]

Thanks Reg for the advice.
It can be difficult but I've been getting good advice here. I forgot about this website and had trouble getting logged in...awhile back. I get reminders to come back, but everyone seems so advance...that's a good thing tho. But this is where one - if willing to put in the effort - can get valuable advice in lieu of a teacher which is a good idea but I prefer not to. (My first guitar teacher and only one when I was a kid charged $5 a half hour...lasted about six months)
I have some hand-me-down books given to me on music theory (Dick Grove's Vol. 1 and Tom Kolb's Music Theory for guitar) that helps digest what is written on this thread. I bought a chord slide rule from someone who no longer plays called "Masterchord Rule" horizontal that shows all chords on the fingerboard just slide to the letter of the chord and what type of chord and it displays all the related notes to the chord on the whole fingerboard. Better than one of those digital computer chord finder (this chord slide is no longer made) plus a vertical slide rule called Unigraph (no longer made) that is a numerical fingerboard technique slide rule that shows you root 1 boxed in yellow, and the other numerical numbered steps 1-3-5 in red and the rest in green of the scale or chord. Just slide to the root whatever you want and you see corresponding notes/numbered steps on the fingerboard in different colors to the root.
Which helps to identify what is being said here not to mention something I BOUGHT (don't laugh) called "Find a Note Fret Markers" which you place on your fretboard behind the each fret (1st to 22nd fret) to instantly see the notes on the fingerboard....which can be a crutch (I can hear the criticism) I know but right now it helps find things fast. I'm serious about learning and I appreciate all the advice I can get in lieu of a personal guitar teacher and a bunch of books that may or may not help (music books are not 3 to 5 bucks when I was a youngster in school, but I hear they are better now (some) that some include cds and dvds).
Thanks again much appreciated
jamesbdean

[gingerjazz]

James dont get put off by all the technical stuff you will see on here,as i said in another thread recently although there is a lot of theory to learn with jazz,that does not mean you cannot play jazz until you know it all.Perfectly good sounding jazz can be played with just the major scale and the chords derived from it.Past that its just a case of adding things depending on your level of knowledge.

[cisco kid]

Gingerjazz,
Thanks for the sound advice. I try to keep it simple but certainly plenty of room for improvement, but all the technical advice (which is great) can be intimidating to some. Though I can understand what is being said with some music theory underneath my belt and those two guitar fingerboard slide rules (every guitar player should have them - don't think they are being made anymore). As one reads in this thread and others there's different applications to some of these chords which makes improvising more interesting - meaning the chord/scales relationships, chord substitutions, reharmonization etc..
As you mention the basic knowledge of guitar to a tune as far as improvising guitar can be fun in itself.
In the April 2011 Guitar Player Magazine issue there is a very young guitarist name Andreas Varady who is Hungarian born in Slovakia from a gypsy family as was Django R. who lives in the U.S.A. this youngster - who I never heard of - plays fantastic jazz guitar similiar to the lines of George Benson obviously a child prodigy who is 13 years now. Saw him on YouTube.
He plays by ear but does not read music just knows chord charts and only knows two scales.
He knows the tune and what the changes are and reacts to the chords in his playing he has an acute ear for playing guitar. Of course, not everyone is gifted as this young - very young jazz guitar player ..... what a future for him.
For me I'm glad there's a study for guitar with roadmaps (theory, etc - The Jazz Forum with it's fellow guitarists to help) for those who want to improve and to apply oneself, that is, apply the knowledge to the guitar.
I'll take it step by step and the main goal is to enjoy the guitar playing ... to have fun with it especially with the improvements to come hopefully.
Thanks

[gingerjazz]

Hi again james,you mention on your info that you are self employed,i just wondered what it is you do.Are you a film star impersonator as you have the right name for it.

