The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    I think the best way to start getting a real understanding of this stuff is to pick a standard and try to harmonise the first few bars of the melody, using 6-dim chords. At least that’s what I did. You can use Navdeep’s list to translate the original chords into BH 6-dim equivalents.

    The drop-2 voicings at the start of Alan’s book are good for this.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    Talking of Roni Ben-Hur — I had totally forgotten about this video:



    This is the basic concept of sixth / diminished in a nutshell.
    That video is an extract from Roni Ben-Hur's 'Chordability' instructional DVD, which I've recommended many times on the forum and Joe recommended earlier in this thread. If the OP wants to learn how and why chords are constructed, how Drop 2 and Drop 3 voicing work and later how to employ some substitutions for colour or some of Barry's 6th diminished scale concept for some movement, this is what you want. Put it in your computer and you'll find a PDF book on the disc that's super clear. At $18 USD it's a bargain.

    Section 1, The Drop 2 and Drop 3 Voicings

    -What’s a Drop 2 Voicing
    - How to Practice the Drop 2
    - Examples for Using Drop 2
    - What’s a Drop 3 Voicing
    - How to Practice the Drop 3

    Section 2, Upper Extension Voicings

    -The Major 6 Chord as a Minor 7 & Major 9 Chords
    - The Major 7 Chord as a Minor 9 Chord
    - The Minor 6 Chord as a Minor 7(b5) Chord
    - The Minor 6 Chord as a 7(b9 #5) Chord

    Section 3, The Diminished Chord

    -What’s A Diminished Chord
    - The Diminished Chord /Drop 2 and Drop 3
    - The Diminished Chord as part of a Dominant Seventh Chord
    - The Diminished Chord with Borrowed Notes

    Section 4, Chord Progression Using the Major 6 and Diminished Chords

    - The Major 6, Diminished, Major 6 Progression
    - How to Practice The Major 6, Diminished, Major 6 Progression

    Section 5, The Major and Minor 6 Diminished Scales

    -What are the Major and Minor 6 Diminished Scales
    - How to Practice the Major and Minor 6 Diminished Scale
    - Practicing the Borrowed Notes On the Major 6 Diminished Scale
    - Practicing the Borrowed Notes On the Minor 6 Diminished Scale


  4. #28

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    Definitely the drop 2 voices. Some are bit of a stretch - as in all 5 frets - for small hands, but I suppose that's a matter of getting used to it. The Diminished Chords in blank 0's (fingerings) are tad hard to read (call it invisible for those of us spectrally challenged), and I'm not quite sure how he means his notes on the bass to be taken (in the first few pages on this) given that he notes the non-diminished chords one-at-a-time. Unless the dim chord chart is so generic it can be used on any inversion (not likely), I'm a little confused on that. But more staring at it will help!!

    Surprised he doesn't give a couple of options for fingering the scales. I'm modifying Jimmy Bruno's 6V2's and 5V2's as a starting point. But I haven't worked back to looking at Jimmy and Barry and putting the two together. More time!! More puzzling!! I've only had the book a few days.

    Thanks guys! I'll definitely start up with the longer 50-page text, so will add there from here on in.... if necessary. Have a great weekend!

  5. #29

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    Yes the diminished chord is exactly the same shape up and down in each scale, it just repeats every 3 frets, so he only shows the dim chord shape once (page 6 has a note on this).

    Re. stretching, the first chord on page 7 is quite hard, I sometimes play that as a standard maj7 shape instead, doesn’t usually matter much.

    Fingering for the chord shapes is whatever you find most comfortable really.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Yes the diminished chord is exactly the same shape up and down in each scale, it just repeats every 3 frets, so he only shows the dim chord shape once (page 6 has a note on this).

    Re. stretching, the first chord on page 7 is quite hard, I sometimes play that as a standard maj7 shape instead, doesn’t usually matter much.

    Fingering for the chord shapes is whatever you find most comfortable really.
    I drop the tenor a lot nowadays 'cause I'm bloody lazy.

  7. #31

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    I’m always dropping things nowadays.

