The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    thats interesting

    yes i do play F/G and Fmaj7/G as subs for
    G7 , i like that sound
    (but i don’t sub Amin for the F , i still dont
    hear that)

    i still hear the F note as the important
    sign that we are ‘away’ or in type II land

    a side point ....
    an Amin with a sharpened 5 (ie F) on
    it would work as a type II to me

    but hey ,we all hear differently
    it’s all good
    Am7 has too many notes in common to offer an dynamic cadence to C. You’d need to run something else in there, maybe some sort of altered or chromatic passing thing. But that itself is not a problem in itself; it depends what you want.

    Dynamic sounding cadences are generally those with the largest number of semitone moves between two chords. In diatonic major harmony that’s G7, in minor/major interchange thats G7b9b13. Altered scale gives the G7#5b9#9b13 and the move Db13 to C6/9 gives you the entire chromatic gamut in one chord change, with a wealth of possible chromatic motion; more than we could put on the guitar.

    In a tonal setting this dynamism is enhanced by having tritones within the chord; (although I am finding that contemporary players are moving away from dissonant chords in cadences.)

    It also helps to have contrary motion in the voice leading; while Bmaj7-Cmaj7 is a very dynamic cadence, it’s also a little obvious sounding. Peter Bernstein gets a lot of mileage out of combining chromatic similar motion with contrary motion in the top voice.

    Common tones have the opposite effect. Most tonal cadences have a mix. But you can say for example G7b9 C is more dynamic than G7 C which is more dynamic than F C by weighing up the ratio of semitones to common tones. Common tones can lend harmony more coherence though; more of a ‘through line’ from one chord of the next. Learning to solo through changes is about identifying both.

    However, dynamic cadence can be a bit much sometimes, sometimes a less directional sound is called for. Prez often avoided dynamic cadences, esp the 7-1 resolution. The least directional way you can play G7 C is to simply sit on Cmaj7. Every option can exist on a spectrum between that and Db13.

    You can also construct interesting dynamic but consonant triadic cadences like Eb Em, E Em and Db G which relate to G7 C scalar options but sound less obviously V-I and therefore more ‘modern’
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-10-2021 at 10:49 AM.

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  3. #27

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    C Miller..:You can also construct interesting dynamic but consonant triadic cadences like Eb Em, E Em and Db G which relate to G7 C scalar options but sound less obviously V-I and therefore more ‘modern’

    yes..and this is my deep attraction to " jazz/fusion/ contemporary/progressive music of all types and yes...it can be called rock! ..when approached from a "no-holds barred" framework..any motion-harmonic/melodic/rhythmic can be considered a cadence and do 180 degree turns to another tonal center for further exploration or just a short rest between explored phrases or reinstated melodic themes ..this has been and is used today and in traditional jazz/bebop..and some will disagree but what is called "soft jazz"..noting that some top name jazz players are heard on these stations FM/SAT/Vids...hey its work!..and there is alot of tasty stuff to hear.

    I like the changes in Hancocks Cantaloupe Island..and Maiden Voyage/Dolphin Dance..I tend to think of these as updated Kind of Blue compositions as I hear Miles/Evans footprints.

    in my warm ups I use Ab7 (no 5th-Ab C Gb C) Ab7/Gb (Gb Eb Ab C) C7#9 (C E Bb Eb) as a pick up bar and experiment from there .. so the C7#9 now is a F#13/C and then a melodic movement to ?? or..just some harmonic voice movement within the chord to the next chord..or ??? an intro/ending..a cadence..sure..why not.

    I'm surprised and even happy with where the journey takes me .

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller;[URL="tel:1139733"
    1139733[/URL]]ah yeah, Am7 kind of belongs to both categories. But then so does Cmaj7 and Em7….
    talking in C (always)

    are you now saying Cmaj7 is a Type II chord ??

