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If 6 was 9 -- Mickey Baker's 2-5's

7/24/2019

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The attached PDF shows some simple, useful chord moves for ii-V and iii-vi-ii-V progressions.  Here are a few reasons they are so useful:

1) They feature a strategy where you are only moving 1 finger on a grip.
2) They feature voice-leading -- the finger you move outlines a chromatic descent to the next chord
3) They expose how a small vocabulary of chord shapes can be re-used for different voicings

As I've mentioned before, the first teacher who attempted to teach me about jazz guitar recommended the Mickey Baker books.  While they were nice at getting some basic and hip sounds going, there were a lot of holes to be filled.  While I don't particularly recommend starting with them, the best thing about his books was he gives a relatively small number of chord shapes to learn and re-uses them to stand-in for different chords in a hip way.  The first page of the PDF attempts to show how his chord shapes can be used in a ii-V progression.

The 1-finger ii-V is at the heart of what he initially presents, using a min6 as a Dom.9 voicing.  Making a min7 chord (acting as the ii) into a min6 chord (by moving the chord's b7 down 1 fret) gives you a rootless Dominant 9 chord, which is used as the grip for the V chord in the sequence.  Mr. Baker also shows that if you just hold or reposition min7 chord, you end up with a  rootless Dom11 chord.

As you may know, the min6 chord not only sounds like a Dom.9 chord, it is also a half-diminished (min7b5) voicing. The second page of the PDF shows all the various ways the min6 and min7 chords can be interpreted.  Understanding other uses for any grip you learn is a great thing to do.

Page 3 gives a few variations on a iii-VI-ii-V progression with Mickey's chord voicings.  This is the next most essential progression to learn after the ii-V.  Once you learn and hear the 2-5 and the 3-6-2-5, you will be able to abstract away several measures of many jazz standards which will make them easier to learn and remember.  Instead of learning several measures of a standard, you can eventually just represent it in your mind and ear as a 3-6-2-5 leading to a tonic.  If the six chord is a Dominant (has a major 3rd), then the 3-6 is like a ii-V going to the 2 of the ii-V which then goes to the tonic.  

Mickey's variations include using a min7 shape moved down one fret to represent the tritone of the ensuing V chord.  This tritone works out to be a Dom.7(#9) voicing.  A more common written variation is to use a rootless Dominant #11  for a V, which also happens to be a Dom.7(#11) a tritone away.  In addition to using a half-diminished (min7b5) shape as a rootless Dom.9 chord, we also see how a min7b5 shape can be grabbed as  Dominant Altered chords.  Finally, we see that the iii-7 chord can be a Maj9 voicing for the tonic.

Ideally you want to work out similar chord moves for every inversion of these chords.  The remainder of the PDF will give you a start in that direction.

Page 4 begins the chord moves for a I-vi-ii-V in one position for all the basic inversions which are in the Jimmy Bruno Inversions dictionary (you should check that PDF out if you haven't already).  This should allow you to do this chord move anywhere on the neck for any key.  Remember that the vi-7 chord is homonymous with the Tonic as a Maj6.  The squiggly arrow shows you will have to move up some frets to get the chord root on the correct note.  The min6 of the ii is equivalent to the Dom.9 of the V chord (as well as the other homonyms shown on Page 2).

Page 9 shows a 3-6-2-5 progression with altered dominants as the 6 and the 5.  The squiggly arrow is to alert that you will need to move the shape down on the neck to get the root in the right place.  When the 6 and 5 of a 3-6-2-5 are dominants, the 'tonal center' is located a whole tone (2 frets) away from the final Tonic during the 3 to 6.  The VI chord is a Dom.7(#11) while the V chord is a Dom.7(b9) -- which is also a Diminished voicing.  Note that each of the Dominant voicings here are exactly the same chord if played a tritone away.  Try out Mickey's other tritone subs -- making the tritone a min7 or min6 also gives a hip altered dominant sound to the V.  You should also try grabbing a different ii-7 chord to serve as a Dom11 chord for the V.