[cisco kid]

Gingerjazz, Jamesbdean55 is a pseudonym for me (I had a barber - Ben Garcia - on Vines St. Hollywood who actually gave James Dean his last haircut back in '55 just a few days before he died in his Porsche Spyder racing car where a few doors from this barbershop he bought the racing car ( from Competition Motors) and came in for a haircut with Rolf his mechanic of Competition Motors who was with him at the time of the accident I was told by Ben. This was a long time ago. Ben is dead .. he finally retired in '97 at age 79 his wife of almost 58 years at that time told him to retire...he was in bad health. They did a newspaper writeup of this barber with him lying next to Dean's star on Vine St. barber shears in hand ... he felt stupid to do so. Ben was cutting hair since '43 he met a lot of famous musicians, bandleaders and movie stars, but no pictures of any of them on the shop's walls...he didn't want to impose on them. I'm a Dean fan.
I uses to go up to Hollywood to the guitar shops in those days. I actually saw in persons Eric Clapton's "Blackie" Strat at Valdez Guitar repair shop in Hollywood on one of their counters being worked on by a worker name Leonard I said, "That's a beat up old Strat", Leonard replied that Clapton's and I said "Yeah and I'm Jimi Hendrix". Art Valdez was an authorized Fender and Gibson dealer and repair guy.. still there. Clapton sold "Blackie" on auction to Guitar Center for over $900 grand. I got to hold it (Blackie strat - black with white pickguard with maple neck cigarette burns on the E and A tuning peg area) while it was being adjusted on that counter in my hands when it was there for a string buzzing problem along with the bass player's bass Carl Radle - they were in town, but being lefthanded couldn't do much with it when I just happened to be there at that time. But Art Valdez of the Valdez Guitar Shop verified it was Clapton's they still fix his guitars. He's got an autograph picture of Clapton as well as John Lennon among others. His guitar case with his name was in the back counter that I saw....nobody believes my story tho! in other words "who cares!".
I'm a court reporter/stenographer doing depositions, that is, independent contractor you can say self- employed. I'm too old for Musician's Institute MI once called Guitar Institute that Howard Roberts started and got ripped off by some of his associates so I heard. So he went to the state of Washington and started his own music school there and died not too long after that of cancer.
Though I did enroll in a Guitar Seminar of his in Lauguna Beach for a couple of days (mostly music theory talk) and got to meet him.
I gave up the guitar when I started training in court reporting and what not. It's not a two year course for most.
My first name is Rey.

[TommyD]

There's a method that Lee Konitz taught me that works; choose a simple jazz standard, say, "What is this thing?" and forgetting the minor twos for the time being, write out the notes of the chords on a paper, separating the bars by vertical lines. If there are 2 chords in a bar, choose the dominant - we want only one chord per measure.
Then play a solo using only those notes. Depending on your skills, start with maybe half-notes; select and play 2 notes from each chord, tapping your foot. Vary them. Try, as hard as it is with only 2 notes of the chord, to make music. It will teach you which are the important notes of the dominants.
After you get good at it - and bored - try the same thing using quarter-notes. IOW, now you can play every note (or one note four times if that's what you want) in each of the four-note chords of "What is this thing". Again, vary them. Find a melody in them, as boring as it will probably be.
Then play an eighth-note solo, still using only the 4 notes of each chord.
Then, when you are bored out of your gourd and can do it with your eyes closed, try adding some embellishments and short (four or five note) chromatic and diatonic scale parts.
This is a really good way to 1) learn a tune cold. 2) learn the vertical-method of soloing wherein you never play a wrong note, and 3) learning your fret board.
Konitz told me that he never performs a tune in public until he learns it in this manner. Naturally, he doesn't need to go through the half-note, quarter-note process now, but he still does it with new and unfamiliar tunes. I find that because of it, when I'm learning a tune and seeing the chords on the page, I'm naturally thinking of their notes.
Incidentally, all the great players of yore played vertical or partially-vertical solos - Hawkins, Young, Basie, Cannonball, Davis, and so many more.

Tommy/

[Jazzaluk]

Great idea. It must have been something to get a lesson from Lee Konitz!

[JonnyPac]

I'm totally into a full breakdown of a tune pre-gig. Good stuff.

[phiddell]

hw do i play a dorian scale to a chord...say dominant or diminishd....

[phiddell]

hw do aperggios work wit cmaj7....

[ten left thumbs]

Thanks for explaining this so clearly Tommy. I have heard of this technique before, but had not understood the rationale behind it.

