The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I haven't touched a joanna in years, but it's still easier (clearer) for me to map things out on a keyboard and I prefer to get a given tune I may want to play from a YT piano tutorial. Horns are great for solo lines too.

    You're right that you can solo-ish on any tune by playing the notes in the corresponding chord, at least as a starting point. Daft, innit?

    Oh, and guitarists get the gurls by the way, so there's that.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    I haven't touched a joanna in years, but it's still easier (clearer) for me to map things out on a keyboard and I prefer to get a given tune I may want to play from a YT piano tutorial. Horns are great for solo lines too.

    You're right that you can solo-ish on any tune by playing the notes in the corresponding chord, at least as a starting point. Daft, innit?

    Oh, and guitarists get the gurls by the way, so there's that.
    I thought that was drummers, but maybe that has something to do with my intense personal body odour

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    Oh, and guitarists get the gurls by the way, so there's that.
    I have never found this to be true.

  6. #5

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    In the big band, the guitar chart requires a few things that aren't so easy.

    You have to read written-out rhythms, which are on the staff. As you do that, you also have to read chord symbols, which are above the staff. And, for each of them, you have to figure out if you're going to play the chord and, if so, how. That calculation might reasonably require sneaking a peek ahead, at the staff and at the chord symbols above it.

    Guitarists aren't often expected to read stacks on notes on the same stem, although it happens now and then and the voicings are not necessarily even playable, requiring the player to figure out what was intended by the arranger and how to play that.

    With the guitarists eyes jumping up and down while moving to the right, there will occasionally be a multibar repeat sign (what's that called?) requiring that the eyes jump to the left, play the line, then jump back to the right to continue playing. If there are hits, all the merrier.

    While doing all of this, the guitarist is also supposed to be listening to the band, especially the piano, and trying to be a good band citizen.

    Worst of all, if you complain about any of this, it better not be to a pianist. The pianist is dealing with all of the above, is expected to read notes on stems and, after all that, has another entire hand with pretty much the same set of problems.

    Plus, when the horns finally stop blowing, it's very likely that the piano is supposed to play something in that space -- so the pianist needs to know where he is in the chart. Well, the guitarist is supposed to know that too, but if he stops playing the pianist covers almost everything and the band members who never wanted a guitar in the first place are happy. The other players may compliment the guitarist on his taste and restraint for laying out. None of them are this happy when the pianist gets lost and stops playing. Or gets lost and continues playing.

    The big advantage of the piano is that learning where all the notes are is easier. And, there's only one way to play a given note, so there's less thinking required. But, human nature stays the same, which means some very clever people are going to figure out how to do hard things and then, for some reason, mere mortals are judged by that.

    I don't know how much I'm kidding about any of this.

  7. #6

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    Yeah.. thats why I changed my tuning. Too many darn things to memorize! Of course I still have a lot to memorize but not to that extent lol. I have respect for standard tuning guitarists though especially those that play well despite the inconsistency. I remember having so much difficulty with playing arppegios and chords all over the neck back when I played standard. Not to mention most scale shapes having a 5 fret range in position which I always find kind of awkward.. but oh well! I'm too dumb for standard tuning anyways

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    I thought that was drummers, but maybe that has something to do with my intense personal body odour
    Didn't Lester Young give up the drums because all the best women had gone by the time he'd packed up his kit ?

  9. #8

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    Yes, instruments with a lot of strings are difficult to play well, I tried playing a 10 string Chapman Stick type instrument for a while, an extremely difficult instrument to play, it's now gathering dust with only 6 strings left. Fretless instruments create even more dilemmas, I tried playing double bass for 10 years too.

  10. #9

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    My bad, I obviously wasn't thinking of jazz guitarists when I wrote that

  11. #10

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    I think it goes...

    "Musicians get the gurls,
    Guitarists get their pick."


    Now about the guitar being so complicated, it depends on your approach. The beauty of the guitar (unlike the piano) is that forms of lines and harmonies are isomorphic up to the boundaries of the finger board. This means that your fingers can learn one prototypical instance of a chord or scale and translate that directly to other instances of the same type with different root or tonic - the form and motions of the hand stay the same.

    To the degree that you play by the way things sound, this gives those sounds specific forms that are independent of key. To the degree that you play by naming the pitches as notes so as to name or construct the types of chords and scales with respect to theory experience, the advantages of the inherent isomorphism are overlooked and things seem complicated.

    The piano is a good instrument for playing by naming things because it literally takes 30 seconds to learn how to instantly name each of the 88 pitches, and there is only one way to play each, and they are scored similarly. If you construct whole or parts of chords and scales by named pitches, the piano looks clear. However, although the forms of the different chords' and scales' patterns on the piano are "schematically" isomorphic, they are not geometrically the same across keys. That means it looks good conceptually on paper but when you roll it out and try it you find the keys' patterns of form highly variable. This means you can't use the fingering forms across key signatures like on the guitar... reading music on the piano is easy, playing by ear is hard because the same "sound" is made manifest differently in form across the different keys.

    The guitar is a good instrument for playing by ear because it takes literally 30 seconds to learn a chord or scale form that you can instantly use in that same form in all keys. Furthermore, the sounds of changes and melodic lines are also relative to keys without deformation of their forms. This makes playing by ear an association between forms and sounds which may become extremely fine and extend to encompass various styles.

    Conceptually analogously, I can think of a protein molecule unfolded and laid out straight in order to name the sequences and identify the functional groups (and maybe draw dotted lines between the interacting functional groups), but to grasp what is really going on I can let it remain folded and look at the form and shape that results in the various functional groups being held in proximity to each other and so more naturally observe their mutual interactions. The piano is like unfolding it out straight; the guitar is like leaving it folded.


