The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    Ok...here's a start.
    The three F A C E's of the staff. If you can read THREE LEGER lines below and THREE LEGER lines above the staff you have the
    range of the guitar.
    Of course a symbol above the staff will direct the player to play an octave higher but low E, below, is about it for us.
    So, beginning THREE LEGER lines below you have FACE, ending at the bottom line of the staff.
    Then in the spaces F A C E.
    Finally, beginning on the top line of the staff F A C E.
    Of course you must ' interpolate ' the notes near each of those described by this method, but it's a start toward reading!



    I can't read-staff-notes-png

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #127

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    The saxophone has multiple fingerings for the same pitch.
    I didn't know that but I'm not surprised - and I'd guess the same applies to the clarinet and so possibly also the oboe family?

    Come to think of it, brass instruments with valves probably also allow at least some notes to be played with different fingerings given that you can play pretty elaborate lines with just embouchure. I'd have to see if I still know Cornett - Wikipedia players to see if they too can use embouchure to modulate. Or if anyone uses this instrument for jazz, which would probably sound lovely

  4. #128

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    Teaching music is harder now we aren't allowed to say 'Every Good Boy Deserves Football' anymore.

    I understand the reasons but the usual suggested alternative 'Every Green Bus Drives Fast' is really easy to scramble into something else - 'All Green Buses Go Fast' or something - so little use as a mnemonic. I just say it anyway, and say 'it's a bit sexist, but it does tell you the notes.'

  5. #129

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    Every Girl Bakes Delicious Fudge: archaic.
    Elephants Go Bouncing Down Freeways: nonsensical.
    Ernie Gave Bert Dead Frogs: implausible.
    Eat Good Bread Dear Father: patriarchal.



    Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is an album by the Moody Blues
    Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge is an album by Mudhoney.

  6. #130

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    My teacher told me “face is the space” I figured four letters is easier than five. It’s been working so far.

  7. #131
    Interesting discussions.

    To much of what Christian and others are talking about, at least as I understand it, I view a lot lot of it as technical pedagogical issues. I honestly think that something like the bop eighth note triplet is a good starting point for really boiling down much of the “articulation issue” associated with guitar, especially re perceived ”tyranny of position” etc. Anyway, I’m not really playing with a lot of this stuff currently, but when I was a year or two ago, I had a lot of thoughts about it. They’re mostly technical and mostly come from just thinking about how other instruments deal with similar problems.

    There’s a point at which the line between “vertical versus horizontal positions” and simply “sliding between positions” becomes possibly blurred and seemingly semantic/ philosophical. Reg calls himself mostly a “position player”, but moves fluidly between positions better than most (though to be fair, he’s not particularly interested in pursuing classic bebop either).

    Related to the first idea, there’s also a point at which 7 positions actually helps in fluid movement between positions vs 5 positions, especially in my opinion with “borrowing” fingerings from a nearby position for issues with triplets or other articulated slurs etc. Not as much “between position” compromise, at least in thought process.

    It’s probably helpful to work on some of the stuff systematically, e.g. all positions etc., to arrive at some idea of fingering rules or knowledge of where to place things.

    Are Guitar slur limitations analogous to range limitations on other instruments?… When you work on things like Harris’s triplet lines, you pretty quickly hit walls with position playing on guitar, which begs looking at how other instruments approach things.Now I basically view these ”slur issues” as analogous to basic range limitations on other instruments. That’s kind of what they are if you think about it.

    Anyway, the net result is the same: octave displacement solves it. You can basically practice Barry Harris’s triplet slurs in all seven positions if you allow for octave displacement on the slur. At that point, I have to think it’s just a woodshed issue like learning the correct octave to play things for range limitations with other patterns.

    When you start working systematically and using octave displacement where needed, he learned pretty quickly which fingering patterns work the best in a pretty visceral kinesthetic way. Not trying to be political about fingering systems, but with seven this is systematic and the problem fingerings are pretty much the same regardless of scale degree. (For example, you can always play a triplet on the root or 7th, on first string in the position with root on 2nd finger 6th string but never the 9th. You would use octave displacement or a different position for that one.)


    I actually wonder if it’s not more of a problem with jazz guitar technical pedagogy being too underdeveloped technically. I’d wonder if what we’re really dealing with is more of a “rudiment deficiency”, or ways to systematically approach the instrument.