  8. #32

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    Thinking about the technical problems and issues presented in this thread made me realize the following, in the intro to Alan’s book, where he writes about “The Guitar in Jazz”

    ”The guitar is very versatile, highly expressive, portable , colorful, exciting, gentle, and at times frustrating musical instrument. It’s simple enough to play the guitar simply. it’s more challenging to create the spectrum of moods the great jazz pianists have…I’ve come to realize some of the guitar’s vast potential for expression in jazz as well as its clear advantages in positional playing. On the other hand, the guitar’s shortcomings include close voicings and the difficulty to accompany oneself”.


    In rock, they’ve solved these problems entirely. They got LEAD guitarists and RHYTHM guitarists, and nare the two shall ever meet.

    How come they don’t “lead piano” and “rhythm piano”, then?

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    […] In rock, they’ve solved these problems entirely. They got LEAD guitarists and RHYTHM guitarists, and nare the two shall ever meet. […]
    Lots of counter examples: Jimi Hendrix being a strong rhythm player (who came from playing rhythm & blues on the “chitlin’ circuit”) once said he would like to burn Clapton for not being able to play rhythm. Eddie Van Halen — great rhythm player. ACDC — perfect doubling of riffs by Angus Young. The Rolling Stones — interwoven rhythm parts and Keith Richards plays a solo from time to time as well (think “Sympathy for the Devil”).

    But you are of course right in so far that with two guitars you have “two hands”.

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    V7 to I. Dominant to Tonic. Tension that is Released and Resolved. Getting back Home. A Turnaround is the most basic form we have on these tunes-getting back to home. It’s all about building tension and hearing the resolution, the drive towards consonance.

    in the first DVD series, Barry starts out, “people think Bird played Gm7 to D7. That’s impossible. He played D7. So, in order for us to start thinking about improvisation, we have to come to terms with the dominant 7th chord”.
    Did you mean to type A-7 to D7 rather than "G-7 to D7"?
    Last edited by rintincop; 10-17-2022 at 01:36 AM.

  11. #35

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    ...
    Last edited by rintincop; 10-17-2022 at 01:36 AM.

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    in the first DVD series, Barry starts out, “people think Bird played Am7 to D7. That’s impossible. He played D7. So, in order for us to start thinking about improvisation, we have to come to terms with the dominant 7th chord”.
    Bird played ii7 arps, so no it's not impossible lol.
    Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 10-14-2022 at 04:59 PM.

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    Bird played ii7 arps, so no it's not impossible lol.
    A Four Note Chord built on the fifth degree of the Dominant.

  14. #38

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    That's an adequate way of analyzing the music to focus on the V in a ii-V, but the statement is still false.

  15. #39

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    Well, I heard Barry say Max Roach confirmed the very thing to him.

    However it works for you Jimmy.

  16. #40

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    Here’s the exact quote from BH, at the beginning of DVD 1 of his 8 DVD series. (1994):

    “You know, as a young piano player myself, we would listen to piano players play chords, and say, “oh he payed Cm7 to F7”. So, we’d say, “Bird played Cm7 to F7”. In my dealings with this music I began to find out that Bird did not play Cm7 to F7. Because that’s one of those highly impossible things to do. We’re gonna try to show you the true meaning of improvisation. See, Bird, when I listened to the Rhythm Bridge, we’d play (demonstrating chords on piano)Am7 to D7. But I heard Bird say (demonstrating single note lines on piano). I said, ‘how could he be playing a D arpeggio against an Am7??’ So he must not have been thinking of the Am7. He must be thinking of the D7. So, I played it (D7) against Am7 and it works. We as piano players , have come to the conclusion that Am7 to D7 is really a 4 to 3 suspension and it’s just a case of this note going to that note. Piano players say (plays Am7 and D7 chords in left and right hands) but really, horn players say (plays a single note line in D). Bird one time said (plays a fast line on piano). Now you can’t play that thinking of Am7 you have to think of D7. So this whole tape will attempt to show you what you should think about when you think of improvisation and really what you should think about is the dominant seventh chord.”
    Last edited by NSJ; 10-15-2022 at 08:51 AM.

