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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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Inversions Five by Five Aside

7/14/2015

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inversionsstackfive.pdf
File Size: 655 kb
File Type: 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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Learning your Chord Inversions -- Jimmy Bruno Method

1/22/2015

 
brunoinversions.pdf
File Size: 978 kb
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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.
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