Relaxin' at Camarillo

The Melodic Minor Scale in Pieces

Back from a fairly shittly trip to the old country, and in order to prevent my playing from falling into utter disrepair, I set myself the task of learning the melodic minor scale in four different positions. I used the patterns from Jimmy Bruno's Six Essential Fingerings, and once again appreciated the clarity and simplicity of that document.

I don't really know much about this scale or how to use it, except that it's often played over V chords starting one step above the root of V, thus generating all four alterations: b9-#9-b5-#5. If anything at all has become clear out of all this jazz guitar mullarky, it's that there are many ways to skin a cat, and when we talk about this or that scale over this or that chord, we're not really talking about entire scales at all but just a couple of particular notes that sound especially good when superimposed over the underlying harmony. Scales are merely the mother ship from which our funky monsters descend, and as what we all want most in the world is to avoid playing an entire scale starting from the root, it seems to me that, following on from the last post, in practice it helps to think about much smaller clusters of notes that you could realistically land on at the appropriate time. To this end, I've been experimenting with non-scalar-sounding fragments taken from within the meldoic minor scale to play over a V chord. For example: here's the entire scale as you'd play it over D7 (Eb melodic minor):

And here are two examples of fragments you might usefully hope to play over a bar of D7:

To get a sense of what I mean, here's me playing these ideas over a looped backing track of Am7-D7-Gmaj7-Gmaj7. It's much easier to digest chord-scale relationships if you break them down into petit morceau. Fragment your thinking! Melodic Minor Fragments

Oh, and a note: Bob Erwig's Jazz Films (passim) have been busted by the jack-booted ones at YouTube, but he's moved a little of his stuff over to Daily Motion. Let's hope he keeps adding.

Rico!

Le Massif Central have a new member -- well, a  new trial member at any rate, which is to say, we're not auditioning him, he's auditioning us. Rico (absolutely his real name, which is why we want him  to join soooooo much), plays a killer tenor, has enormous confident and monster chops. He's also about 12. Ramos is uncertain whether Rico could ever truly graduate to become a fully-fledged member of the Massif -- presumably because his beamish adolescence remains unsullied by drink, drugs and STDs and his dainty fledgling hopes still wait to be pulverised beneath the pounding boots of drudgery -- but as I pointed out, it's all entirely moot as: a) he probably won't ever come to practice again; and b) even if he does, I dare say young Rico is far to cool to give a flying monkey's whether or not he's wholly inducted into our delusional world of pretend-French existentialism. As an interim measure, we've agreed to re-name the band "Le Massif Central mit Rico," which I think has a nice gay German quality to it, don't you? Very Viennese.

I recorded most of last night's practice (absolutely top -- easily our best ever) and was going to bore you all with it today, but I got all the settings wrong and instead have 50 minutes of silence. "Ain't it always the way", as a toothless old cockney in a flat cap with his trousers tucked into his socks once said to me as he found me mending a puncture on my bike in the pissing rain (this on a cobbled street just behind Columbia Road flower market in the east end of London, and to this day, I'm convinced he stepped out of a time-warp connecting the present to the 1920s for the express purpose of offering his sympathies).

Anyway, as there are no recordings, I thought I'd share this: a dog-eared old piece of paper I found while sorting through some files.

(Here's a PDF version of the same).

What this shows is a diminished arpeggio handily split into four-note cells on various string sets and in different places on the neck. As you know, you can cover all twelve keys with just three diminished arpeggios, so they're well worth learning. The purpose of splitting them up this way is to make them into useable fragments that you can easily find and then fit over four beats of a V7 chord. It's also a really good way to break the habit of starting arpeggios always on the root.

So that's that. But wait, in the bottom right hand corner there are a couple of diagrams that show little patterns you can play to get interesting and varied alterations over V7 chords. These six-note patterns can be begun on any one of the four notes that make up a diminished arpeggio, and will achieve slightly different results depending on where you start, though will always give you at least a b9 or b5 sound.

