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Essential Tones for 3-6-2-5-1, From Root Perspective

8/26/2014

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Here's a new trip: what if you look at all the notes you play as intervals in the key you are playing in?

The 3-6-2-5-1 progression is derived out of one base scale.  For the Major progression, it based off the Major scale.  All the notes of all the chords in these progressions are prescribed to fit this scale.

This pdf shows the guide tones for each change in the 3-6-2-5-1 progression, from the perspective that they are intervals of the tonic (root).

36251_37.pdf
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If the five chord of C is G7, you could learn the notes of G7 (G - B -D - F) be the following:
5, 7, 2, 4.

Those are the chord tones of G7 as intervals of C Major. The essential guide tones are 7(B) and 4(F). You could do this for any chord.


Guide tones are essential tones in your solo to “cite” a backing chord. The guide tones for a chord start with their 3rd and 7th.  These tones distinguish between Major/Minor and Dominant.

Many jazz standards move in fourths, any chord is likely to use the circle of 4ths as its “roadmap” to resolve back to the root chord. The 3-6-2-5-1 is just a progression of fourths starting all the way out at the ‘three’ chord.

For this progression, the intervals of the essential tones for all these changes are:

Major:

3:      5, 2
6:     1, 5
2:      4, 1
5:     7, 4
1:     3, 7

Minor:

b3:     5, 2
b6:     1, 5
2:     4,1
5:     M7, 4
1:     b3, b7*

*The thing about the Minor progression is it is based on the Tonic being a Minor with a Major 7, but everyone in jazz plays the min7 with a b7.

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Fun with Inversions

8/22/2014

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By learning the inversions of a chord, you will learn new fingerings and ways to play the same chord on different parts of the neck.  This will give you a greater vocabulary for your comping.
inversions.pdf
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The "fun" part about inversions, is that many fingerings are "homonyms" for other chords -- they have the same sound as other chords and their inversions.

This means that by learning a few shapes, you will have the ability to play a wide number of chords, provided you know where the root is in each shape for each chord.

What is an inversion?  The first chords you probably learned all had the root note in the bass, on the sixth or fifth string.  But if you find a different root on an 'upper' string, you can constru
ct the same chord with the same strings as your original fingering.  The new chord will be an inversion -- it will have some other note (the third, seventh, or fifth, e.g.) on the bottom.  

What makes a chord voicing "drop 3" or "drop 2" has to do with how the notes would be written out on a staff.  It's probably more useful to know what string the root is on and what note is in the bass (the bottom note).  You will hear musicians refer to a chord as "F with A in the bass" or "Fmaj7 over A" or "Fmaj/A".  These are all the same chord.  What it means for the jazz guitarist is an Fmaj7 fingering with the 3rd as the lowest note.

It is good to know all the inversion of any chord you know.  Practice moving the chord up the guitar neck using different strings as the roots.  Make sure you are conscious of AT LEAST the root note every time you lay a voicing down.

The attached PDF shows moving basic chords up the neck in all their inversions.  Some of them are virtually unplayable, but you should still be able to 'see' them on the fretboard.  Try mustering a fingering that does not use the root, as that will often be fine for comping with a bass player, who states the root anyway.

Notice that the same shapes appear again and again, only the roots and intervals are different.  For example,  a Major6 chord will have the same shape as a Minor7 chord.  If you use the 6 of the Major6 to be the root, it will be a Minor7 chord.

This is known as "chord plurality."  Another set of 'homonyms' is Minor6, Minor7b5, Dominant9(no root) and Augmented Dominant7b9.  The intervals of all these chords are the same shapes.  Once you know one shape, you get three more chords as a bonus!
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Chord Plurality

8/22/2014

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Chords can have different names based on which of the notes is the root.

The A-7 chord has the same notes as a C6 chord, the root of the A-7 is the 6th of the C6.

These chords are 'homonyms' of each other.  In grammar, the words 'break' and 'brake' are homonyms -- they sound the same but mean something different.  With these chords, the sound is the same, but the 'meaning' behind the construction and it's context in a song is different.

Sometimes a chord can be 'rootless' -- a fingering can imply a chord by virtue of an 'assumed root' -- that is, the root is not part of the chord's fingering, but we can assume the root based on the overall harmony the changes imply.  These chords are great for comping, because the bassist is often filling in the root anyway.


Here is another 'chord homonym':

D-7b5 = Bb9
(no root) = F-6 = E+7b9

The same fingering for one can be used to imply another.

  • If you use the b3 of a min7b5 as the root, you get a min6 chord.
  • If you use the 13 of a min6 as the root, you get a min7b5 chord.
  • If you use the b3 of a min7 as the root, you get a Maj6 chord.
  • If you use the 13 of a Maj6 as the root, you get a min7 chord.

Plurality is different from inversions: Inverted chords are different fingerings of the same chord, with the same notes.  Inverted chords just have a note other than the root as the bottom note.  Plurality is where one fingering can be heard as multiple chords. 

2 Comments
    Picture

    HI!

    I'm teaching myself jazz guitar... these are my notes.

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