The basic goal of practicing the content in this PDF is to increase your vocabulary of chord moves for basic building blocks of jazz harmony -- the 2-5, the 3-6-2-5 and the 1-6-2-5.  With study, you will see these progressions again and again in jazz standards.  The extended vocabulary will give you a host of options up and down the neck for playing over these progressions so you are not endlessly repeating yourself comping behind a soloist.  Learning comping is more useful than just learning how to solo with scales or modes -- for starters, you will realistically be comping far more than soloing.  But dig this -- when you start to picture the chord tones of these progressions all over the neck, they will also be the targets you can approach (scalewise, chromatically or any other way) in your solo to outline the harmony.
mickey_baker_2-5.pdf
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Three-note Voicings

5/1/2019

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This post is inspired by this You Tube video by Jens Larsen: 8 Awesome Types of 3 note Voicings and How To Use Them.

​The zip file below contains a slew of three-note voicings progressing up the neck.
3note_arps.zip
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Three note voicing are the Jazz guitar player's go-to for comping.  With three notes against the bass-player's contribution, you can paint harmony that is solid and direct -- using the 3rd, 7th and 5th of a chord -- or more vague -- using 4ths, 9ths, 13ths -- or completely 'out there' -- using altered tones.

Three note voicings also often allow you to have a free finger to decorate or voice-lead the chord with an added line.

By learning the progressions in these pdfs, you will not only have a cool chord run in your pocket, but you will increase your vocabulary of shapes for comping or chord-melody.  While you probably have begun building up your 3-note shapes just by subtracting a note from 4-voice chords, there are other shapes which can be found that don't build up to a four-note voicing.

The voicings on the middle strings (4-3-2) are the most useful, so you may want to start there with each pdf.

Below is an example of Dominant 9 three-note voicings.  The zip download contains several other types, including min-Maj, quartal and cluster triads.
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Sixth-to-Diminished: Wes Montgomery Chord Soloing 'Secret Weapon'

1/24/2019

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The Sixth-To-Diminished is a chord scale which alternates between Major Sixth Chords and Diminished Chords to provide a chord for every note of the Major scale.  It is just sandwiching a Diminished chord between each inversion of the Major Sixth chord.  If you run up this chord-scale,  you will quickly hear a sound which harkens the chord solos of Wes Montgomery.

Wes Montgomery's octave solos are perhaps the most distinctive part of his sound, but nearly all of his solos were like a three act play:  First, he started with single lines, then he moved to octaves, finally he moved to chords.  Just by the sheer number of strings, he was 'building' up his solo.

There are a few different approaches to chord soloing, most of which involve targeting the note on a chord's highest string as the 'Melody Note' with the bottom strings 'fleshing out' what chord is being stated below.  The Sixth-to-Diminished approach is a quick-and-dirty chord-scale which you can learn on the cheap.
six_to_diminished.pdf
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The Sixth-to-Diminished concept is championed by Barry Harris.  I did a blog post on the Barry Harris 'origin' story, but there is no context of what to do with that information.   The  basic takeaway should be that, through these philosophical machinations, the 'Sixth' chord has some interesting 'genes' in its DNA -- specifically related to the Diminished scale.  I imagine early jazzers started heavily exploring the Diminished because they heard the leading tones in an altered functional dominant.

The two-dollar explanation of the sixth-to-diminished is that the chord-scale is continually going from Five-to-One.  As outlined in the PDF, the diminished fingering is really an altered Dominant - a Dom.7b9 chord.  The ensuing chord is the 'One' chord, the Maj6.  Now -- what do jazzers love to do with any harmony?  Take any opportunity to add a 'V to I' cadence.  The Sixth-to-Diminished has the V to I in spades.  Every movement along the chord scale is a V going to a I.  

The beauty of the Maj6 chord is you can easily interpret it as Major or Minor.  Any Maj6 is an inversion of a min7. You may notice that the diminished chords -- spelled out in the chart as Dom.7b9 -- consistently have a note outside the Diatonic Major scale.  The flat-9 of these Dominants are actually the same as a Major#5.  I don't have the complete story on the Barry Harris method, but I know the Maj#5 chord is a big part of it.

If you take a look at the Diatonic chords of the Harmonic Minor, you see the Maj#5 is the Third Mode there.  If we used the Harmonic Minor's Maj#5 as the 'One' chord, the II mode would be the Harmonic Minor's vi  -- Dorian#11.  Let's take a look at the Sixth-to-Diminished harmonization of the II in the PDF.  It shows a Dom.7b9 to the V, but looking from the perspective of the II, we have the Root, the flat third, the sixth, and the #11.  Are the chord tones are outlining the Harmonic Minor starting from the III? Perhaps a discussion for another post.


