The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Hey Rick... your question is very useful.

    Generally notation has musical meaning behind. Typically during a head or melody... specific voicings or at least lead lines could be notated, which generally imply the function of the chord within the progression and relationship with the melody.

    Typically phrygian implies or functiions as
    -a tonic or diatonic sub for Imaj
    -a subdominant II- of a implied V7 or a
    -Dominant V7 of a target ( V7b9sus chord)
    ()
    Thanks Reg. Next time, I'll bring the chart.

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  3. #52

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Paul alluded to the phrygian label permitting some additional flexibility. I think I would need to see that applied to a tune to really get it.
    Jens' second video is a good look at it, and he always reminds me of how much I like the long name chords.
    The first of Jens' videos reminded me of the last 10 minutes of the 12 minute King Crimson tune Moonchild
    from 1969 wherein the score of which must have been absolutely littered full with the "Phrygian" direction.

  4. #53
    I just found out who did the arrangement, wrote the chart and what he meant by Eb Phrygian.

    For the comping chord on piano he wants this voicing: Eb E Ab Bb Eb. R b9 4 5 R. It sounds good on piano.

    If the bassist has the root, you can play it on guitar. But I also like Eb Ab Db E. The chord is a little harsher because of the b9 interval on top, but it goes very well with the voice leading.

    Since that's what he wanted, it seems to me he could have written Emaj7#11/Eb.

    He's saying he wants Eb phrygian and not Dbmelmin.

    The difference is:

    Eb E Gb Ab Bb B Db = Eb Phryg

    Eb E Gb Ab Bb C Db - Db mel min

    So, using the word "phrygian" tells you not to play a C in your chord if you're going to play around with the voicings. 7susb9 does not rule out that C.

  5. #54

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    That sort of makes sense, but maybe if the arranger wants a specific voicing it should be notated in the part in actual notes. I dunno, maybe that’s in the keys part.

    Tbh chord symbols run into hard limitations.

    So yeah the Ebsus4b9 is default chord for Eb phrygian, albeit with an interesting voicing. Btw is that a minor 9th or 2nd between the Eb and E?

    None of my slash voicings would have quite right but none egregiously bad.

    Tbh if I want to play a Db mm in the soloing I consider that my business, but maybe he’s just used to pianists (maybe also the odd guitar player) looking at the chart and thinking ‘I shall play a dorian b9 voicing because it’s cool and that’s what I learned at jazz school to do with a sus4b9’ and mucking up the tune cos it clashes with the horns or something.

    It’s kind of a dilemma really. What gives the best and most reliable results? Quite interesting to think about.

  6. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    That sort of makes sense, but maybe if the arranger wants a specific voicing it should be notated in the part in actual notes. I dunno, maybe that’s in the keys part.

    Tbh chord symbols run into hard limitations.

    So yeah the Ebsus4b9 is default chord for Eb phrygian, albeit with an interesting voicing. Btw is that a minor 9th or 2nd between the Eb and E?

    None of my slash voicings would have quite right but none egregiously bad.

    Tbh if I want to play a Db mm in the soloing I consider that my business, but maybe he’s just used to pianists (maybe also the odd guitar player) looking at the chart and thinking ‘I shall play a dorian b9 voicing because it’s cool and that’s what I learned at jazz school to do with a sus4b9’ and mucking up the tune cos it clashes with the horns or something.

    It’s kind of a dilemma really. What gives the best and most reliable results? Quite interesting to think about.
    I assume the Eb would be minor 9th lower and played by the bassist.

    One issue is where you put the E and the Eb. Eb phryg tells the bassist to play an Eb. If the guitarist then puts an E on the bottom of the chord, he gets a b9 interval with the bassist. If he puts it at the top of the chord he gets an b9 interval at the top of his own chord - which sounds dissonant to some. So, where do you place the b9 interval?

    My pianist friend really likes a root position Emaj7#11/Eb. I like Eb7susb9, played Eb Ab Db E. That's only one note different from the chord before (the Ebsus13 - we now lower F to E) and it's only a half step different.

  7. #56

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    I can't understand why you talk so much about that.
    On every minor tune, every beginner has played one day a Phrygian mode on the dominant chord without knowing it.

  8. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    That sort of makes sense, but maybe if the arranger wants a specific voicing it should be notated in the part in actual notes. I dunno, maybe that’s in the keys part.
    .
    This is connected, but a different issue worthy of some attention. In this case, the arranger wrote a lead sheet. There is no separate keys part.

    When you want the comping musician to use a specific voicing, how do you enter that into the chart? If you put it on the staff, it will be read as occurring on whatever beat you enter it at. But, in this case, you don't want to tell the guitar or kb exactly when to play the chord -- rather, they get to fit it into the tune's groove. But you want the exact correct voicing.