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    talking in C (always)

    are you now saying Cmaj7 is a Type II chord ??
    Sure, why not? And it’s also type I.

    it’s almost like it’s not black and white and all a bit grey and confusing….

  6. #30

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    If you overlay Cmaj7 on top of G7, you get 11 6 R 3. C6 changes the 3 to a 9, which allows you to hear G13 more clearly.

    Can it be a Type II? Always a problem when there's no standard definition of terms. Warren didn't teach that Imaj7 was Type II.

    OTOH, Jimmy Bruno demonstrated playing Imaj7 against V7 and made it sound fine.

    The big issue, as was pointed out in an earlier post, is how you handle the F. If the pianist is playing an E, you want to be careful about creating a b9 interval against a major chord. So, you may not want to lean on the F. F# can work, creating a common lydian sound.

    If the pianist is playing G7, you need to take care about the C (although it can certainly work) and you probably don't want to play F#, although Wes did it and sounded great.

    In case it's not obvious, Cmaj13 and G13 have the same notes, if you include the 11ths.

    C E G B D F A
    G B D F C A E

  7. #31

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    If we put the extensions onto the Cmaj chord to the 13th
    we're playing Dmin over Cmaj7
    so we're playing all the notes of the major scale
    including the F note
    or G13 is putting Amin over G7

    There's ambiguity there

    it doesn't help in simplify the process
    of improvising over the changes of a tune for me

    I guess I am a simple guy
    the delineated type I and type II chords thing does help me a bit

  8. #32

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    Can we talk about the licks themselves? Two of them use arpeggios (licks 1 and 5) and I feel they suffer from "arpeggio-sis", the malady of (usually) starting an arpeggio on beat 1 and going up-up-up from there. Adam Maness gives a good lesson on how to fix that: add octave displacement and enclosures (which shift the beats). A-a-a-h


  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    If we put the extensions onto the Cmaj chord to the 13th
    we're playing Dmin over Cmaj7
    so we're playing all the notes of the major scale
    including the F note
    or G13 is putting Amin over G7

    There's ambiguity there

    it doesn't help in simplify the process
    of improvising over the changes of a tune for me

    I guess I am a simple guy
    the delineated type I and type II chords thing does help me a bit
    Good point. Warren Nunes simplified it. Two kinds of chords. And, that's how he played. Sounded great.

    If you want to complicate it, it all goes to the 13th, all the white keys and now you've got more choices. But, you've got fewer ideas about what to omit at any given point. That means, less structure and greater demands on the player to find some organization.

    What I was trying to get at was the idea that you could start with three relatively simple scraps of theory and end up with a pretty wide range of sounds.

    1. Warren's Type I and Type II. Immediately yields multiple arps for the chord-of-the-moment (COM). The notes are all diatonic to the tonal center but create different sounds. For example, play Em7 over Cmaj7 and you make the sound of Cmaj9.

    2. Mark Levine's "all melodic minor voicings are the same chord". Now, every time you see a chord generated by melodic minor, you've got 6 other chord names that work as subs. There might be an argument that it would have been good to learn all the voicings as one thing, but probably none of us did that, and we're not accustomed to thinking, say, 7#11 is the same thing as minmaj7 and maj7#5 (on different roots). So, the idea probably makes it easier to employ grips you already know, but in new ways.

    3. Stacked fourth voicings. The ambiguity between major and dominant is the new feature here. I think it gives a more modern sound than the drop 2's that were the bread and butter of guitar in the 50s and earlier (although Eddie Lang played some stacked 4ths). I also think it's less modern than some of the more dissonant, stretchy voicings used in the last 20 or 30 years by a number of innovators.

    One of the advantages of thinking like this, or so it seems to me, is that mastering each one of these items is not a completely daunting task.

    Warren's approach is pretty simple -- you just have to get it in 12 keys and then for the relative minors.