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Chord Melody for Someday My Prince

2/21/2018

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​This is my first attempt at a chord melody.  I was told creating a chord melody would help me memorize the chord changes for a particular song.  It has also helped me figure out a few new fingerings.

I put chord boxes above the chords, stacking alternates at times.  The hollow circles are the second or third note to play holding the position (or en route to the next chord).  If you know the melody, you should be able to figure it out -- some go to a hollow dot and back to a solid dot.

The premise of constructing the chord melody is relatively simple -- the melody should run on the top two or three strings so you can stack the rest of the chord on the bottom strings.  The melody note should always have the highest pitch of all the notes in a chord.  It is not necessary to have a chord for every single note.  I always tried to aim to have at least the essential tones (3rd and 7th of the chord) and, if possible, the root note.  Often this required some inversions.

Please let me know if I have an error or typo.
someday_my_prince_chord_melody.pdf
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Reharmonizing 2-5-1

7/14/2017

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Check out this great video on reharmonizing the ii-V-I progression from Jens Larsen.  Subscribe to his channel! Support him on Patreon!

In the video, Jens goes through a bunch of variations on the most common progressions in Jazz.  With each progression, he outlines how the reharmonized V chord is devised and what scales work over top of it.  Along the way, you should start to recognize how those weird progressions in standards are really just altered or reharmonized ii-V-I cadences.

Below is a PDF of the various reharmonizations, although some might have slightly different fingerings.
2-5-1_reharmonizations.pdf
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Essential Chords for Jazz Blues Progressions

3/10/2017

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jazzblues_essentialchords.pdf
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These are "essential chords" for a Jazz Blues progression in Bb as taught by Don Mock.  Various options for the I, IV, V, ii and VI chord are diagrammed with their function.  The final page shows a basic jazz blues progression for Bb.  The chords are mostly grouped by position, so you can easily shift the 'melody' note on the topmost string during a bar.

In a traditional I-IV-V blues, we have the dominant I7 for four bars, IV7 for bars 5-6, then back to the I7 for two bars.  Bar 9 would go to the V7, climaxing with the most tension, then moving to the IV7 and finally back to the I7.

In a Jazz Blues, a few things are different.  First, the IV jumps up in Bar 2.  Second, instead of going directly to the V from the I, we lead into it though a more jazzy I-VI-ii-V cadence starting bar 8.  The final two bars repeat the I-VI-ii-V cadence in half the time.

Notice that the VI chord is a dominant, not a minor, as would 'diatonically' fit in the key of Bb major.  The IV chord is also a dominant, as is usually the case in a traditional major blues.

Don lists typical extensions of 9, 13 and 11 for the I and IV chord which work well.  

Since the VI7 is really a sub for a vi-7, those extensions will sound off.  Instead, try using an altered chord -- a chord with the 9 and 5 raised or lowered a semi-tone.  The #5, b5, #9 and b9 are 'altered' tones which better lead the cadence to the minor ii chord.  The VI7 is really a 'secondary dominant.'  For just a couple bars, the harmoy is shifting to the ii, and the VI7 of Bb is *functioning* as the V of the ii.  The short of it is that a dominant leading to a ii will sound better with altered tones, which jives with minor scales like the harmonic and melodic minor.

For the V (F7), pretty much any extension, alteration, or combination thereof can work. You can mix nines and thirteens with flat nines and sharp fives and so forth.  This is because the V is really the peak of tension from which everything will fall back into place with the I.
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Inversions Five by Five Aside

7/14/2015

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inversionsstackfive.pdf
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Here are inversions for Dom.7, Maj7, Min7, Min7b5 and Dim.7.  They are stacked against each other so you can see how they relate to each other.  Practicing each fingering across will help ingrain what part of the chord each note is and where intervals sit in relation to each other.
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Two-Five Comping with Voice-Leading

4/18/2015

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Here is a series of chords to comp over a 2-5 which features nice voice leading.