    So, you could add a second stave, enter the chord on a staff and label it "suggested voicing". Or you could make a tiny staff-fragment above the main staff (the name for that escapes me at the moment) and enter it there, again labeled "suggested voicing".

    Hermeto Pascoal had his own notation which specified every note of the chord he wanted in his chord symbol (stack of symbols, vertically, starting with the lowest note of the chord and giving the interval to each successive note).

    I'd say, in this case, I'd be most likely to play the voicing he wanted if he wrote it as Emaj7#11/Eb. And, as far as insisting on playing Eb phrygian for the solo, what else would you play against that chord?

    My solution is to put a staff with x'ed noteheads at the beginning of the measure (easiest if there's a rest there) and add text that explains that all the chords that look like that are suggested voicings not to be played as written. When you get a good reader you're going to have to explain that a couple times. I've gotten complaints from one well-trained player who doesn't like anything non-standard in a chart, but he doesn't have a better suggestion IMO. He likes the separate stave approach, but, often enough, that will force another page to the chart -- which I try to avoid.

    But, is there a better way to notate a suggested voicing without telling the musician exactly when to play it? Hermeto's system is hard to read, but it does solve this problem.

  9. #58

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    A Phrygian chord ? It sounds like a wooden tree to me.

  10. #59

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    This is connected, but a different issue worthy of some attention. In this case, the arranger wrote a lead sheet. There is no separate keys part.

    When you want the comping musician to use a specific voicing, how do you enter that into the chart? If you put it on the staff, it will be read as occurring on whatever beat you enter it at. But, in this case, you don't want to tell the guitar or kb exactly when to play the chord -- rather, they get to fit it into the tune's groove. But you want the exact correct voicing.

    So, you could add a second stave, enter the chord on a staff and label it "suggested voicing". Or you could make a tiny staff-fragment above the main staff (the name for that escapes me at the moment) and enter it there, again labeled "suggested voicing".

    Hermeto Pascoal had his own notation which specified every note of the chord he wanted in his chord symbol (stack of symbols, vertically, starting with the lowest note of the chord and giving the interval to each successive note).

    I'd say, in this case, I'd be most likely to play the voicing he wanted if he wrote it as Emaj7#11/Eb. And, as far as insisting on playing Eb phrygian for the solo, what else would you play against that chord?

    My solution is to put a staff with x'ed noteheads at the beginning of the measure (easiest if there's a rest there) and add text that explains that all the chords that look like that are suggested voicings not to be played as written. When you get a good reader you're going to have to explain that a couple times. I've gotten complaints from one well-trained player who doesn't like anything non-standard in a chart, but he doesn't have a better suggestion IMO. He likes the separate stave approach, but, often enough, that will force another page to the chart -- which I try to avoid.
    My experience has been that when players go into 'reading mode' text tends to get ignored.

    Perhaps I'm being dense but I don't see why a separate staff is necessary? In the guitar part you have a single staff with slashes for generic voicings with chord symbols, and then can spell out any non standard voicings on the staff as well (perhaps with a chord symbol above just for safety.) Obviously pianists 9/10 won't have a clue what guitarists are able to play on their instruments and arrangers are 9/10 pianists (or use piano as the primary harmonic instrument) so, it's not necessarily problem free. The chord symbol is useful for safety.

    Ultimately, compared to the horns, the guitar chair is complicated (like the piano chair) by the diversity of input you get, from chord symbols in various forms, to written melodies, to chord stabs, little bits of text with gnomic instructions and so on. So the only way is to get experienced players who have seen it all! Which is another whole challenge lol.

    In any case as 'Eb phrygian' might give me a moment of 'whaa?'... in a chart, next time I'd know it was an Eb7susb9 type voicing with no C, and that's fine. Standardised notation is always best, and maybe this is more standard than I think.

    Something simple - perhaps doubling the voice leading - might be the best policy if there's keys on the gig. The truth I suppose many arrangers don't really know what to do with a guitar or what's possible so leave it up to the player. I quite like when I have some dots to read. Makes me feel appreciated and part of the overall vision of the composition/arrangment instead of 'ah nuts, there's a guitar player, oh here's some chords let them sort it out they probably can't read anyway.'

    (I did have a nice experience the other day when the big band pianist randomly left the stage to go sort something out. I had a whole number with just me comping. Whee!)

    In the end I do think chord symbols or any musical notation for that matter shapes our musical imagination. It makes certain things harder to specify and therefore write, but also allows freedom in other ways.

    But, is there a better way to notate a suggested voicing without telling the musician exactly when to play it? Hermeto's system is hard to read, but it does solve this problem.
    Isn't Hermeto's system a bit like figured bass, so sepcifying intervals above the bass? I can't remember, sorry! Never looked at an original Hermeto chart.

  11. #60

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    TBF this
    Eb E Ab Bb Eb.

    Does sound like Most. Phrygian. Ever.