    That being said, I know it’s only one articulation, but I personally view the eighth note triplet slur as one of the best candidates for worst case scenario articulation challenges on the instrument. Would appreciate others thoughts.

  8. #132

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    Barry Harris triplets? I presume you are referring to the neighbor tone triplet figure at the beginning of the scale down in Donna Lee?

  9. #133
    Yeah. Sorry. Those.

    Toward the beginning of the booklet I guess. The tempo at which they shred through those on that dvd is brutal the first time you come across it, especially as a guitarist. Honestly, probably the #2 technical hurdle on guitar from the workshop, behind the half-step rules at dvd tempo.

    They present some really excellent problems and questions. Cycling through like a horn player is a different technical/organizational endeavor, compared to a one-off in a classical piece with notated fingering etc.

  10. #134

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    I seem to have missed the reference to this booklet. Can someone point me to it?

    As far as the rest, I'm not sure I understand the issues being discussed, and I can read reasonably well.

    First off, you have to know all the notes on the fretboard and all the notes on the staff (+ledger lines from low E to high G or A) -- all absolutely cold. If you have to think about any of this even for a second, you don't know them yet.

    Then, when faced with a piece of music, you pick an octave, you find the lowest and highest notes (so you don't get caught unable to reach them) and you start playing. You don't think about position, in my view. Rather, you look at the line you're trying to play and you figure out how you're going to execute it.

    Just because, say, the chord symbol says Cmaj7, doesn't mean you should necessarily plant your index finger at the 3rd, 5th or 7th fret. It would depend on the notes, recognizing that they might very well include notes that aren't in a C major scale.

    If the tempo is slow enough, none of this matters. You'll be able to play it any which way. Where it gets challenging is when the tempo starts to get uncomfortable. At that point you have to find an adequately efficient way through the passage and, in my view, position becomes irrelevant. You figure out how to access the notes you need.

    It may be worth thinking about the fact that you usually really only need to pick a spot until the next rest. Even a 16th rest is likely to be enough time to move your hand to wherever you can best play the next section, meaning until a rest. I think that becomes a subconscious thing.

    It seems to me, if you have to think about practiced fingerings maybe you don't have the basic fretboard knowledge sufficiently internalized.

    Of course, all I really know is how I do it. I'm well aware that for everything on guitar there's a great player who did it a different way.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 06-11-2022 at 06:06 PM.

  11. #135

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    Jeez, page 6 already. Can't he read YET?

  12. #136

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Jeez, page 6 already. Can't he read YET?
    I’m doing better, thanks for asking.

  13. #137

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    If I can talk about myself a little, I don't think I'm a good reader. I ought to be better than I am but it's all pretty rudimentary. I learnt from a book and got a school certificate for it but then didn't use it. So I can both read and not read.

    For one thing I only do treble clef. The bass clef is a mystery to me. I know the bottom line is G and that's about it. I have to count up and down to find what the notes are. Not much use if you're in a hurry.

    But I know the notes on the treble clef and I also know where those notes are on the guitar. That I'm good at. But complex fingering, no, although I did a lot of classical guitar pieces when young. I have to sit there and work it out carefully.

    I can hear simple stuff in my head from the page but not much further than that. In jazz, of course, it all depends what the chords say above the notes. That changes the whole thing. The line ABCDE over an Am chord is one thing, over a B7 is another, and so on.

    How pianists do it, I have no idea at all. I've seen people look for the first time at a piece of complicated classical music, both staves, multi-note chords, tricky rhythms, and just play it, accurately. They must have super-brains.

    So I can read and also not read very well. It's limited, despite the fact I'm using it to some extent every day. I probably know more than I think I do, but also not nearly as much at the same time.

    So I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, if you are. It's very easy to over-estimate or under-estimate one's capacities with music.

  14. #138

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    But I know the notes on the treble clef and I also know where those notes are on the guitar. That I'm good at. But complex fingering, no, although I did a lot of classical guitar pieces when young. I have to sit there and work it out carefully.
    That's really not so unheard of, for classical players! I've been working on a few "jazzy" scores with my teacher in what is officially the classical guitar class of my local music school; we just started on a short piece by Jonathan Stout. She also had to sit there and work through it carefully when I asked about a couple of trickier chords - she just did it a whole lot quicker than I did. Interestingly she tripped over the same surprising changes I did (surprising as in our classical background had us expecting something else).