Take the b7 of the ii chord (D-7) and lower by 1/2 step.  This gives you a dom.9 chord with no root.  This is a sub for the V chord in the 2-5 sequence.
Take the rootless dom.9 chord (G9) and lower its 9 a half-step resulting in a rootless dom.7(b9) chord (G7b9).  Notice that rootless dom.7(b9) chords look like diminished chords.  Also note that min6 and rootless 9 chords look like min7b5 chords.
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If the 2-5 resolves to a 1, you can resolve to the one, Cmaj7 or C-7 depending on the type of 2-5.
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Practice this same movement with as many fingering as you can.  Pick a random minor 7 chord and then move to the five with the 9th movement.  For 2-5 progressions that resolve to a minor, you might want to leave out the movement to the dom.9 and just go from the ii-7 to the V7(b9).

This exercise is helping me greatly to learn all the inversions shown here.  I go to the page of the Minor 7 chords and start on a chord in a column.  I know where the roots of these inversions are, but now I need to learn where the b7th is for each one. 

Moving the b7 of the min7 a half-step gives me a rootless ninth chord. 
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I need to visualize where the root of this ninth chord is for future use (it's always a whole-step down from the 5 of the minor ii chord you started with).

This fingering is also synonymous with a min7b5, so I will take some time to visualize that chord, and where its root is.  The finger you just moved down from the ii chord is the third of the ninth chord.  But it is also the root of the min7b5 chord with the same shape. 
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In the second half of the second measure, we take the nine of the ninth chord and move it a half-step down so it becomes a rootless Dominant with a flat-nine. 

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The root of this chord is a half-step down from the note you just moved.  This fingering is synonymous with a diminished chord, which is a moveable chord, repeating every four semi-tones.  The root of a diminished chord could fall on any of these notes.
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You might go back and forth between these dominant chords, visualizing the them also as their 'synonym' chords.

Now we need to find the Maj7 to resolve to on the last measure.  If you can remember where the root of the first chord you started with (the minor ii chord),  the root of the I7 is just a whole-step down from that.  Now try and remember what shape you can apply for a Maj7 with that note as the root.  For the purposes of this exercise, the shape should be in the same string grouping as your other chords. 
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For the fourth and last measure of our 2-5-1,  we can change the Maj7 to a Maj6.  This means we have to learn where the P7 is in each of these Major chord shapes.  Once we find that, we can move that note down a whole-step to the 6 (or 13, if you like to call it that).
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Look at this last chord shape.  You should recognize it as not only a Maj6, but as a min7 chord. 
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Note where the root is on both these chords.  You may want to shift between the Maj7 and Maj6 to get a feel for the movement, which I call the 'Mickey Baker' move, because Maj7 to Maj6 is the first thing he teaches.

Now that you are on a Maj6,  which is essentially a min7, you can start the whole routine again with the min7 shape as the new ii chord.

If you do this for all the inversions for the 6432, 4321, 5432, 6543, and 5321 groupings, you will be reinforcing all the shapes for Min7, Maj7, Dom9, Dom7(b9), Min7b5, Diminished, and Maj6 chords!  We are also learning where 7ths, 9s, and b9s live.  This is also a practical exercise -- you can use it to comp over any 2-5-1 progression.  Finally, you will start hearing the voice-leading and learn how the b9 fits in, just through sheer exposure.

You can alter this process to also reinforce the Dominant chord fingerings by doing a second pass on each 2-5-1 with a 'tritone substitution.'  Instead of changing from Dom9 to Dom7(b9) in the second measure, we will play a substitution for the V7 chord, whose root is a tritone away from the V7.  It is easier than it sounds.

The root of the subsititue V7 chord will always lie between the root of the ii chord and the root of the I7 chord.  So start with a minor shape for the first measure.  The root of your V sub will be a half-step down from the root of the minor ii you just played.  Find the Dominant chord fingering that goes with that root -- that is the Dominant tritone sub. 
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Play this dominant for bar 2 (the ii is bar 1), and then resolve to your Maj7 and Maj6 on the last two bars just like before.

If you do one pass with the flat-nine movement and one pass with the tritone sub, you will be covering just about all of your basic inversions!