  17. #41

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    I’ve always taken Barry’s teaching on this to indicate that what you do on a ii V can involve any of the options you have at your disposal from the dominant scale. On D7 it could be a D or D7 but it could equally be an Am, a C, any other triad, chord or arpeggio in the scale, a pattern in thirds, an added note scale, a 5 4 3 2 type phrase etc etc. And that’s without getting into tritone subs etc.

    the advantage is that it all becomes less cluttered mentally, at least that’s what I found

    Jazz theory can get very bogged down with the minutiae of playing ii V I with avoid notes and such. It’s all unnecessary.

    in fact Barry was an advocate of mostly using dominant scales on minor ii V’s. In one of his online workshops during Covid he pointed out that you may just want to emphasis the G7 on a Bm7b5 E7b9 Am and not even play the E7 chord. The reason he gave us that is that you don’t want to get stuck in the harmonic minor, presumably because you already know more stuff to play in dominant.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-15-2022 at 05:08 AM.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    Have fun criticizing my grasp on reality when I used the true definition of something and you didn't lol.

    ..But however it works for you.
    Alternatively, maybe you could learn something here from someone who spent a lot of time with Barry and literally wrote the book on how to apply his ideas to guitar?

    Alan’s not trying to argue with you, he’s just trying to report what he knows about the subject, which is considerable. We all gain from what people like Alan bring to the table.

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I’ve always taken Barry’s teaching on this to indicate that what you do on a ii V can involve any of the options you have at your disposal from the dominant scale. On D7 it could be a D or D7 but it could equally be an Am, a C, any other triad, chord or arpeggio in the scale, a pattern in thirds, an added note scale, a 5 4 3 2 type phrase etc etc. And that’s without getting into tritone subs etc.

    the advantage is that it all becomes less cluttered mentally, at least that’s what I found

    Jazz theory can get very bogged down with the minutiae of playing ii V I with avoid notes and such. It’s all unnecessary.

    in fact Barry was an advocate of mostly using dominant scales on minor ii V’s. In one of his online workshops during Covid he pointed out that you may just want to emphasis the G7 on a Bm7b5 E7b9 Am and not even play the E7 chord. The reason he gave us that is that you don’t want to get stuck in the harmonic minor, presumably because you already know more stuff to play in dominant.
    For me, his system is beyond elegant. You can play Am6 instead of D7, it’s just “6 on the 5”. In fact, you can play “6 on the 5” for each of the family of 4 dominants, or even play them into each other.

    Your musical arsenal is streamlined and ready to go: Key of G, on a D7, you can play D7 or F7 or Ab7 or B7. Or all of them. Along with the diminished (A°-C°-Eb°Gb°). You can play the “6 on the 5” for each dominant 7: Am6-Cm6-Ebm6-Gbm6. (These are the named by the same note as the diminished associated with the domiannt 7ths). As well as the diminished associated with the “6 on the 5s” (Ab°-B°-D°-F°). Thus you can actually use 2 of the 3 diminishes.

    I love how self-contained and systematic this is, it all works so elegantly and thoroughly, in a streamlined, really well thought out way. You can just let your ears guide you. It gives you incredible freedom to do almost anything.

    To me, Indian classical music, which is even more improvised than jazz is, has the same vibe, with the rules each of the 72 parent ragas and the extremely intricate system of talas. The point of the discipline of the rules is to allow one musical freedom.

    Sorry for the typos in this tread, above. I was dictating.

  20. #44

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    So harmonically on both ii and V you would play the min 6 diminished scale from the 2nd scale degree as this scale harmonically encompasses both the V and ii? And could do the same in minor, disregarding the half diminished on ii?

  21. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
    I drop the tenor a lot nowadays 'cause I'm bloody lazy.
    three voices ftw

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    So harmonically on both ii and V you would play the min 6 diminished scale from the 2nd scale degree as this scale harmonically encompasses both the V and ii? And could do the same in minor, disregarding the half diminished on ii?
    Well that’s more like a sub, but yes you could do that.

    the default for soloing which is what Barry is talking about there is to use the dominant scale which is the same as what many educators call the mixolydian. That’s what I would advise working on at first, getting the added note rules and patterns under your fingers, and then applying everywhere you can. The minor and major scales can wait.

