The Maestro

It seems to me that one of the biggest hurdles beginner jazz guitarists face when it comes to comping is getting away from the bulky barre chords we all memorize when we first start playing. You know, the “all you have to do is lift up your pinky to get a minor 7th” kind of chords. It’s very hard to get to a point where you start playing less to actually say more.

The smallest number of notes you can play on your own to play any kind of harmony is to notes which, when played together, is known as a dyad.

In the world of jazz guitar, dyads are a great way to keep the soundscape open while still maintaining some semblance of a harmony. Especially if you are playing with another harmonic instrument (e.g. piano, vibes) you need to keep your chords tight and light.

And so, today we’re going to work on a few ideas to improve your comping using our little friends the dyads.

Will Any Old Notes Do?

No. Let’s talk about that first. I mean, technically the answer is “yes,” but if you want to sound like you know what you’re doing you should consider targeting the “right” notes. For example, when playing a standard 7th chord (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th) you will probably want your dyad to be comprised of the 3rd and 7th. These two notes will define the larger character of the chord; meaning, I’m not worried about altered tones at the moment.

So to start I want you to pick a song — or I’ll pick for you; how about There Will Never Be Another You — and figure out the dyads for each chord in the ‘A’ section.

Go ahead… I’ll wait until your done.

(Yes, this is the part when you actually have to do some work on your own. Don’t be a slacker!)

The Dyads

Here is the chord progression:

EbMaj7 / / /  |  / / / /  |  Dm7b5 / / /  |  G7 / / /  |  Cm7 / / /  |  / / / /  |  Bbm7 / / /  |  Eb7 / / /  |
AbMaj7 / / /  |  Db7 / / /  |  EbMaj7 / / /  |  Cm7 / / /  |  F7 / / /  |  / / / /  |  Fm7 / / /  |  Bb7 / / /  |

And… here are the dyads for each chord:

EbMaj7: G, D
Dm7b5: F, C
G7: B, F
Cm7: Eb, Bb
Bbm7: Db, Ab
Eb7: G, Db
AbMaj7: C, G
Db7: F, Cb
EbMaj7: G, D
Cm7: Eb, Bb
F7: A, Eb
Fm7: Ab, Eb
Bb7: D, Ab

Figuring out the dyads were really Assignment #1, but I know you all cheated so we’ll give you another first assignment.

Assignment #1

On the guitar, take each set of adjacent two strings (E/A, A/D, D/G, D/B, B/E) and play all of the dyads. Only play all of the dyads on each string group separately; don’t combine them.

Assignment #2

One you have done this on all five string group combinations, play the inversions. For example, on the EbMaj7 where you were playing the G note on the low E string and the D note on the A string, now I want you to reverse them.

Assignment #3

Now, what I want you to do is connect the chords together using the least amount of voice movement you can. For example, for the first two dyads, it’s best to keep the same interval and just move the whole dyad down a whole step; the G from the EbMaj7 move to the F of the Dm7b5, and the D from the EbMaj7 moves to the C.

For the next chord, however, it’s better to invert the dyad. Doing so allows you to keep the F as a common note between the two chords and move the C from the Dm7b5 moves to B (the 3rd of the G7).

The more common notes you can keep between chords, the less work you have to do, and the better you will sound. (Trust me, you will.)

Assignment #4

Now that you have some inversion ideas down, try to stay in one area of the fingerboard and utilize all five string groups to comp your way through the entire ‘A’ section. Feel free to take a few chords an octave higher or lower to break things up. (Remember, when comping behind someone you want to stay out of their range, so don’t just jump around the octaves for the hell of it. But you should try it to understand the principle.)

Assignment #5

Here’s where it gets fun. Don’t confine yourself to adjacent-string groups anymore. You still obviously want to only play dyads, but try widening the intervals a bit by skipping a few strings in between notes. Repeat the previous assignments using this new fingering.

Assignment #6

At this point I think it’s safe for you to use more than just the 3rd and 7th notes of the chord. For m7b5 chord, try using the b5 and the 7 as your dyads. For altered dominants, try the 3rd or 7th and one of the altered tones (b5, #b, b9, #9). Bear in mind, however, that when you finally start to play with other musicians (keep reading…) you will want to keep your chords simple so you and the person you’re backing up aren’t tripping all over each other.