    How pianists do it, I have no idea at all. I've seen people look for the first time at a piece of complicated classical music, both staves, multi-note chords, tricky rhythms, and just play it, accurately. They must have super-brains.
    Yet that's also what we think of blues, bluegrass, jazz etc. musicians who get together, call a song and then play something that probably hasn't been written just from a general familiarity with the song and by looking at each others' fingers.

  15. #139

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB



    Yet that's also what we think of blues, bluegrass, jazz etc. musicians who get together, call a song and then play something that probably hasn't been written just from a general familiarity with the song and by looking at each others' fingers.
    Oh, that's not the same thing at all, those tunes are easy. We're talking about reading jazz or classical from music.

  16. #140

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Oh, that's not the same thing at all, those tunes are easy. We're talking about reading jazz or classical from music.
    Heh, I know what we're talking about. I was merely pointing out that even playing "easy tunes" like that is unimaginable to somebody with just classical training (and who realises what is actually going on).

  17. #141

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    Classical training is for classical music. But there are many players, including myself, who left it behind to do other styles. One can separate the styles quite easily in one's head because they're so different.

  18. #142

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    Heh, I know what we're talking about. I was merely pointing out that even playing "easy tunes" like that is unimaginable to somebody with just classical training (and who realises what is actually going on).
    Maybe you’re just making an example and it went over my head, but If someone can’t strum along to a blues I doubt they’re good at classical.

  19. #143

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    I probably shouldn't have written that it is unimaginable but rather that it inspires just as much awe as being able to sight-read a complex piece at speed.

    I know plenty of good classical players who don't really know (or forgot) what a blues is. Sure, after hearing the bass in a particular key for a few times they should be able to pluck along with it, probably just playing single notes. But that's not "playing the blues", is it now. It's the equivalent of decyphering a score rather than sight-reading it properly (decyphering is the word used in French for playing a score for the first few times; a good term actually that describes better what's going on - just like ordinateur is a bit more appropriate than computer).

  20. #144

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    This is maybe the piano background talking, but I wish notation for guitar would just go ahead and use both clefs, so there wouldn't be so many ledger lines outside the staff. I guess the downside is a hefty chart would be many pages long.

  21. #145

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    Quote Originally Posted by timmer
    This is maybe the piano background talking, but I wish notation for guitar would just go ahead and use both clefs, so there wouldn't be so many ledger lines outside the staff. I guess the downside is a hefty chart would be many pages long.
    The transposing treble clef is annoying too

  22. #146

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    Quote Originally Posted by timmer
    \I guess the downside is a hefty chart would be many pages long.
    Why would it be longer if you use a notation that's more compact? I've been doing some work on a score imported from midi where the software mixed treble and bass clefs; converting it to a single clef did increase the vertical space requirement.

    AFAICT the transposing treble clef is the most appropriate to keep the number of extra ledger lines minimal if you want to use a single clef only. For scores that go a bit beyond 1st position at least

  23. #147

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    Why would it be longer if you use a notation that's more compact? I've been doing some work on a score imported from midi where the software mixed treble and bass clefs; converting it to a single clef did increase the vertical space requirement.

    AFAICT the transposing treble clef is the most appropriate to keep the number of extra ledger lines minimal if you want to use a single clef only. For scores that go a bit beyond 1st position at least
    I think the option was between keyboard style double clef or the current option lol

    For a more annoying option I suppose you could use tenor clef haha

  24. #148

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    For a more annoying option I suppose you could use tenor clef haha
    Nah, people used to that are probably also used to it being on different lines. No, the real fun is a moving bass clef (quite rare even in original early music engravings)

    EDIT: yep. I'm a nerd. Proudly so
    Last edited by RJVB; 06-13-2022 at 04:09 PM.

  25. #149

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    Quote Originally Posted by KingKong
    Yeh so to play the same thing in 12 different keys you need 12 different finger movements. Much much harder than what I'm saying where you just move your hand to a different place on the fretboard and use the same fingerings but inna different place. Sounds like a nightmare, f@@k doing that lol!
    I'm not sure what the disconnect here is, what's being described is just a convention so that everyone understands what's meant by e.g. "Position V" in the notation. I learned it as "one fret behind where your middle finger sits" and that works for me.

    I learned from the Leavitt book, but agree that it might be too advanced for a beginner. Once you have some reading under your belt, it's a fantastic tool for improving all areas of your playing.