Frantic_Rock
FragleRockologist
Re: Jazz Chords???
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.
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.
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.
tone4days said: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.