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Anybody know any jazz guitar technique or whatever? Like special chord shapes, scales, or whatever? I might be playing in my school's jazz band and need help.
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Man the jazz we play is hard. I had to learn more chords than i had ever heard of and will probably never use again. For the scales i justed learned the major and minor scales and i was able to get by with that.
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Originally Posted by jamforchrist123 Anybody know any jazz guitar technique or whatever? Like special chord shapes, scales, or whatever? I might be playing in my school's jazz band and need help.
Fretboard Logic SE.
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Anybody wanna type up the shapes of the chords?
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Well, I'll tell you this, to play jazz, you'll need to know more music theory than you want to know. I'm constantly making up chords to fit the songs. I also tend to concentrate on the top 4 strings.
13th chords are moveable. An A is xx2022. An E is xx9799
Minor 7ths usually have fun little twists, like flat 5's and such. A Bm7 is xx4232, and knowing which one's the fifth and such is a big help. You should get to know Dominant 7ths, Major and Minor 7th's, along with knowing which note is the 5th and 7th, know 9th chords, and 13th chords. I don't use 11th chords much, or really, at all. Have fun, jazz is great to really improve yur guitar playing with.
Oh, and listen to guys like Chick Corea, Kurt Elling, Pat Methany, and Jaco Pastorius(OK, he's a bassist, but his stuff with Weather Report is better than lots of guitarists). Listening is key, and learning songs also helps. And be able to read music. I have some horn parts in Weather Report's songs that I play along with. Hmm, all this in the little quick reply box too.
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Originally Posted by jamforchrist123 Anybody wanna type up the shapes of the chords?
Why? There aren't any magic bullet jazz chords that magically make you play jazz.
Also, you will need a very extensive and comprehensive knowledge of chords, more than we could suitably cover here, unless some theory junkie wanted to create a five page response.
That's why I recommended Fretboard Logic SE, which will cover just about every guitar chord you could ever use, short of a bunch of esoteric piano chords that get adapted (sometimes awkwardly and clumsily) to the guitar. You also need a very strong and supple facility with scale work as well. FBL SE covers that too.
Originally Posted by Beyer413 Oh, and listen to guys like . . . Jaco Pastorius (OK, he's a bassist, but his stuff with Weather Report is better than lots of guitarists).
All of his stuff is better than most guitarists.
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sweet. thanks
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Here's something I know about.
So, what you're probably getting into is a big-band setting. This approach to jazz guitar is a very different beast than playing in a combo jazz setting.
Your technique will be imperative. First, listen to jazz (any sort, for this first task) and get in your head what a good jazz tone is. Not too much lows, or you'll run into the bassist's sonic domain. You don't want to sound high and crisp, though. Stay in the middle range. I tend to roll off the lows at the amp, roll of the highs with my guitar's tone control, and twiddle with the mids and highs settings on the amp.
Listening to jazz is also important so you play like you know jazz. People who listen to rock and blues exclusively tend to not make good jazzy sounds. Listen to big band jazz, try to pick out the guitar (it's usually kinda hard actually, the guitar isn't a leading instrument in big-band jazz), and check out what's going on.
The main goal is to find your spot. Where you belong tonally. The basis of the rhythm section is the bass and drums. The piano goes on top of that, usually, and the guitar is the last layer. The main thing with guitarists is that they try to do too much. In the standard big band (as set by the Count Basie Orchestra), the guitar holds down the most important beats, the downbeats, along with the bassist. The usual method in swing big-band is to chunk quarter notes like there's no tomorrow. Fancy fills are for the piano (unless the piano is chunking quarter notes, and you're doing fancy fills... reverse the usual roles or soemthing). The bass holds down the tonal center. The guitar is there in most bands to reinforce the quarter notes, and to lay down the chordal "flavor" of every beat.
Now a big thing in jazz is band communication. You can essentially do whatever you want, provided you're communicating with the rest of the rhythm section (solo sections are the most important place for this, when it's just the rhythm section and the soloist). You can change your niche, as long as all the necessary niches are filled.
Your main compadres in the band are the pianist and the bassist. If you intrude their niches, it can get ugly, but the band as a whole sounds better if you find your own niche and stay there. The main problems come between the guitarist and pianist. This is because they are both very similar. The guitar can comp the chords for the band, and the piano can too. When the two try to do it at the same time, the sound can get very messy, very fast. That's whay communication is important
If you don't know who Freddie Green is, find out. He was the guitarist for the Count Basie Orchestra. He created basically the standard for jazz rhythm guitar. Jazz charts will time and time again ask you to play like him (which is the quarter note chunk, everyone seems to have their own way of doing it).
I hope that made sense, seems like a long string of thoughts.
More later, because I probably will have more to say.
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Now, about those fun jazz chords...
There are essential chords. You do not, in fact, have to know every chord that is given to you. You just need to know the essential forms and alterations, and implication.
The essential forms are:
Major 7th
Dominant 7th
Diminished
Augmented
Everything else is secondary. If you know how to form those chords you have a good start.
