Jazz Guitar

Over the years the guitar has given me a great deal of pleasure. Especially now that I play predominantly finger style I can sit quite happily on my own tinkling away for hours oblivious to the cares of the world, completely immersed in music. However, I must say that for sheer spontaneous enjoyment there is nothing quite like playing improvised jazz with a good small group.

When a jazz musician plays an improvised chorus he is attempting to perform the miracle of instance composition, and incredibly, if he know what he's doing the miracle works!
Such a solo is built on the chord progression of the song rather than the melody, so the guitar player has a certain advantage when he comes to jazz. In common with most guitarists I have always found it much easier to remember chord progressions than melodies, which is not surprising, because after some years of playing it is natural to recognize certain chordal relationships.

Any guitarist who wants to play jazz should train himself to do this. He will then be able to develop his solos logically on the basis of the arpeggios and scales thus suggested. Don't misunderstand what I am saying here. A good jazz chorus consists of a great deal more than arpeggios and scales. These should be used as the foundation on which to build a new and interesting melodic lines of your own, and added to his basic knowledge of chords and scales the jazz guitarist must have a flair for melodic and rhythmic invention.
Only the geniuses are born with this flair; but fortunately there are ways for developing it through listening and experimentation. Clearly it is no good expecting that you are going to be able to play good jazz improvisation purely by chance. This would be equivalent to sticking you down in the middle of China and expecting you to be able to improvise the language. Jazz is a language; a way of putting over ideas. If you want to play it, you must listen to it habitually, particularly with reference to the guitar; so that you know what has been done and what can be done with our instrument in this field.

Listen to Jim Hall - a completely different kind of player. Gentle, thoughtful, he never puts a finger wrong; playing kind of jazz chamber music with a taste and intelligence that make him the thinking man's guitarist. And if you want to find out where a great deal of this began. Listen to Django Reinhardt - the incomparably Gipsy guitarist who showed us the way back in 1930's, whose sheer joy of living comes through with every now, making it impossible to believe that he has been dead for nearly a quarter of a century. If there can be such a thing as an Immortal then Django Reinhardt is surely it.

And Play Jazz....

Guitar Chords In A

A' is a favourite key of many of the classical composers for the guitar. One good reason for this is the fact that the 5th and 6th strings are tuned to the natural bass notes of the key - A and E, thus allowing these strings to be played open as accompaniment to more complicated fingering with the left hand. From our point of view offers a good opportunity to begin to explore the string bass style of playing.
The string bass style means merely that, having formed a chord with your left hand, instead of strumming it straight across, or playing it arpeggio fashion, you hit one of the lower strings on its own for the first beat of the bar, then play the remainder of the chord on the second. You can then play another bass string, followed by the chord, for the third and fourth beats.
You may wonder why I didn't go staek, raving bonkers with the monotony of this um-ching um - ching, but it is possible to make this style very interesting both from the playing and listening points of view. If you can get hold some of the Eddie Land/Joe Venuti recordings you'll hear Lang using this type of Accompaniment to good effect. Another example that falls immediately to mind is Django Reinhardt's duet version of ALABAMY BOUND, made with Stephen Grappelly in 1937- I guarantee that the first time there's only one guitar playing the accompaniment.
Just how interesting you can make the string bass style depends on your ability and imagination. By making care in the choice of your bass notes you can produce a pleasant counter-melody should fill in the gaps, rather than competing or dominating. You'll get to play the melody yourself later on, but at the moment we're concentrating on the job of making a reasonable accompaniment of you, and this is an art in itself. Your chance to become a soloist will come in Section Four.

Now, the principle chords, in the key of A. These are A, E7 and D. As usual, we'll take tonic chord first:

By now your fingers should be becoming hard enough and flexible enough to find the correct position without much difficulty. Try this chord arpeggio fashion,, making sure that the fingered 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings ring as well as the open ones. Now try playing the chord in the string bass style, hitting the open 5th string alone first, followed by the chord.

Chords In D

When Eddie Lang, the first great jazz guitarist, played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra back in the early 1930s the story that he carried his band parts written on a piece of card about the size of an average business card became something of a legend. If the story is true, it must be am example of the kind of thing that is possible through the use of the chord symbol system, which you are in the process of learning.

My own adaptation of Eddie Lang's business card one which I have found useful over many years involves the use of an ordinary pocket-sized, indexed address book. You can buy one of these from a stationers quite cheaply and start to build your own library of accompaniment today. Write out the chord symbols - and the words of the song too, if you like as I how quickly you can build up a range of songs to suit all occasions. Why not start with the accompaniments you'll find in this Blog?

Our next three chords are in the key of D. They are D, the tonic A7,the dominant, and the G the sub-dominant. Your 'bonus' chord here is G, which is carried over from the previous chapter, so once again you really only have two chords to learn.

The five string chord of D in the first position looks like this:

Chord Window D

You will notice here that the 4th and 5th strings are played open, giving you a ringing, sonorous bass sound. Try the chord, making sure you use the left-hand fingering indicated. Play arpeggio first, to make sure of those first three strings.
The Dominant Seventh in the key is A7, an extremely useful chord shape. This employs for the first time in your experience the Small Barre - that is, the use of the first finger to hold down the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings simultaneously. At the same time, the third finger is 5th and 6th strings can be sounded open in this chord, giving a good ringing bass once again.