Here's what I mean, an Amin7 arpeggio (starting on A, 12th fret, 5th string), followed by an  example of the pattern (starting on Eb on the 9th fret, 3rd string): Dim Fragment. (After listening back to it, I realize that I've left out a final note resolving to G, so please feel free to imagine it, if you will.)

And here's a couple of unspectacular goes at it in different places over a ii-V-I in G: Diminished Fragments Example.

So there's another thing we can add to the mix when thinking about ii-V-Is, and yet another thing to practice. So now I'm off to London for a week on an entirely non jazz-related mission (where hopefully I'll bump into that prophetic old man again.) I'll see you all when I get back. Ain't it always the way!

Finding Alterations within Parent Scales

This month's issue of Downbeat (the one with Brad Mehldau on the cover), has a woodshed article on (what else) "Substitute Scales for Dominant 7th Chords" -- in other words, what to play over the V in order to produce those hip alterations -- written by jazz-education legend Jamey Aebersold. Assuming you're playing over a ii-V-I or ii-V in the key of F major here the some scales he suggests you try out over the V (alterations are in bold):

1. Dominant 7th (or Mixolydian) = C D E F G A Bb C
2. Bebop = C D E F G A Bb B C (features natural 7th played as a passing tone)
3. Lydian Dominant = C D E F# G A Bb C (a C7#4 chord, features b5 alteration)
4. Whole Tone = C D E F# G# Bb C (a C7#5 chord, features b5, #5 alterations, no 6th)
5. Diminished = C Db D# E F# G A Bb C (a C7b9 chord, features b9, #9, b5 alterations)
6. Diminished Whole Tone = C Db D# E F# G# Bb C (a C7#9 chord, features b9, #9, b5, #5 alterations)
7. Spanish or Jewish scale = C Db E F G Ab Bb C (features b9 and #5 alterations).
8. The Chromatic Scale = every note on the guitar.

Lots of good stuff there, and I'm especially interested in the possibilities of the Whole Tone and Diminished Whole Tone scales, neither of which I've ever properly explored. However, Mr. Aebersold's article does return me to a recurring problem, viz the genuine practicality of internalizing chord-scale relationships for a kack-handed divot such as I. Far be it from me to take issue with the efficacity of his system, lucrative as it has no doubt been, but it seems that when we're talking about what scale to play over which chord in a ii-V-I, we're wasting our time learning an entire scale when all we're actually looking for is one, two or three altered notes tastefully placed to create the appropriate tension and funky sounds over a V chord.

A beginner, I think, needs something simpler to stop them feeling overwhelmed. As you know, if you're playing an orthodox ii-V-I in G, even if you intend to play arpeggios for all the chords, you don't ever leave the scale of Gmajor. The only time you'll play anything outside of the "parent" scale is if you a) connect notes with chromaticism; or, b) play an alteration over the V.

Here's how I would simplify my search for the alterations. Instead of learning a host of substitute scales or formulas for producing them (such as "play a major 7th arpeggio a step up from the root of the V), I learnt where the V chord alterations sit in the parent scale. In other words, I visualize the G major scale and locate all the alterations for the V chord in relation to that. Starting with just one note to keep it easy, I began by learning where all the flat 9ths of a D7th chord would be in the Gmajor scale:

Clicking on the image should reveal all the notes of Gmajor on the fretboard marked in red, with all the Eb notes (the b9 of D7) in blue. Once you've located all the Ebs, you can forget about chord-scale relationships and just play tastefully in G, outlining the changes and hitting an Eb at the appropriate time in the measure. Obviously, once you've learnt where the b9s are, you can then fill in all the other alterations. Doing that will leave you with the chromatic scale of course, but at least you will have a sense of the individual alterations within a parent structure. Jimmy Bruno's concept of Tonal Circles is what I'm thinking of here. Drawbacks, I suppose, would include the danger of losing the specific identity of the chords and making them all sound like G, but that could be fairly easily remedied if you incorporated this idea with a sound knowledge of where all the diatonic arpeggios are within the parent scale -- see the exercise posted on August 2nd.

