My guitar teacher has decided that its time to move away from those same old 'safe' chord shapes so we're going to spend some time looking at the genre of jazz.... To be honest its not a style of music that usually floats my boat but I've got an open mind so... Okay, lets give it a go.
We started off with a fairly basic 12 bar progression using 3 fairly unfamiliar versions of A7, D7 and E7. Trying for a 'swing' feel. Hmmm. Got there by the end of the session (Sort of). On the way out he gives me a chord sheet with more variations of the chords, diminished 7ths, 9ths, 13ths along with a progression to use them in. So, I can almost see how some of them have been constructed from the more basic 3 chords we started with and even playing them slowly I can hear the tension some of them produce and how its resolved. What I'm going to struggle with is playing 12 bars of music that contains 13 different chord variations :shock: (Some of the chords are only half a bar each)
How on earth am I meant to learn this :roll:
Yeah, I know. Practice!
Simon
There are too many songs that have an 'F' chord in them.
Yeah, practicing! Usually those progressions sound very good and smooth. Some chords seem impossible but they don't! ;)
Good luck!
keep at it. your ear will begin to hone in on those changes. then the hands follow along.
I know it's daunting when someone is just starting down this path . . but what you'll hopefully come out the other end of this with is two bits of knowledge.
First, there really aren't that many chords. There are major chords, minor chords, diminished chords, augmented chords and flat five chords.
That's it. All those 7s and 9s and 13s are just there to add color.
Second, voice leading makes chords flow. When you move from one chord, or one voicing/substitution to another, the fewer tones change the better it will sound, generally speaking. So you use the different voicings to help things flow.
Lastly, all those changes you see aren't really harmonic changes, they're just using different interchangeable chords to serve the same harmonic purpose. You might have 4 measures of C7, but what you play is a new chord every beat. But all you're doing is using various chords to substitute for C major, eventually you'll stop worrying about the name of the chord and start thinking about the harmonic context. You can play any of those things for C7, but it's all really just a C major sound. That's the natural result of the last two points.
Getting there is a really hard, because usually when you start doing this you have thought about chords in a totally different way. If you're like most people you've though about chords by their name rather than by their harmonic context. And you've probably not considered things like implied tones that could change one chord to another. But once you wrap your head around it, it can really expand your playing.
There's a simple way to get a glimpse of this. Play a typical open C major chord (x 3 2 0 1 0 ). Now you KNOW that's a C major chord.
But what if while you're playing that chord, your bass player is playing an A note? Well, that means you could play an A in your chord .. one way to add an A would be (x 3 2 2 1 0). Of course, the lower C is redundant as you have a C on the 2nd string as well, and you can play an A in the bass just like the bass player, so that means you're playing (x 0 2 2 1 0). Which is an A minor. So, a chord you KNOW to be C major can be a minor chord in the right context.
So now think about a song that has a chord progression that goes |Am / / / | D7 / / / |
Well, you can play that | Am / C /|D7 / / /|
If you play the D7 as (x 5 4 5 3 x) then you'll have a really nice flow of voices.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
What I'm going to struggle with is playing 12 bars of music that contains 13 different chord variations :shock: (Some of the chords are only half a bar each)
How on earth am I meant to learn this :roll:
Very slowly.
Seriously, cut your metronome's speed in half. It may sound like you are plodding along, but it'll gve your fingers time to get to where they need to be.
Oh, and lots of practice. I'm pretty sure I heard someone say that once or twice. :lol:
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
Many thanks for the informative and encouraging advice folks. Looks like I'll be hitting the theory books as well as practicing :shock:
Strangely this is the only style of music that i've tried so far that I can play better on an electric than on my acoustic.
Simon
There are too many songs that have an 'F' chord in them.