Chord Window A7

The G chord you already know, so let's try a small exercise, using the three chords in D.
||4x1 D ///|G///|A7///|D///:||
Repeat this until you have the feel of changing between these chords... until your fingers are so educated that you don't have to watch they're doing. Foster's OLD FOLKS AT HOME. To find the first three notes of the melody, finger the D chord and hit your first string, then raise your second finger and allow the open 1st string, to sound then the 2nd string, with your third finger on the third fret, as in the D chord. This gives you: Way down u- the notes F sharp, E and D. The song is played in a slow four to the bar. Whatever you do don't play the accompaniment jerkily. This is good time to try a sustained, arpeggio type of accompaniment, letting the strings ring behind the melody.

(Guitar) Chord Window F

Yes, it is a bit of a stinker, isn't it? But don't panic. You'll notice that in this chord the first finger stops both the 1st and 2nd strings, which means that you can't use the tip of the finger as before. Instead, the first finger is flattened down to bring its first joint in line with the fingerboard. Try that first, picking the 1st and 2nd strings only. If the strings don't ring, adjust the position to your finger until they do. Take your time. Then when you're certain you've mastered this part of the chord, place your second finger on the 3rd string at the second fret, still keeping your first finger in position. Now pick the 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings in that order.

When those three are sounding clearly, you can then add the fourth note, which is made by placing your fourth finger on the third fret of the 4th string. Now play all four strings - arpeggio fashion at first to make sure they're all ringing as they should - then five strings, by including your un-fingered 5th - then strum.

When you've mastered the F chord on it's own, try changing between it and the other chords in the key, something like this:
||:F///|G7///|F///|C///:||

I can't emphasise too much how important it is to learn to change quickly from one chord to another. Each chord is a building block, and its shape has to be learned individually, but to play a chord sequence like that given above, without stumbling or hesitating between the bar lines, it is necessary to go on practising until the left-hand fingers move automatically to the correct position on seeing a given symbol.

Guitar Chord Window C

The 5th and 6th strings are not sounded in this chord, as you will note from the X symbols side the nut position. The O symbol over the 1st and 3rd strings indicates that they should be played open. When you have mastered the C chord, try changing from this to D7, and then to G.

A NOTE ON TONE PRODUCTION
Concentrate from the outset on making as full a sound as possible each time you play a chord. By this I don't mean that you should bash the plectrum down on the strings with all the force you can master. This will only succeed in producing ugly rattles and buzzes. It is far more important at this stage - and at any other, for that matter- that you should obtain the best tone of which your instrument is capable, rather than striving for sheer volume.

You will have no doubt have noticed by now that the position at which you strike the strings makes a distinct difference to the nature of the tone produced. If you haven't already done so, experiment with this. Finger the G chord with your left-hand and strike the strings close to the bridge. The tone thus produced will be bright and tinny- almost banjo-like. Now, still holding the chord, move your right hand up past the sound-hole to where the neck joins the body of the instrument and draw the plectrum slowly across the strings at this position. The tone this time will be softer, but much rounder and more mellow.

As with so many things, the happy medium is the one to be recommended. That is, a playing position about half-way between these two extremes. This leaves the very sharp and very mellow tones in reserve for any special effects you may wish to produce.

Guitar Chord Window D7

Finger this chord, using left-hand fingers indicated in the window. Then play it slowly, one string after another, to make sure that each is sounding properly. If it isn't, look again at your left-hand fingers, to see if you are pressing the stings down with sufficient firmness, and in the correct position behind the frets. Also check in case any of your fingers are fouling adjacent strings and preventing them from vibrating.

When you fell happy about D7, try changing from D7 to G... and back again. It will be a struggle at first. You'll find it necessary to look down at the fingerboard and guide your left-hand fingers carefully into position. Don't worry_ we've all been through this stage , and the only way to get past it is to practice the change again and again until you are able to make it smoothly. Don't worry about speed, just take it slow and easy, and make sure that all the notes in each chord sound every time.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR THE LADIES
You're going to have cut those lovely long finger nails on your left-hand or right-hand. If you don't you'll never able to press the strings down in the correct manner. So get out your clippers and look upon it as a sacrifice made for your Art.
Generally, many players plays with their right hand. They said, right hand playing is universally right thing to do on guitars. Many artists like also plays guitar right hand. If you don't want to play it right hand, then you can simply choose left-handed playing.

Guitar Chord Window

Over the nut position on the diagram you will notice the two symbols X and O. There refers to the un-fingered strings in the chord shape. When X is placed over a string, this string should not be sounded. Therefore, in the example above section, the 5th and 6th strings are not played. The O symbol placed over a string means that, although it is not fingered, the string should be sounded. In this case you will see that the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings are played open in this way, producing the notes D,G and B, which are in fact the basic notes of the chord of G.

When fingering a string it should be pressed down just behind, NOT on the fret. This brings the string firmly into contact with the metal of the fret, thus shortening the length of the part which vibrates when struck and making its pitch higher than that of the open string. In this case the 1st (E) string is stopped at the third fret and becomes G. If you turn back to the Fingerboard Diagram at the beginning of this section you will to check this. Notice that each time you move your finger up a fret, the pitch of the string goes up a semitone.

Now, holding your plectrum between the first finger and thumb of the right hand, as described earlier, draw it cross the top four strings. Remember, just the top four - we are using the 5th and 6th string at this stage. You should not have any difficulty in producing a musical sound from the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings in this chord, because they are sounded open, but you may find that first gives you nothing more than an inelegant 'phut'. This does not indicate that there is anything wrong with your guitar, or with the method of fingering described above. The trouble lies in the fact that all this stage your fingers are not strong enough, nor your finger-ends hand enough, to press the strings down with sufficient firmness. Another possible fault is that the side of your left-hand finger may be making accidental contact with the un-fingered 2nd string and deadening it's sound.