Assignment #7

Stop sitting in your bedroom playing by yourself. Using dyads will make you a better comper, but if you are playing by yourself then you’ll never really “get” it. Go out and find someone to comp behind. That’s when you’ll really put your practice to the test and see how dyads work.

A surefire way to kickstart your comping and get to the next level is to remove yourself from those Doobie Brothers chords you’ve been playing your whole life. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be jazz! Just think of how insanely awesome your death metal band would sound if you were comping instead of riffing and playing dyads instead of drop-tune power chords?

Good luck!

Better Comping With Dyads is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

These are not the roots you're looking for.

It’s fun chord Friday here on Fretterverse! I can’t believe how long it’s been since we’ve broken out the staff paper and done some actual guitar work. I hope you had a chance to digest and start working on yesterday’s phrasing exercise. Though you should continue with the phrasing work from yesterday, today we’re going to go back to my favorite subject.

One thing that I love about jazz is the variety of tonal colors coming from the harmony instruments. A good comper will never play the exact same thing twice in the same song, very unlike rock and roll. It’s this variety that adds the spice to the soup and makes for a very tasty tune.

And so with that in mind we’re going to look at a concept that I call “root substitutions.” The general premise here is to substitute the note of a chord – in this case, the root (duh!) – with another note in order to give your comping a much more interesting sound.

How interesting? Well, that part is up to you. All I can do is give you hints and suggestions. I will tell you that these chord subs, along with a very nice looking, wide-brimmed, red velvet pimp hat, will make you the coolest player ever! Since I’m all out of hats, I’ll have to help you with the chords.

First, a few concepts. In jazz, frequently the person providing the harmony will raise the 4th note of the major chord scale in order to give a Lydian sound. So we’re going to do the same thing. Throughout the examples we’ll be playing in the key of C Major but raising the ‘F’ notes to ‘F#’ for a Lydian sound. Do not get confused! We are not playing in the key of D Major, as much as your ear and brain may want to think that way. We’re still playing in C Major but using a Lydian sound.

The basic chords we’ll be using are standard diatonic 7th chords with the 5th removed, working on the 5-4-3 string group (A, D, G strings). Here is the first chord:

As I said, no 5th. Taking out the 5th will open up the chord’s sound a bit. With this structure in mind, and taking the #11 substitution into consideration, here are all of the chords in C Major:

As you play through the examples, again, remember that we’re in C Major. The second chord is going to sound like a D7, which technically speaking it is, but you have to think in terms of C. If it helps, use a backing track to play a walking bass line in C to help get the sound in your head. You can take the root note of each chord and displace them up an octave to help avoid register clashes with the bass:

Try both of those on the 5-4-3 string group and get the sound into your ear. When you have done this a few times, go back to the first set of chords and substitute the root note of each chord with the next note of the C Major scale (keeping in mind the #11).

As you can see, in the first chord we substituted the root – ‘C’ – with the next higher note of a C Major scale – ‘D’. The next chords replaces ‘D’ with ‘E’, and the next chord replaces ‘E’ with ‘F#’. What I love about these substitutions is that the typical guitar chord intervals are changed to give us more piano-like voicings instead. I much prefer these sounds to the ones created by the typical block chord.

But, everyone’s mileage may vary. If these chords are way too hip for your elbow-patched blazer, you can displace the new root of each chord up an octave as well:

A tad bit too much on the Masterpiece Theater for my taste, but it’s better to have all of these chords available in your mental chord dictionary.

Once you’ve practiced this chord substitution for a while, you can move the entire chord structures up an octave. This may end up sounding much better when a bass player is present. Obviously, you want to be able to play all of these chord ideas in every key and in every area of the fingerboard. You can also start to add more substitutions to hip the chords up even more – especially on the V7 chords of each key.

Bottom line? Experiment and have fun!

Chord Hacks: Root Substitutions is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Jazz Guitar Harmony by Jody Fisher

I love chords. Love ‘em, love ‘em, love ‘em!

I’m one of “those” guitar players that gets off on hearing great guitar rhythm playing/comping than a great solo. Especially in regards to jazz, comping and playing the right notes and chord voicings is where it’s at. There is nothing like hearing a new chord underneath a nice melody line in a ballad that sends shivers up my spine.

Let’s be honest. Guitar solos are great. We all know that; that’s why we started playing guitar to begin with, right? Without a great harmonic background to support that ripping solo, however, it’s just not the same.