    Mark Levine's approach requires remembering that 7 chord names are all the same thing and getting that down in every key. But, you don't have to do it all at once. For example, take Bb7#11. It comes from Fmelmin. So, if you can remember that Fminmaj7 is also from Fmelmin, you've got an equivalence you can use. If you can also recall that Ealt comes from Fmelmin, now you've got 3 chord names and you probably already know multiple ways to play each. So, pick a tune with a Bb7#11 and try the various alternatives. Don't forget the bass note, because that's what will make it all sound right.

    Stacked fourths: start, say, with xx2233 and move it up through a major scale. Same exact thing for the relative minor. Then put it through melodic minor. A few months (no more than 6, I'd think) of work to get it down in 12 keys. At that point, you can sail through just about any tune in stacked fourths while using the soprano voice of your grips to create countermelody.

    Anyway, that's the idea.

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    If you overlay Cmaj7 on top of G7, you get 11 6 R 3. C6 changes the 3 to a 9, which allows you to hear G13 more clearly.

    Can it be a Type II? Always a problem when there's no standard definition of terms. Warren didn't teach that Imaj7 was Type II.

    OTOH, Jimmy Bruno demonstrated playing Imaj7 against V7 and made it sound fine.

    The big issue, as was pointed out in an earlier post, is how you handle the F. If the pianist is playing an E, you want to be careful about creating a b9 interval against a major chord. So, you may not want to lean on the F. F# can work, creating a common lydian sound.

    If the pianist is playing G7, you need to take care about the C (although it can certainly work) and you probably don't want to play F#, although Wes did it and sounded great.

    In case it's not obvious, Cmaj13 and G13 have the same notes, if you include the 11ths.

    C E G B D F A
    G B D F C A E
    You’ll always run into contradictions if you try to be binrary about a spectrum of possibilities. Maybe it can help people get started to think things are definitive, but it’s not the whole picture. In any case all of those particular Type II options belong to the G7 scale but do not represent all G7 scale options. There is, as far as I can see, no good theoretical reason why this should be so. There may be a good pedagogical one - duplication is confusing - dividing into two discrete categories is a convenient, helpful simplification. If you classify the most common options, it’s helpful.

    BarryHarris would simply point to the contents of the G7 scale and invite you to make lines using them, before moving onto the tritone.

    F# works just fine if you hear it as a resolution. The chord 3 x 3 4 3 2 sounds pretty rank in isolation but when placed in the context of, say
    x 5 3 5 6 x
    3 x 3 4 3 2
    x 3 2 2 3 3

    It makes sense. It’s irregular, a false relation, but jazz and blues were born in false relations, and the improvised ensemble nature of the music invites them.

    I mean hasn’t that always been true of harmony? Dissonant sounds making consonant ones more beautiful. False relations may be forbidden in harmony texts; but they have a long history… going way back look up the English cadence (c16th) you can hear in Tallis’s works for example

    there’s always been a dialectic between vertical and horizontal considerations, between harmony and counterpoint. Music of the 18th century even - a relatively orderly time- contains many sonorities we would struggle to classify in jazz chord notation simply as results of voice leading and so on.

    Jacob Collier has taken this to the nth degree with his microtonal voice leading etc. Individual Collier chords might sound horrendous but in context they come out right.

    In recent years I’ve seen jazz more and more as counterpoint or at least polyphony, rather than chords. When you think about it doesn’t make sense for it to be anything else…

    The chordal paradigm rules a lot of peoples thinking though; learning to hear harmony through time as combinations of individual lines and not simply as isolated incidents is one of the most important things I think one can develop.

    So the question is always much less for me; how does this chord relate vertically to the V chord say (which is dissonant anyway), but how does it resolve into the target chord? And as a model for jazz practice c1920-1960 it seems to work a lot better. It’s also a good model for ‘outside’ playing.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-11-2021 at 07:06 PM.

