Jazz Chords???

[Frantic_Rock]

Re: Jazz Chords???

plus, not even every guy who says the word 'jazz' has the same thing in mind? .. is it charlie christian? les paul? wes montgomery? pat metheny? mike stern? scott henderson? al dimeola? allan holdsworth? steely dan guys? etc etc .. heck, i've even heard some young guns refer to satriani and vai as 'jazz' .... you can learn alot about a lot of differnt ways to approach chords from any / all of these cats ... but they aint all doing the same thing ... so given that the context is so broad as to be meaningless, its best to just stripp it down to what it really is ...

thats all i meant

t4d

Yep - all of that is Jazz. Or fusion - which is jazz. Chord changes, varied rhythms, improv, mostly instrumental... all of them bear the same characteristics, even though the music is drastically different. I am familiar with all the artists you mentioned, and most of them are my faves. It's still all jazz, nomatter how you slice it. Never heard the music of Les Paul.

i understand that as a popular perception ... honest i do ...

but it is just too limiting and unrealistic ...also, have you looked at john mayer's, O.A.R.'s, or Dave Matthew's chords much? ... those guys arent playing jazz, but those chords can be a BEAST to get around

The thing is: harmonically music is not THAT complicated. There are only 4 unaltered extensions you can add to a major or minor chord. You can invert them, etc... Put them on different bass notes.. but really thats about it.

Dominant chords - you can have alterations. 4 more notes - no big deal.

That's about it.

If John Mayer is using voicings that involve fingerings that are too hard to achieve, he is trying too hard. I am kind of a supporter of Joe Pass' idea of: "If it is too hard to play physically, don't play it". You gotta concentrate on knowing what everything sounds like and use it appropriately first. Gotta pick the low hanging fruit first.

If you know what every extension combination sounds like against the root note, and how to play them, you will be able to play any style of music, not just jazz.

 

[Frantic_Rock]

Re: Jazz Chords???

I mean - Joe Pass might play an Add 9 on a major chord in solo improv.

Steely Dan guys always play an Add 9 in the bottom - and call that the "Mu" chord.

From a harmonic perspective - same extension completely different styles of music. You know what i mean...

 

[tone4days]

Re: Jazz Chords???

i can't tell if we have argued ourselves into violent agreement or not

but yeah, i do know what you mean ...

and it makes me laugh to hear you mention pass's comment ... i saw a video of a master class he was giving where he says exactly that (if its too hard, dont play it) .. then proceeds to play an absolutely outrageous passage as if to demonstrate the point but doing the exact opposite ... so 'too hard' becomes in the 'eye of the beholder' or 'the hands of the guy who hasnt shedded enough yet'

i still stand by the idea that it is all just chords ... can be used in any context ... not just jazz

t4d

 

[ES350]

Re: Jazz Chords???

ther are maj7s and 9's all over Debussy/Satie/Hindemith...that's where the extended harmony came from. 'Jazz' is a meaningless word these days unless you are talking about the retro Blue Note guys and the Berklee nerds...

 

[Frantic_Rock]

Re: Jazz Chords???

Oh i'm not arguing I know music is just music - and chords are just combinations of voices.

But to me: "Jazz" means traditional, classic sounding 40s - 70s sounding music that is instrumental (Bebop also), mostly 3-4 piece, structured: Theme - Improv - Theme, Acoustic drum set, standup fretless bass, guitar, piano, horns... That's jazz to me.

There's also big band jazz, electric jazz - fusion, solo jazz (solo guitar or solo piano), latin jazz, smooth jazz. All these styles fall under jazz to me. Jazz will always remain like this for me. If you call John Mayer jazz - i'll say, "ok, if it makes you happy..."