And so, in my desperate quest to try and pass myself off as a jazz guitar player (still working on it…) I purchased pretty much every jazz guitar harmony/chord book there is. We’re talking dozens and dozens of books. I think I kept the jazz guitar education community gainfully employed for a few months.

Of all the books I bought, only a few managed to stick out and stay on the top of the pile. Though most covered the same material, it’s all in the presentation. Jazz Guitar Harmony, written by guitarist Jody Fisher, is one of the books I continuously turn to time and time again.

You can tell a lot about a jazz guitar player by his chord voicings. I believe, even more so than how he solos. So there must be something about Fisher’s playing that I really like, because I love this book! All of the material you would expect and require from a jazz guitar harmony book is covered here. I think it’s the way Fisher presents the material that strikes a chord (pun intended) with me.

There is not a lot of text explanation, but there are lots of examples to play and practice. Chapter 1 – a very short chapter on triads – is the only group of pages without direct practice material. But once you quickly get into Chapter 2 you are off to the races!

It’s both apparent and obvious to me that Fisher is a very good teacher, as his book builds progressively upon previous chapters to expand your chord vocabulary and knowledge of jazz harmony concepts. But it’s not just a book of chords to learn (though I have circled many a chord voicing to make sure I add to my playing). Rather, it’s a book that gives you just enough material to immediately add to your bag of tricks but also plenty of inspiration and a pathway to work out other ideas on your own. Nothing is too far-fetched or out of place; Fisher provides you with exactly what you need to know to get better quickly and build upon the foundation in your own way.

In addition to chords, progressions, leading tones, backcycling, passing chords, reharmonization, tritone substitutions, and a whole host of other ideas are presented in the book – all with simple but easy-to-understand explanations and lots of examples. I guess I should also mention that every example is written in standard notation and tablature, so you don’t have to be a sight-reading guru in order to get a lot out of this book.

I was hoping to be able to show a few pages from the inside of the book, but for copyright reasons I thought better of it. You can, however, see some example pages from Amazon’s page, so I encourage you to check it out and see some of the material.

Jazz Guitar Harmony also comes with an audio CD in case you are one of those players (like me) who learn better when you can hear what’s going on along with seeing it on the printed page.

If you couldn’t tell already, I highly recommend this book. It is densely packed with important information but not so big that you will feel overwhelmed. A great book for both beginner and intermediate jazz guitar players.

Jazz Guitar Harmony by Jody Fisher (book) is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Jazz Guitar Comping by Andrew Green

Any and all guitar players should be concerned with their rhythm playing. Concerned in the sense that it’s just as important (if not more so) than being great at soloing. I have always been much more impressed with the ability of guitarists to play with the band rather than how well they stand out.

Especially in the world of jazz, comping (“accompanying”) is a very elusive beast and requires lots of practice and hard work. When done well, however – just listen to Jimmy Bruno, Jim Hall, Steve Herberman, Joe Masakowski, or a host of other great players and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

The problem is that there isn’t really a set formula for being a great comper. I mean, I can give you a certain set of scales, arpeggios, and pentatonic licks and you can probably sound pretty good after a while, but being good at comping goes way beyond just what chords you play. It’s also knowing when to play, what rhythms to play, and how to best back up the soloist.

That’s where Andrew Green’s book Jazz Guitar Comping comes in.

I’ll tell you up front that you have to have at least some background in being able to read music, as well as some understanding of jazz harmony, to get the most out of this book. That being said, this book covers a very broad range of comping suggestions and scenarios for you to dig into. Everything from two- and three-note voicings, upper partials, rhythms, multi-use voicings, and quartal harmony is discussed.Voice leading is also discussed at length, which is perhaps the most important aspect of being a good comper.

Green’s writing style is easy to understand and uses musical examples (more so than text) to really drive home what he’s teaching. There are tons and tons and tons of examples to play through (and listen to on the included CD), and it will take you a long time to work through and internalize all of the information. That’s a good thing!

Green’s website – Chops Factory – has samples from the book, as well as some of the best information about jazz in general. For a few years he was writing a chord of the week thread that I absolutely loved. Though I don’t believe he updates it anymore, you can still view the archives on his site.

I don’t want to write too much about the book because I believe it truly speaks for itself. If you have any interest at all in being a good rhythm guitarist – jazz or otherwise – you can learn an awful lot by buying this book and making your way through all of the examples. I recommend this book as a “must-have” addition to your library.