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    If we put the extensions onto the Cmaj chord to the 13th
    we're playing Dmin over Cmaj7
    so we're playing all the notes of the major scale
    including the F note
    or G13 is putting Amin over G7

    There's ambiguity there

    it doesn't help in simplify the process
    of improvising over the changes of a tune for me

    I guess I am a simple guy
    the delineated type I and type II chords thing does help me a bit
    Stop thinking/hearing ‘over’ and start thinking/hearing ‘towards’

  12. #36

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    C Miller--"..In recent years I’ve seen jazz more and more as counterpoint or at least polyphony, rather than chords. When you think about it doesn’t make sense for it to be anything else…

    The chordal paradigm rules a lot of peoples thinking though; learning to hear harmony through time as combinations of individual lines and not simply as isolated incidents is one of the most important things I think one can develop..."


    Agree with your take on chords..and your line...."... Dissonant sounds making consonant ones more beautiful..." and of course the flip side--in a sea of dissonant..a consonant may sound outside..

    Ted Greene said more than once...chords are not single entities..but a group of voices at rest..almost every guitarist who has explored harmony in a jazz context may
    become confused by the names given to chords in a composition..was the composer "thinking" in a given key or were the notes of the chord designed to agree or disagree with
    the melody and it was not a harmonic consideration at all..and was named for convenience rather than extended theory..thus ..Cmaj7 in this context should be viewed as an
    Eb13b9#5...

    my attraction and explorations in "fusion" opened me to seeing the fluid nature of harmonic relations.. diatonic harmonic rules were not just suspended but not even invited..
    to some of the best musicians that created this style .. Corea, McLaughlin. Holdsworth..and Miles...and many others..the harmonic framework of their work was not based
    on any progressive logic that I could hear..but that only drew me closer to playing in that style

    If anyone has played..composed or even just listened to some of the tunes in that genre ..the sense of freedom in improvisation is quite memorable
    being in the so called "zone" was a frequent comment





  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by wolflen
    C Miller--"..In recent years I’ve seen jazz more and more as counterpoint or at least polyphony, rather than chords. When you think about it doesn’t make sense for it to be anything else…

    The chordal paradigm rules a lot of peoples thinking though; learning to hear harmony through time as combinations of individual lines and not simply as isolated incidents is one of the most important things I think one can develop..."


    Agree with your take on chords..and your line...."... Dissonant sounds making consonant ones more beautiful..." and of course the flip side--in a sea of dissonant..a consonant may sound outside..

    Ted Greene said more than once...chords are not single entities..but a group of voices at rest..almost every guitarist who has explored harmony in a jazz context may
    become confused by the names given to chords in a composition..was the composer "thinking" in a given key or were the notes of the chord designed to agree or disagree with
    the melody and it was not a harmonic consideration at all..and was named for convenience rather than extended theory..thus ..Cmaj7 in this context should be viewed as an
    Eb13b9#5...

    my attraction and explorations in "fusion" opened me to seeing the fluid nature of harmonic relations.. diatonic harmonic rules were not just suspended but not even invited..
    to some of the best musicians that created this style .. Corea, McLaughlin. Holdsworth..and Miles...and many others..the harmonic framework of their work was not based
    on any progressive logic that I could hear..but that only drew me closer to playing in that style

    If anyone has played..composed or even just listened to some of the tunes in that genre ..the sense of freedom in improvisation is quite memorable
    being in the so called "zone" was a frequent comment




    Thanks Wolflen. My primary concern with my comment was really conventional changes playing, but for an obvious example of how these lessons can be applied on vamps you only need to look to Cannonball’s application of ii V Is etc on Milestones

    Anyway other systems of harmonic organisation might preference a more colouristic approach to harmony; more typically static harmonies derived from scales and so on. In general we would expect to see fewer dominant chords altogether. OTOH Wayne’s music definitely has a sense of harmonic motion that may not be obviously functional but has that sense of progressing to a goal (and plenty of dominant chords too). Holdsworth’s music to me has that sense of moving through time; again in a not obvious way. It’s not simply a bunch of random chords like one of those Big Ass Trucks videos that were everywhere about 5 years ago.