    Not the easiest to finger even without the bass note

    naturally I tried it up a half step in which it becomes, magically

    0 x 3 2 0 0

    i.e. the Flamenco chord! (See the parting comments in my video)

    So it is a guitar voicing after all. And honestly, the guitar is kind of where the scale and chord came from as far as jazz is concerned.

  12. #61

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    D Phrygian chord ?
    Amin7b5/D
    Where is the problem ?
    I didn't know they gave it a name !
    That's interesting !
    Pedals might give several weird names to other well known chords.

  13. #62

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lionelsax
    D Phrygian chord ?
    Amin7b5/D
    Where is the problem ?
    I didn't know they gave it a name !
    That's interesting !
    Pedals might give several weird names to other well known chords.
    Yeah, I like the baroque practice of ignoring bass pedals when naming chords.

    Of course in a jazz chart you just write a dotted line and 'E pedal' or whatever, same thing.

  14. #63

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    About this chord, or this concept, I immediately thought about Flamenco Sketches.
    But that's only me.

  15. #64

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lionelsax
    About this chord, or this concept, I immediately thought about Flamenco Sketches.
    But that's only me.
    me too

  16. #65

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lionelsax
    About this chord, or this concept, I immediately thought about Flamenco Sketches.
    But that's only me.
    +1
    Lots of discussion...I practice the blues and that's enough for me.

  17. #66

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    I put this but nobody reacted, maybe I was out of what it was about !
    Quote Originally Posted by Lionelsax



    Mix of Phrygian of dominant (Jewish scale) and regular Phrygian on Deep Purple Hey Joe (Phrygian cadence but who cares ?).
    On Miles Davis, the Phrygian mode can be heard on a dominant (regular Phrygian).
    La Fiesta, a very nice tune I loved when I wasn't really into jazz.

  18. #67

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    Yea Rick... so it's just a (V of a IV).... or Dom. type of function or chord movement, and use of standard modal and melodic camouflage. You can think of the tune in Min., Dorian min. With a mixture of maj/min and Modal Functional harmonic organization. Sounds more complicated than it is.

    Maj/min.... Key of Ab with F- being the relative Min. The Modal counterpart... Key of Ab Lydian

    You might be getting to caught up in stop time understandings. Just like we subdivide rhythmic figures.... we also subdivide harmony.... create chord patterns to create more colorful harmonic movement. (expanded Harmonic Rhythm concepts)

    Next time we see each other.... I'll get into the theory BS with playing examples, (ears)... LOL

  19. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    My experience has been that when players go into 'reading mode' text tends to get ignored.

    Perhaps I'm being dense but I don't see why a separate staff is necessary? In the guitar part you have a single staff with slashes for generic voicings with chord symbols, and then can spell out any non standard voicings on the staff as well (perhaps with a chord symbol above just for safety.) Obviously pianists 9/10 won't have a clue what guitarists are able to play on their instruments and arrangers are 9/10 pianists (or use piano as the primary harmonic instrument) so, it's not necessarily problem free. The chord symbol is useful for safety.

    Isn't Hermeto's system a bit like figured bass, so sepcifying intervals above the bass? I can't remember, sorry! Never looked at an original Hermeto chart.
    In most of what I do in small groups we're all working from the same lead sheet. The harmony is often not vanilla. The horn band stuff is either piano or guitar charts and rarely specify specific voicings.

    But, the problem with specifying a chord voicing is the same. If you write it in, it's going to get played exactly as written. There is not, afaik, a standard way to instruct "use this voicing, but comp rhythmically however you want".

    And, readers gotta read. If you put it in and then give a verbal instruction "that's not to be played as written, just comp and when you get to that chord, use that voicing in your comping pattern, don't play it as written" -- well, oftentimes the reader will have trouble ignoring something in the chart and will screw the groove while he reads that voicing.

    I believe that Hermeto's approach is similar to Figured Bass. I think his book Calendario De Sol (he wrote a tune a day for a leap year and published them all in one book) is written that way.

    It was also how he arranged horns, live. He'd sing the notes, in order, low to high, to the horn players. Including all the wild sounding voicings.

    The advantage of Hermeto's system is that it puts the exact voicing in the chord symbol, which solves the problem.

    A way to do something similar, is to be very careful with constructing the chord symbols. Hence, in this example, Emaj7#11/Eb. You just might get R b9 4 5 R, with the low root in the piano left hand, or bass.

  20. #69

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    In most of what I do in small groups we're all working from the same lead sheet. The harmony is often not vanilla. The horn band stuff is either piano or guitar charts and rarely specify specific voicings.

    But, the problem with specifying a chord voicing is the same. If you write it in, it's going to get played exactly as written. There is not, afaik, a standard way to instruct "use this voicing, but comp rhythmically however you want".