Jazz Guitar Comping – Andrew Green (Book) is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

The goal for my new routine is to cover several areas and have a well-rounded regimen rather than concentrate on a specific area. I will certainly add extra-curricular pieces on an as-needed basis, but for now my routine will consist of the following:

• Finger Gymnastics (Warm-Up)
• Sight Reading
• Ear Training
• Arpeggios
• Scale Exercises
• Chord Studies/Comping
• Learning Jazz Standards
• Improvisation
• Chord Melody/Solo Guitar

Though this ends up looking jazz-focused, the idea is to become a better technician and improve my ear. I feel that jazz is the best vehicle to do so, but by no means the only way to do it.

The Sight Reading and Ear Training portions will not be memorized, hence I will only do them once or twice each day. The idea is to not rely on memorization for these exercises.

I do not have a specific resource in mind for Chord Melody/Solo Guitar. I will be both creating my own and learning from the masters that have come before me. I would like to build up a repertoire of material that I can use to play solo guitar gigs.

Here are some of the resources I’m using:

Guitar Lore (Dennis Sandole) for Gymnastics
Rhythmical Articulation (Bona) for Sight Reading
60 Studies, Op. 45 Complete: Books 1 and 2 for Violin (Franz Wohlfahrt) for Sight Reading
Two-Part Inventions (J.S. Bach) for Sight Reading
The Guitar Arpeggio Compendium (Scott McGill) for Arpeggios
How to Play Bebop (David Baker; Volumes 2 and 3 also available) for Improvisation
Linear Expressions (Pat Martino) for Improvisation
Modus Novus for Sight Singing
Howard Morgen’s Solo Guitar: Insights, Arranging Techniques & Classic Jazz Standards (Jazz Masters Series) for Chord Melody

You can keep track of my progress by following my practice reports here on Fretterverse.com.

My New Practice Routine (2/2010) is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

It would be safe to say that the Mechanisms series is the definitive chord study for guitar. It would also be safe to say that “daunting” is somewhat of an understatement. Well, perhaps “comprehensive” is a better adverb, but both are applicable. I suspect by the time you’ve worked through all three volumes you will be a master of chord theory and harmonization.

What’s In the Books?

Major, melodic minor and harmonic minor are the focus of his book series. What I particularly like about this method is that neighbor tones and some melodic cells between chord voicings are described in detail, which really helps with chord melody and comping. Wide-interval dyads are also explained here, which helps us guitarists break out of the barre chord and typical, stock chords mold.

All of your fingers get a workout as well, with methods that create finger independence and more control over your lines. Fingering diagrams are also extensively shown to aid in your progress. Seventh chords are shown a little bit in Volume One, and more extensively in Volumes Two and Three.

I highly recommend these volumes to anyone looking for inspiration and ways to break out of their comfort zones. Though it will take a significant amount of time to work through these tomes, the payoff is well worth the effort.

For Your Enjoyment

I figured you appreciate seeing and hearing the genius of George Van Eps:

George Van Eps’ Harmonic Mechanisms Series (Books) is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Chord Hacks: Blues Chord Comping from Fretterverse on Vimeo.

Chord Hacks: Intermediate Blues Chord Comping is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Let’s start with the most basic of four-string chords, the CMaj7 chord from the 2345 string group. You’ve all seen it before, but for the sake of completeness I’ll show it again:

We’re changing the order of tones around to facilitate the guitar’s tuning – instead of playing C E G B we’re playing C G B E. Same notes, just a different order.

Chord Inversions

And so where do we go from here? If we are playing a piece of music that has a CMaj7 chord for 8 bars, just playing your one stock voicing is going to get very boring, very quickly. To keep the music alive you should probably think about playing different kinds of CMaj7 chords. The easiest way to do that is to play an inversion of the chord you’re currently playing.

To do this, simply start on each note in the chord you’re playing and move that finger up to the next note in the chord:

• C moves up to E
• G moves up to B
• B moves up to C
• E moves up to G

It’s the same exact chord, just played in a different note order and in the 5th position instead of the 3rd. Here is the new CMaj7 chord:

There are two more inversions we can do with this chord on the 2345 string group:

Now, just with the 2345 string group alone, there are four chords you can play instead of just the original CMaj7.