    I also have to mention Kenny Wheeler who studied counterpoint etc with Richard Rodney Bennett. Bennett himself (both a jazz pianist and serial influenced composer) studied not only with Boulez but also with Lennox Berkeley, who was a student of Boulanger. (Quincy and Donald Byrd studied directly with Boulanger of course.)

    So when I look at a Kenny chart I’m often quite aware of this formal and contrapuntal intelligence you don’t get from simply slinging a bunch of nice modes together. There’s something deeper going on. I think Wayne had this intuitively iirc Miles commented on the fact that Wayne’s tunes had fully worked out bass lines as well as melodies; that he was thinking like a composer, which is to say in counterpoint. OTOH Herbie studied composition formally. (Mind you so did Coleman Hawkins!)

    (There’s also the question of how much of this kind of music is rooted in any theory or method. I have a friend who seems able to plonk the most unlikely chords next to each other and write a compelling melody over the top that is at once extremely challenging to play over and feels like a real composition. I doubt they’d be able to write something more conventional tbh, it’s their intuitive language. Kenny Werner suggests plucking chords out of a hat. So this approach is almost - anti theory? Opening a window to the harmonic unconscious so to speak. The theory side mostly comes in when musicians try to work out how to improvise on these tunes.)

    Anyway, I feel like chord scale theory is kind of limited in understanding post bop composers too. It certainly doesn’t cover what Allan is doing through time - which I find hard to understand due to the nature of the material as well. For Wayne it all hangs off the melody; at least that’s the way he plays it.

    Motivic aspects and stepwise bass can do a lot as we see in Kurts compositions. Anyway, suffice to say I find a lot of diversity in post bop- present writing. But jazz compositions have always come from a different place to Tin Pan Alley standards of course.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-12-2021 at 04:46 AM.

  14. #38

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    yes that’s all good and true ....
    when modal playing post bop , Shorter tunes

    but i was talking about functional harmony
    show tunes etc

    i interpreted this threads title as being
    about functional harmony
    maybe i was wrong there ?

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    yes that’s all good and true ....
    when modal playing post bop , Shorter tunes

    but i was talking about functional harmony
    show tunes etc

    i interpreted this threads title as being
    about functional harmony
    maybe i was wrong there ?
    Well it could do, but you can equally apply the op relationship to ‘non functional’ tunes. The divide is not always black and white. For instance, apply the relationship in the OP to the last section of inner urge and see what you notice…

    I’m not 100% convinced that functional harmony is really a thing. Really when we yak about that stuff we are taking about norms, cliches like ii V I. People sometimes get freaked out about Jobim, Chopin etc, but that stuff ‘functions’; when you look at the counterpoint it makes sense. Guide tones are an expression of counterpoint in backcycling progressions for example.

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller;[URL="tel:1140118"
    1140118[/URL]]

    I’m not 100% convinced that functional harmony is really a thing. Really when we yak about that stuff we are taking about norms, cliches like ii V I..
    yes !
    that was what I was talking about ... !
    I’m still trying to get mastery over all that
    language .... cliches etc etc

    Someone mentioned Prez , he’s a very interesting player , in that , when playing
    over standards he doesnt appear to be
    making the changes , but sounds fantastic
    anyway

    maybe he was thinking about the upper extensions of the chords (like Miles ?)
    maybe not

    maybe he he was just playing/ hearing the stuff he liked ....

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I’m not 100% convinced that functional harmony is really a thing.
    Well functional harmony is a real thing, if for nothing else, because 1000's of tunes are based on it. Most pop and simple rock tunes follow tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic cycles. Most standards are just dominant-tonic relationships.

    Of course you know all that. But my point is, we've been exposed to it all our lives to the extent that we have developed subconscious expectations for chords to move certain ways. It's a real thing with regards to these expectations.