    And, readers gotta read. If you put it in and then give a verbal instruction "that's not to be played as written, just comp and when you get to that chord, use that voicing in your comping pattern, don't play it as written" -- well, oftentimes the reader will have trouble ignoring something in the chart and will screw the groove while he reads that voicing.

    I believe that Hermeto's approach is similar to Figured Bass. I think his book Calendario De Sol (he wrote a tune a day for a leap year and published them all in one book) is written that way.

    It was also how he arranged horns, live. He'd sing the notes, in order, low to high, to the horn players. Including all the wild sounding voicings.

    The advantage of Hermeto's system is that it puts the exact voicing in the chord symbol, which solves the problem.

    A way to do something similar, is to be very careful with constructing the chord symbols. Hence, in this example, Emaj7#11/Eb. You just might get R b9 4 5 R, with the low root in the piano left hand, or bass.
    Sure. But to me all of this discussion is skirting around one basic issue which is that we are relying on our experience and musicality when reading charts. this is even true of an apparently very specific system like figured bass where you actually have to see beyond the figures to see what is implied in the counterpoint; to join up the vertical slices just as much as with chord symbols.

    In jazz, this manifests itself in various ways. when you’ve looked at enough Basie and standards charts you understand what is implied by the symbols the line cliches and blues things and so on, but with modern stuff it’s often specific to that composer/arranger so you have to learn their language to some extent. Musicians that work a lot with one composer or arranger may learn their own private language that may not be understood outside their immediate circle even if you get hold of the charts.

    to me, as an composer/arranger my experience has been that the minimum amount of weird stuff the player has to parse results in better performances. I can rehearse a chart and everyone knows what’s going on but in the gig everything goes out of the window and only what’s on the chart is performed, verbatim. it’s kind of a binary thing; here’s a lead sheet, or, here’s a fully written arrangement. A switch goes on in the players head. (Perhaps less so for guitarists, but as I am also the guitarist …)

    But that’s my bitter experience haha

    So what I’ve learned verbatim is good if you want to hear it. Text is sometimes a necessary evil but don’t expect it to be read.

    OTOH it’s not necessary to improvise in an arrangement, and by the time you get to the solos, however you organise the blowing and comping is a separate issue, usually a chord chart.

    So, that said I’m warming to ‘Eb phrygian’ as a chord symbol now I know that chord is ‘the flamenco guitar voicing’ (albeit transposed). Otoh what does Ab lydian mean (I would guess a variation Abmaj7#11 but maybe the arranger has something more specific in mind.

    Also, the voice leading in that tune is not that far away from traditional big band arranging, in fact. It’s not really post modal (or at least not that section) but functional harmony.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-19-2022 at 05:52 PM.

  21. #70

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    Ab Lyd is Abmaj7#11
    E Phryg is E7susb9
    Either naming is fine with me.
    I've never heard about we got to comp the exact chord symbols indicated on charts. I thought jazz had a degree of freedom in that regard. I assume that comping exact chord symbols is perhaps a student thing.

  22. #71

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    Kind of Blue..flamenco sketches has been referenced in this thread..

    I had to listen to it this AM...It just gets better and better

    Evans hand is all over it.. very tasty chord patterns weaving in and out of the basic feel

    I would have to ask..what do you want to be played if the text says phrygian

    according to Evans inversions of sus flavored patterns implying the phrygian feel and punch the melody while your doing it

    there are a few variations of sheet music in different keys trying to tell you this is what you hear on KOB..dont believe it..!

  23. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Ab Lyd is Abmaj7#11
    E Phryg is E7susb9
    Either naming is fine with me.
    I've never heard about we got to comp the exact chord symbols indicated on charts. I thought jazz had a degree of freedom in that regard. I assume that comping exact chord symbols is perhaps a student thing.
    Depends on context.

    A small group playing standards is one situation.

    Reading a chart for a big band or being in a situation where the goal is to reproduce the exact arrangement on the chart is another situation. Even head vs solos are different situations.

  24. #73

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    I just looked at score posted by (supersoul) and listened to the example.... chart seem pretty straight ahead... AAB with vamps. From the vid... I wouldn't really have push the Phrygian mode symbol much, It's just II V going to Ab.

    The pianist seem to even hint at Bbmm.

    The few rhythmic kicks were implied but as with most tunes not strictly followed during the improv... The only prygian seem to be in the "B" section vamp at start.... a Dbmaj to C- or IV III- vamp.

    It's always interesting to play tunes that want to imply they're in a rhythmic groove thing and then use unbalanced number of bars with vamps to connect. Nice tune Rick... would be fun to solo on LOL.
    See ya soon Reg

  25. #74

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    You can hear it the second and third times through the A section

  26. #75

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    Cba reading all the posts, but in answer to the original question. E Phrygian.

    E Phrygian is 3 rd mode in C major.
    So is it trying to tell you to play any E chord that is diatonic in the key of C?