    Keyboardists, know our pain-heme-jpg

  12. #11

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    Well, I play the piano on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
    I can't understand your goal.
    About jazz tunes (for beginners), it exactly works like the guitar, there are positions, it's very simple.
    There are two main positions, A and B.


    M7 and m7 : 3 5 7 9 or 7 9 3 5
    On Dominant (tritonic substitution) : 3 6 7 9 (7 #9 3 #5) or 7 9 3 6 (3 #5 7 #9)
    On m7b5 : 3 b5 7 R or 7 R 3 b5

    You add diminished chords and you can play everything you want.

    Of course the left hand plays bass lines.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    My bad, I obviously wasn't thinking of jazz guitarists when I wrote that
    jazz guitar is what happens when you make the crucial mistake of taking the instrument too seriously. Other things such as personal hygiene may suffer.

    See also prog rock.

  14. #13

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    My specific objective with the this vid aside from pointing out the guitar is stupid, is kind of to indicate the sort of substantial work that may be overlooked in pianist authored theory books and so on.

    This work needs to be done on the guitar (and other instruments too) and is a far more important use of one’s practice time early on than jumping on to chord scales etc.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    jazz guitar is what happens when you make the crucial mistake of taking the instrument too seriously. Other things such as personal hygiene may suffer.

    See also prog rock.
    Touché! Actually not because groupies (aka teeny-boppers) from the nearby village used to come and hang out at my prog band's practice sessions.

    Gilad Hekselman's often pianistic approach to guitar is certainly worth checking out, IMO.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    I think it goes...

    "Musicians get the gurls,
    Guitarists get their pick."

    I know keyboardists that think exactly like guitarists.
    It's true, they use the transpose function.
    Personally I hate that. I don't have a good ear but the other day someone noticed I had kind of perfect pitch, I claimed it was craps. I was singing a theme in the right key and had difficulties to sing it in another key.
    I'm a saxophonist, that sounds like a joke.
    When I touch the keyboard and without knowing it, my colleague who was there before me used the transpose function, when I hear that the key doesn't play what I expected... I'm kind of angry.

  17. #16

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    If I was a gurl I wouldn't go near guitarists. Or musicians in general, really. Players only love you when they're playing :-)

  18. #17

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    Keys is more efficient in some ways but it isn't perfectly ergonomic. In general it is easier to be able to plunk 2 hands down on the keyboard that is laid out linearly. However different fingerings for each key does take a lot of work vs guitar's moveable shapes. Other advantages for guitar are that it's more versatile, probably the most versatile instrument there is. And it's acceptable to separate playing chord and melody. Although most advanced players will want to combine them which is hard.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
    Keys is more efficient in some ways but it isn't perfectly ergonomic. In general it is easier to be able to plunk 2 hands down on the keyboard that is laid out linearly. However different fingerings for each key does take a lot of work vs guitar's moveable shapes. Other advantages for guitar are that it's more versatile, probably the most versatile instrument there is. And it's acceptable to separate playing chord and melody. Although most advanced players will want to combine them which is hard.
    and it’s easier to lug around.

  20. #19

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    It took me 2 years of serious practice before the fretboard 'locked in' for me. I'd say it was more of a time on the instrument thing as opposed to any particular exercise.

    Any new voicing or scale/tonality, number of notes per string, tune increases fret board awareness. It's a lifelong thing for guitarists and it's comparatively immediate for pianists.

    I've also seen newer jazz players try to really focus on the 'hard practice' bc they got the advice to practice the things that others avoid to get good and end up not playing much actual music bc they spent all day working on fretboard awareness.

  21. #20

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    It's isn't immediate for keys. It's a bit more efficient but it's still challenging and takes experience.

  22. #21

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    When I first tried to play scales on the keyboard, I was a bit lost, I wanted to use a lonely one fingering.
    There are not a lot of fingerings in fact.
    I use maybe 5 fingerings for major scales.
    Basically they are...

    1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 (C G D A E B)
    2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 (Db)
    1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 (F)
    2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 (Ab)
    3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 (Bb)
    3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 (Eb)
    1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 or 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 (Gb)

    At the end you notice there are not a lot of fingerings.
    Some motions are repeated.
    I think it's got a kind of ergonomy.
    The longest fingers for black keys...
    When you understand this, it comes naturally.

    I'm 300% self-taught on keyboard so some will say I am wrong.

    About melodies I use fingers 1 2 3 4, 4 and 5 for octaves.

    Jazz voicings fingers 1 2 3 5 or 1 2 4 5

    And don't forget the chromatic fingering.
    From C to C
    1 3 1 3 1 2 3 1 3 1 3 1 2

  23. #22

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    It works well, I worked this with a melodica, it's not the easiest instrument.

    For voicings, I have only got this.
    It sounds like it sounds.



    That's old !
    I don't play the keyboard anymore at home, it's full of dust and dislike the way it sounds, keys are weird.
    I play highend instruments at work.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller

    This work needs to be done on the guitar (and other instruments too) and is a far more important use of one’s practice time early on than jumping on to chord scales etc.
    Please elaborate if you have the time/inclination. Thank you!

  25. #24

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    I can't play the piano. My mother could, she was very good, but I can't coordinate the two hands; my brain just can't do it. As for reading two staves at once, forget it.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by northernbreed
    Please elaborate if you have the time/inclination. Thank you!
    what I showed in the video - learning chord tones all over the neck, starting with triads

    Any tune, start with the chord tones

    its not discussed much in piano because it’s easy to see where these notes are on the piano once you know how to make the chord, but guitar this takes a bit of work.

    that way you can spell out the changes clearly and build up and out from there