Jazz guitar music is not a set thing, unlike classical. Jazz guitar music is almost purely a suggestion. In fact, the music tells very little about what you're supposed to do. It tells what the rest of the band is doing. That's a very important fact.
So lets say you run across a G7(#11). The most important thing about this chord is the G. The rest of it is optional. How so? This is due to the fact that the entirety of the band is playing the chord. Why does the guitarist need to add more tones? The guitar is a rhythm instrument, not a hugely tonal instrument. In fact, Freddie Green picked out only one or two notes out of whatever chord the rest of the band was playing to play himself. Extraneous notage isn't important. The base of the chord is all you really need. Of course it does sound better if you can do all the funky alterations, but it's just unneccessary.
Implication is all about the construction of chord symbols and what chords they imply. For example, if you have a C9, what it's implying is a C7 with an added 9th. Thus, when you see a C9, you really can just play a C7 and have no problem. If we have a G9(#11), it implies what we have a G7 with an added 9th and a sharp 11th. Thus you really only have to play a G7, heck a G major if you feel like it. Now, if you see something along the lines of Cm7(b5), that's notating a C with the fifth flatted, not an added flat fifth, so in this case you must play the alteration.
My point in implication (if it wasn't clear) is that you need to know what alterations you need to play. Generally, the fifth is the trickiest one to watch for, but altered sevenths and even thirds can sometimes show up. Frankly, a chord can show up (and it happens all the time!) that's just impossible to play. Pick and choose what alterations you're going to do. It takes a bit of time before you can read the alterations and implications intantly for sightreading a chart.
Perhaps more later.
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Alright so my last post had a really vague description of chord symbols... so here we are:
All About Chord Symbols!
The Parts of a Chord Symbol
Let's take a nice, fancy chord example:
Cmaj7(b5)(add13)/F
First we have the root [C]. The root is the basis of the chord. Start here.
Next we have the chord name. The chord name starts with one of three things:
maj: aka. ma, M, ∆
This means you use a major third, and a major seventh.
min: aka. mi, m, -
This means you use a minor third and a minor seventh.
dim: aka. °
This means you use a minor third, minor seventh, and a diminished fifth.
aug: aka. +
This means you use a major third, major seventh, and an augmented fifth.
[nothing]
This means you use a major third and a minor seventh. If you just have the root alone, then that simply means major triad, not using any other notes.
After that you have a number. This number represents all the additional notes to add to the chord. Chords are built in thirds, so the number here is going to show what thirds to play:
7 means play notes 1, 3, 5, and 7.
9 means play notes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9.
11 means play notes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11.
Over 11 the pattern changes.
13 means play notes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 13.
13 and higher chords usually omit the 11th, though you don't see many chords with a number larger than 13 (though you maight see 13 a lot).
Now what about 6ths? Just follow the rule, and play 1, 3, 5 and 6. You won't come across many fourths and seconds, but if you do, it's safe to assume it's a major triad with those notes added.
After that, you have lovely alterations. These numbers flat or sharp (or maybe doubleflat/doublesharp) a note in your chord. If you no alteraitons, leave your chord be, but if you have an alteration, you basically just need to do what it says. In the example chord, the fifth is flatted. So take any fifth in your note, and play it flat.
After that you may have a note addition. This is where you take a note, and add it to your party. It can either be written as adding an interval (such as adding a 13) or as adding a note (Fm9(add E)). Perhaps you may ask "If they're going to add a 13 to a G7, then why don't they write G13?". It's simply because you don't want the 9th implied by the 13. They add it instead.
Lastly, you have the bass note. That's the note you put at the very bottom of your chord. Usually, the bass takes care of that note.
Now I didn't cover suspensions. You have two main kinds of suspensions, a sus2 and a sus4. Essentially, you're erasing the third, and playing a 2 or 4 in its place. If the chord just says sus (as it usually will), play a sus4.
If we take a chord like:
Fm13
In a jazz band setting, you can think of it like this:
1, b3, 5, b7, 9, 13 are the notes in the chord. The beauty is that you only need to play some of those notes. Pick out a few. You are not required to play each note (in fact, it would be very difficult to play every note). You can play, for example:
Fm
Fm7
Fm9
The rest of the band will carry the rest of the tonality.
Perhaps more later...
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WO! thanks a bunch! ya, i am the pianist right now, but i might be switching.
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Well, playing piano will get you more attention most of the time. But playing guitar is good stuff.
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Originally Posted by jamforchrist123 WO! thanks a bunch! ya, i am the pianist right now, but i might be switching.
Well, if you're a pianist, then I strongly suggest getting Fretboard Logic SE, because as you transition to guitar, you will bring some habits with you that, while valuable on piano, will create some blindspots and problems on guitar.
Fretboard Logic SE is a explicitly guitaristic approach.
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Thanks everybody. I have been playing piano for about 11 years and guitar about 2. Though my music pastor says i sound like i have been playing for 4. sorry, got off subject. BUt this should be good to get me started with the beast called jazz!
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If you have any specific quesitons, feel free to ask. If not, I'll go on random blurbs about different aspects of jazz guitar playing. \
not now... later.