To me: true Jazz is not in pop culture. It's a classic style of music. It is not a mainstream style of music. True jazz - stops being jazz when it goes mainstream, because its too catchy. The reason it ever makes it mainstream is because someone put too many hooks or production into it for the folks who have short attention spans to really listen to music.
Smooth jazz, for example - is a style of music (example: Chicago - WNUA) that starts to cross this boundary. They try to repeat themes much more, reduce the amount of improv, keep improv more basic, keep melodies simple, keep mixes very smooth sounding... I've been listening to this stuff for a long time. I listen to many www.sky.fm stations. Can really pick up on many styles of jazz there.

OK that's my profound statement for the day ! :banana:

 

[Markk]

Re: Jazz Chords???

same thing broski. Fm7 is the same as Fmin7, as F-7

Fmin7 is F-7? I thought one was minor and the other major.

If you want to be cool though you should learn the notes according to the Do Re Me system.

Imagine saying to someone "Ok, II, V, I progression in the key of Fa"

 

[cream123]

Re: Jazz Chords???

Yeah, but Emaj7 is different from Ebmaj7 .

hahahahahah!, my bad!

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: Jazz Chords???

Fmin7 is F-7? I thought one was minor and the other major.

If you want to be cool though you should learn the notes according to the Do Re Me system.

Imagine saying to someone "Ok, II, V, I progression in the key of Fa"

yeah, they're different. Fm7 or F-7 (the minus notating the 'minor'). typically a 7 chord just says F7. Jazz notation takes a little while to get used to because it came about by guys trying to avoid using a key signature basically whereas in classical music a chord is based on the key signature.

Learning basic theory will help a lot. Popular jazz chord varieties are maj7, min7, min7b5, dim, 6/9, maj9, min9, 13#11, 7b5b9, and so on and so forth.

 

[Osensei]

Re: Jazz Chords???

The bottom line is, if you wanna be a first rate improviser then you need to know all of your chords inside and out man! It's good to be able to finger very advanced chords on the fretboard, but let's be honest! In the jazz idiom as well as many other progressive styles, it's the keyboard player's job to lay down the harmonic textures. Most of the time the guitar just gets in the way. The only reason to have a guitar player hanging around in such formats is that he's one badass soloist!

This is exacerbated by the fact that many advanced "jazz" chords cannot be completely fingered on guitar. For instance a C11 chord is spelled like this:

C11: C E G Bb D F

Between the number of strings on the guitar and the number of fingers on the left hand, there's not enough of either to completely finger such a chord. So quite often notes get omitted. So when a guitarist sees a C11 he usually ends up playing something like a Bb triad with a C in the bass or a Csus9 chord. So many times you might have to play just a portion (the upper part let's say) of the complete chord. We just don't have enough fingers.

Other times we can substitute. If you ever play Jobim you'll see chords like F9(+11). It is helpful to know in that instance that you can play a F7b5 instead.

But you will see that your melodic lines and improvisations will vastly improve once you understand how complex harmonic ideas are put together. So it is important not to be limited to understanding the chords just within the context of the guitar. A keybord or some notation software with playback ability is indispensable for your study. You will see ideas will start to seem as though they are writing themselves once you start experimenting with harmony!

 

[Markk]

Re: Jazz Chords???

yeah, they're different. Fm7 or F-7 (the minus notating the 'minor'). typically a 7 chord just says F7. Jazz notation takes a little while to get used to because it came about by guys trying to avoid using a key signature basically whereas in classical music a chord is based on the key signature.

Learning basic theory will help a lot. Popular jazz chord varieties are maj7, min7, min7b5, dim, 6/9, maj9, min9, 13#11, 7b5b9, and so on and so forth.

I've just never seen a hyphen notate for minor.
I've seen Fm7, Fmin7, f7 (note the smaller case)
But I would have never put F-7 as a minor chord.

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: Jazz Chords???

I've just never seen a hyphen notate for minor.
I've seen Fm7, Fmin7, f7 (note the smaller case)
But I would have never put F-7 as a minor chord.

i've seen it pretty often in charts I read for school. I've also seen things like F7-9 which means F7b9. IT's pretty confusing sometimes