    - We apply to V7
    - we apply to bII7 the tritone sub
    - we apply to bVII7

    that gives you the main three options in the brothers and sisters as Barry calls them (diminished symmetry). You see all of them used. The third is the most usual in a minor key and you see it subbed for the IIm7b5, but it’s great in major too. (III7 is most often used as a route in relative minor so I’ve missed it out here.)

    We then use a dim7 arpeggio to connect into the chord tones of what ever I chord we are going to.

    This is a bit hard for newcomers to get, but the 8 note scale stuff is kind of it’s own thing. Barry would teach them separately, although there is some overlap and the m6 is certainly used for soloing.

    I’m thinking of doing a n00bs guide to Barry video, just the bare bones of what can get you started, so much less info than DVD I but enough so you can get a feel for it and if it’s for you.

  23. #47

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    So harmonically on both ii and V you would play the min 6 diminished scale from the 2nd scale degree as this scale harmonically encompasses both the V and ii? And could do the same in minor, disregarding the half diminished on ii?
    (I guess you meant “2nd degree of the key” so in C major: D minor sixth diminished over all of the II V D–7 G7.)

    Generalization a II V into the V applies to single-note improvisation: e.g. the descending (dominant) 7th scale (a.k.a. “mixolydian” in CST) plus extra halfsteps (more than just a “bebop scale”) stuff for all of a II V in major.

    In comping the II chord is played. [In e.g. C the D–7 (II chord, inversion of F6) and D–6 (rootless G7/9) as well as Ab–6 (rootless Db7/9 a.k.a. “tritones minor”) all share the same diminished in their sixth diminished scales (Eo = Go = Bbo = C#o) so you can go from D–7 to D–6 or to Ab–6 via that diminished.]

    I think it is important to distinguish between any sixth chord (which might be a substitute for another chord) as “on” chord and the respective diminished as passing “off” chord. They are not equal in their role.*

    * “on” and “off” are not Barry’s terms but Thomas Echols’ (from YouTube channel The Labyrinth Of Limitations) but I find them descriptive in a good way.

    You can swap the emphasis of “on” and “off” (passing chord) by using the diminished as substitute for a dominant, let’s say in the key of C you have | G7 / / / | C / / / | now you can use Bo (= Do = Fo = Abo) over the first bar as “on chord” substituting G7 and C6 as passing chord. [BTW in this special case you can get interesting results by using any other sixth or seventh chord connected to Bo instead of C6 as passing chord: Eb6 (=C–7), Eb–6 (= C–7/b5), Eb7, Eb7/5b, Gb6, Gb–6, Gb7, Gb7/b5, A6, A–6, etc.]

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    three voices ftw
    I started experimenting with the alto + tenor + bass structure of drop2s (= soprano + alto + tenor of drop3) and Barry’s borrowing concept for the sixth diminished scales. Great stuff.

  25. #49

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    I started experimenting with the alto + tenor + bass structure of drop2s (= soprano + alto + tenor of drop3) and Barry’s borrowing concept for the sixth diminished scales. Great stuff.
    it just gives you more flexibility you aren’t just going chunk chunk chord chord but can add a bit of legato and movement between the harmonies.

  26. #50

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    To the OP, FWIW I found the seemingly contradictory explanations (there is no ii7 only a IV6, but also no ii only the V7) very confusing. Then I saw a pianist on YouTube talk about Barry”s right hand theory and left hand theory, and how he made them work together.

    I have no idea if Barry actually thought anything like that, but it helped me to understand. Alan”s book is all about the left hand. Christ Parks and others mostly about the right. Of course we’re guitarist and don’t think in those terms, but to understand Barry, at least as a novice to his system, it is useful to understand the distinction.

    6-dim scale/movement/tritone’s minor/fifth on the six are all left hand concepts. Think in dominants/scale practice/pivots/etc are right hand concepts. One hand can be doing one while the other does the other with no conflict on the piano. Not so easy for guitarist.