[gingerjazz]

Phiddell could you explain your questions im not sure what it is your asking.

[TommyD]

Great idea. It must have been something to get a lesson from Lee Konitz!

Yes, having a lesson from Konitz is great fun. He knows so much that it's like scraping a pen knife on Boulder Dam to reach water.
Trouble is, Lee is my friend and patient as well as my alto teacher, and we spend a lot of the time bullsh*tting, and then we take a walk for coffee or go someplace and listen to jazz. You just can't beat New York for a wonderful life full of adventures, fun, learning, and content. I was in a 48th Street music store one time looking at Coleman Hawkins old gold plated tenor, and the guy behind the counter took it from me and blew a fast, rather long riff, then looked up and said, "That's what I call my uptown stuff!" (He used another word)

One time I was over Lee's place and we were talking about some Irving Berlin tunes. He said, "I love to tap dance to that!" Of course I laughed that he was jiving me, but he went to a closet and pulled out a 3-foot square piece of 3/4" maple plywood. It was all marked up with tap-shoe scratches. He threw it on the rug and did a quick tap figure! The guy's amazing - ever-young, always thinking, great sense of humor, and never suffers fools.
Another day, we were walking along the street on a typical New York windy, bitterly cold day with our caps pulled down, collars turned up and hands in overcoat pockets, and I was telling Lee that I hear music in my head every waking moment of every day, even at night. Lee said, "Doesn't everybody?" I told him that I had mentioned it to some guy who thought I was weird.
Lee said, "Gees! No wonder I can't get a gig in New York!"
I haven't seen him for a while now because I'm retired and he's in Europe a lot. I miss him.

Tommy/

[Jazzaluk]

You are a fortunate man TommyD Great stories, and priceless memories.

[Reg]

Yea... great stories... Didn't Lee support the 10 step process.... I don't think many have the time to go through that process of learning tunes anymore... there are just to many tunes etc... All methods are a means to some end or goal... I believe were talking about improvising on jazz tunes. It's just not that easy... there are millions of quick tricks to be able to fake your way through playing jazz... the problem is you sound just like what your doing... faking it. Simple because one becomes able to play some chord tones through some changes, with voice leading and making reference to the melody or what ever system you choose to use to express yourself doesn't mean your really playing jazz... or you become aware of complete vertical pitch collections at any one point, chord scales etc... Anyway I'm not trying to spoil anything... but playing jazz is a fairly major commitment... just learning the skills can take a lifetime. There's still no guaranty... you'll hear/play anything notable or worth playing... But there is a guaranty that if you don't put in the time needed to master those skills ... well you probable won't be playing jazz. I'm not saying the journey won't be enjoyable, quite the opposite... extremely enjoyable, jazz is a wonderful window to many aspects of life most don't get a chance to experience. Listening to TommyD's stories are a reminder... But if you think all you need is a few years of study... be careful with your expectations. I've had lots of students with lots of talent not put in the required time with jazz skills, basically wanted more instant gratification... they all hit walls and either put in the time or move on in a different direction... no right or wrong. I'm still one to always support anyone whom chooses the jazz direction, hell music in general ...Reg

[ubiguitar]

This is a great question and not at all naive. My two cents that might get you having some fun: Try to learn some chord tones and then try to make some music with them. It's surprising what you can do with a small group of notes. Pick an easy progression, e.g., I IV V. Key: C Major. 7 notes to choose from.


I = C major. Chord tones: C E G
IV = F major. Chord tones: F A C
V = G major. Chord tones: G B D

Keep it simple to begin with. Don't play anything that's not a chord tone until you are able to find them with ease anywhere on the fingerboard. If you start feeling bored, try to connect notes while switching octaves ...

Best wishes,
whatswisdom

If you're interested in chord tone improvisation I suggest you this book:

- Chord Tone Improvisation Lick

This book presents a chapter for any chord type and analyze chord tone improvisation on single chord and on basic jazz progressions including a specific chords. You have samples in different tonalities to cover all fretboard areas.
This is probably the best way to approach this technique and the best way to start jazz improvisation.
All samples contains tablature and if you like you can also get audio tracks.

Hope this help

regards

Ale