If you go through them again with a minor 2-5-1, you can throw in your minor sixes also.  You will probably ignore the dom9 chord and just hit the dom7(b9) for the second measure, though.  I'll leave that to you to work out.
two-five_voiceleading.pdf
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Learning your Chord Inversions -- Jimmy Bruno Method

1/22/2015

 
brunoinversions.pdf
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I'm still trying to learn these basic inversions.  Here's the way Jimmy Bruno teaches them. 
Lesson 1
Jimmy Bruno starts his chord teaching with the dominant 7 voicings on strings 6-4-3-2.  Learn to play the leftmost column top to bottom on page 1 of the PDF in sequence. 
Start with the top-most voicing starting with the "C" on the second string.  Find the next voicing in the column by finding the next root up the fretboard.  The red "R" spots where the root of the voicing lands.  Play first column sequence in all twelve keys, going in fourths (C, F, Bb, Eb, etc.).  You won't play chords for the roots that are on strings 5 and 1 for this exercise.  For each shape, learn what each note is in terms of its interval -- b7, 3, 5, root.

Lesson 2
Now go down the second column.  This group is called '4321.'  You are just putting the note on the sixth string from the 6432 group on the first string for the 4321 group.  Land the voicings on all the roots up the neck for this column, skipping roots that are on strings 5 and 6 this time.  Learn in all 12 keys, moving in the cycle of fourths.  Make sure you can play them down the neck, too.

Lesson 3
The next group is 5432.  You are taking the same shape you started with in 4321, except moving the note on the G-string to account for the B-string shift.
Find the voicings all the way up the neck, skipping roots that are on strings 6 and 1 this time.  The shapes will go in the same order.  Learn in all 12 keys.  Make sure you understand where the intervals are in each voicing.

Lesson 4
Now move the voicings up to strings 6543.  Again you have to shift to account for what was on the B-string.   Find the voicings on the all the roots, not including those on strings 2 and 1.  Play down the column, learning the inversions in all 12 keys going by the circle of fourths.

Lesson 5
Now move the 6432 voicing to 5321.  The shapes alter because of the B-string.  Find the first voicing in F. The next F is on the 4th string, which we aren't playing.  Find the next F on the second string and use the second voicing down in the leftmost column.  Play down this last column until you can change fingerings fluidly.  Play them in all twelve keys with the circle of fourths, up and down the neck.

Lesson 6
Now refer to the 6432 voicings you learned in Lesson 1.  In each one, find the third and flatten it (move down a half-step).  These are your minor 7 voicings in 6432, shown on page two.  Flatten the third on all the string groupings to learn minor 7 chords on 6432, 4321, 5432, 6543, 5321.  Play them in sequence up the neck and then learn them down the neck.   Play them in all keys, moving in fourths.

Lesson 7

The Major 7 inversions are learned the same way.  Start with the dominant shapes and, for each one, find the flat 7 and move it up a half step.  These are all on page 3.  Learn all these intervals the same way, so you can fluidly move to the next shape up and down in all keys in the circle of fourths.

Lesson 8
Next comes the Min7b5 or half-diminished.  Take each Minor 7 shape you learned and flatten the 5 by moving it down a half-step.  Learn them column by column like the other chord types.

Lesson 9

Now you can start putting the chords to work.  Start with the ii-V progression on page 5.  Play the minor 7 chord (ii) and then the dominant 7 chord (V).  Then repeat the progression with the shapes in row 2.  Play all these progressions up and down the neck in all 12 keys as well.

Lesson 10

Finally, add a Major 7 chord to resolve the progressions you learned in lesson 9.  Play the minor 7 (ii) for one bar, then the dominant 7 (V) for a bar, then the major 7 (I) for two bars.  Move to the next row and repeat with these shapes. These progressions feature good voice leading.
This means that one of the notes moves in a scale-like fashion with many of the other notes staying in place.  This emphasizes a sequential movement to emphasize harmonic changes of the chords. Good voice-leading changes the chords while staying "melodic."  You will have to transpose these chords to play them in all twelve keys, but the transitions will all be the same for this exercise.  The ii-V-I listed is in C.  After you do them all in C, do them all where the I chord is Fmaj7 (G-7 / C7 / Fmaj7 /
Fmaj7).   Next will come the key of Bb, where the I chord is Bbmaj7.  Keep repeating in fourths until you've played the progressions in all 12 keys.

Rootless Maj9

9/29/2014

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You can use the shapes of the minor7 chord as a rootless Maj9 chord.  The 7th of a minor7 chord becomes the 9th of a rootless Maj9.

These are good for comping with a bass player who will cover the root.
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    HI!

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