Vary the String Groups

This can be easily repeated with both the 1234 and 3456 string groups. 3456 will most likely sound a bit too muddy if you are playing with a group (as opposed to playing solo or backing up a singer or solo instrument). The fun, however, is what you come up with when you work through some of the other string groups. Groups 1235 and 2346 start to create more interesting sounds although they are still pretty tame. It’s when you get into string groups such as 1245, 2356, 1346, etc… that things get truly interesting. Here are the CMaj7 chords from the 2356 string group:

Try playing them yourself and see how they sound. You’re probably going to need to use the fingers of your right hand to pluck the chord rather than strumming with a pick, and you may want to try it with a clean tone first to hear all of the notes and their intervallic relationships.

Putting it Into Practice

To go a bit further with the example, I’m going to take the first 8 bars of the jazz standard “All the Things You Are” (which I’ve been exploring more deeply in my own practice) and create a very simple chord melody using the 1245 string group. The goal here is not to create a masterpiece of music, but to explore the different chord voicings and inversions that are available to me. I’m going to put a chord on virtually every melody note, which doesn’t necessarily sound great, but maximizes my tonal possibilities. First, a lead sheet of the first 8 bars:

Now, the simple chord melody of the 1245 string group (click image for larger view):

Notice that in some places I had to shift the chord up or down an octave in order to accommodate the guitar’s range. This can obviously be modified in a “real” setting by simply varying the string groups you use – no one says you have to play everything in just one group, after all!

Move the Melody

To make things even more interesting, take the melody out of the top string (in this case, the high E string) and play it on all of the other strings. In essence you are building four different chord melodies for each string group. We just did the first one with the melody on the E string; now we will do the same thing with the melody on the B, D, and A strings. It may be hard to hear the melody at first, especially on the B and D strings, so it might help to sing along with the melody to help it stand out.

You should also try to see if you can get the melody string to stand out so its not overshadowed by the volume of the higher strings. This is a challenge, but worth the effort.

Without further adieu, here is the second chord melody with the melody on the B string (click image for larger view):

I’ve given you two, and there are two more. I wondering if perhaps you should try to figure them out on your own? (hint, hint)

Experiment, Play, and Have Fun

I have written lots of song ideas using different chord groups, spiced up some monotonous song ideas, and even brought some new life to old cover songs during jam sessions. It’s not just a question of “learning tons of chords” and arbitrarily throwing them into a song just for the sake of variety. It’s about listening to what’s going on around you and trying to fill in the gaps where appropriate.

Homework?

I am allowed to give homework on a blog? Well, I’m going to anyway. Go to the second 8 bars of All The Things You Are and work out a chord melody using the 1245 string group. Put the melody in all voices (so you’ll be working on four chord melodies) and see what you come up with. Here are the next 8 bars:

You can probably stop at bar 7 unless, of course, you want to do more than just the next 8 bars. I don’t grade on a curve, and extra credit is always acceptable.

Have Fun!

I’ll be honest, this stuff isn’t easy, at least not for me. Sometimes it takes me a VERY long time to get them down. I’ll give you a piece of advice: Don’t spend all of your time writing these out in hopes to be able to sightread them later. If you want to write them out, fine, but you should spend the majority of your time learning them on your guitar and not notating them on paper; that method tends to distract from the learning process.

Most importantly, have fun with it! This is guitar playing after all, the greatest hobby around, so enjoy the time you spend learning and jamming!

Chord Hacks: String Group Inversions is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Consider, as a standard practice, that you have four fretting fingers available when playing. Without the use of barring or double-fretting, you can play one note on any one of the six strings on the guitar, which means you can play four strings simultaneously. This seems rather obvious, but many people overlook the fact that playing four strings simultaneously doesn’t mean that all four strings need to be adjacent to each other.

On a six-string guitar there are 15 possible four-string string groups available to use at any given time. For the sake of clarity, each string is assigned a number:

1 – high E string
2 – B string
3 – G string
4 – D string
5 – A string
6 – low E string

So, for example, when you say you are using the 1235 string group, you are talking about playing with the high E, B, G, and A strings.

Simple enough, right? With those string numbers in mind, here are the 15 string groups:

For now, if you are interested in toying around with the different string groups, I suggest you take something simple like a standard min7 chord from the 2345 string group and see what chord shapes you come up with to play those same notes on the different string groups.

In the next lesson we’ll be applying this idea to a jazz standard.

The 15 String Groups is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.