    On the other hand I know what you mean that it's not the law of nature that music must be structured around it. Although there may even be an evolutionary basis to the way we hear harmony, standard music theory is too simplistic to capture it accurately. Especially the aspects of theory that treat chords as static destinations.

    One can, however, argue that these expectations are so strong that even non-functional harmony works by playing around with these expectations.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 08-12-2021 at 07:29 PM.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Well functional harmony is a real thing, if for nothing else, because 1000's of tunes are based on it. Most pop and simple rock tunes follow tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic cycles. Most standards are just dominant-tonic relationships.

    Of course you know all that. But my point is, we've been exposed to it all our lives to the extent that we developed subconscious expectations for chords to move certain ways. It's a real thing with regards to these expectations.

    On the other hand I know what you mean that it's not the law of nature that music must be structured around it. Although there may even be an evolutionary basis to the way we hear harmony, standard music theory is too simplistic to capture it accurately. Especially the aspects of theory that treat chords as static destinations.

    One can, however, argue that these expectations are so strong that even the non-functional harmony works by playing around with these expectations.
    Well it’s interesting; things like Holst and Stravinsky, even Bartok, made immediate sense or me in a way that Mozart didn’t. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate common practice harmony.

    my theory is that I ingested a lot of 20th century musical materials from one John Williams; some of my earliest musical memories are the Star Wars score and these are of course full of medians relationships etc. And Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner etc. Space movie music!

    Anyway functional harmony is an interesting one. People have all sorts of theories of how the IV moves to V to I and how this can be manifested in various ways, and thing is that isn’t even true of Mozart. So I think a lot of the stuff people come out with about functional harmony is on a par with numerology. Especially when you get into that Erno Lendvai stuff, let alone blinking negative harmony. It’s all people trying to make sense of musicians doing cool, probably largely intuitive things. Wagner didn’t have to write an essay about the Tristan chord.

    Jazz - OK so you come across

    C- Ab7 F7 C7

    What is this non functional profession? Maybe something out of Wayne Shorter?

    Well it’s the middle 8 of Ain’t Misbehaving and it’s chromatic contrary motion. Fats reminding you he was an organist…

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Well functional harmony is a real thing, if for nothing else, because 1000's of tunes are based on it. Most pop and simple rock tunes follow tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic cycles. Most standards are just dominant-tonic relationships.

    Of course you know all that. But my point is, we've been exposed to it all our lives to the extent that we developed subconscious expectations for chords to move certain ways. It's a real thing with regards to these expectations.

    On the other hand I know what you mean that it's not the law of nature that music must be structured around it. Although there may even be an evolutionary basis to the way we hear harmony, standard music theory is too simplistic to capture it accurately. Especially the aspects of theory that treat chords as static destinations.

    One can, however, argue that these expectations are so strong that even the non-functional harmony works by playing around with these expectations.
    Well it’s interesting; things like Holst and Stravinsky, even Bartok, made immediate sense or me in a way that Mozart didn’t. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate common practice harmony.

    my theory is that I ingested a lot of 20th century musical materials from one John Williams; some of my earliest musical memories are the Star Wars scores etc and these are of course full of dissonance and mediant relationships etc. And Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner etc. Space movie music! im sure I’m not the only one.

    Anyway functional harmony is an interesting one. People have all sorts of theories of how the IV moves to V to I and how this can be manifested in various ways, and thing is that isn’t even true of Mozart. So I think a lot of the stuff people come out with about functional harmony is on a par with numerology. Especially when you get into that Erno Lendvai stuff, let alone blinking negative harmony. It’s all people trying to make sense of musicians doing cool, probably largely intuitive things. Wagner didn’t have to write an essay about the Tristan chord.

    Jazz - OK so you come across

    C- Ab7 F7 C7

    What is this non functional progression? Maybe something out of Wayne Shorter?

    Well it’s the middle 8 of Ain’t Misbehaving and it’s chromatic contrary motion. Fats reminding you he was an organist…

  20. #44

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    you can say that again ....