...and finaly, Happy holidays to all of you who ever read this, wherever you are, and however you came upon us -- especially the gentleman who came looking for fun single ladies in the Camarillo area. Good luck to you, sir, we salute you with a festive glass of sherry.

Chord Vocabulary Feedback

Having posted the Chord Dictionary on Monday night, I went over to the Yahoo Jazz Guitar Group and invited them over to take a look and offer whatever feedback they'd like. Not only did the site get an unprecedented number of hits -- eight times the usual daily traffic -- I also received some excellent and generous tips from experienced players. Below are two emails (reproduced with the authors' permission), full of practical chord-melody advice and musical erudition. The first is from Juan Vega, whose JVega Trio can be caught in action around Southern California. "Dear Andy," he writes,

I took a look at your stuff, and have some comments that I thought would probably be better off-list, I hope you don't mind.  You've done a lot of work, and you have some good ideas.  I think your approach is pretty solid, but to me part of the "art" of chord melody is coming up with voicings and grips that respect the melody, and are unique at the same time.  Just as playing chords on every note in a chord melody tune is clunky, using "stock" voicings on chord melodies can be harmonically "clunky" as well, so it's important to sometimes "ignore" the melody note to chord relationship, and try to find something that is sonically fresh and exciting, which is what the masters do.

         A couple of suggestions:

* You mention "reharmonization" but don't get into specifically what you mean, you may want to explore just what it is you mean; reharmonizing the entire melody, or just using a chord that differs from the harmony because it sounds good. 

* Although it's important to respect the melody, sometimes you can get away with placing it in an inner voice, particularly in a phrase where there's a lot of movement rhythmically in the melody, or it's an up-tempo tune; the harmony should support or strongly imply the melody.

* Another consideration for us guitar players is what key the song is in.  It's important to note that sometimes transposing a song into another key opens up lots of possibilities, including the use of open string chords, for instance.

* The rhythmic aspects of the tune need to be taken into consideration as well.  If a note is on a strong beat, it's a better candidate for a chorded sound, whereas you may want to use the weaker beats of the melody for passing tones.

* A technique that works nicely on electric guitar is to play a chord with the melody on top, and then change the harmony under it, letting the melody note ring.  Pianists & classical guitarists do this a lot. 

* You don't really get into the right-hand aspect of this process at all, but it's also a critical component.  For example, I've done stuff where I arpeggiate the notes in a chord, letting them ring out, and this is similar to a pianist using a sustain pedal.  Also, strumming all the chords can be clunky too, so part of the process should entail whether the tune is going to be played with a pick, with fingers, or a combination of both, there are choices there.

* Finally, although your chord diagrams are useful as a reference, the real trick is to learn the fretboard, and then acquire the ability to create voicings for your chord melody by knowing innately where the notes are, the notes in the chord you want, the sound you want, and how you want to voice it.  Another important thing is to develop the ability to hear how the melody will sound with the chords under it, rather than just picking chords from a "menu" of sorts, until you get the one you want.

Anyway, those are some random thoughts, I hope you find them helpful.  If you have any questions about any of this, let me know.  Chord melody can be one of the coolest aspects of guitar playing, because it allows us to put our personal stamp on a tune.  It's something worth pursuing.

Next up, Vaughan Williams wrote to say that while the Word file wouldn't open for her, she checked out my version of "Wonderful World", but suggested I use triads and diads which "fall under the fingers more easily."

Not being entirely certain what was meant by that (except three- and two-note chords), or how to apply them, I ask Vaughan to explain further. Here's her reply:

Diads are chords which consist of two notes ( keep in mind that most basic chords contain the root, 3rd, and 5th of the scale--this is very very basic).  Anyway, diads--in jazz are often composed of the 3rd and flat 7th (the dominant 7th chord) diads are easy on the fingers and allow you to add further extensions--such as the flat nine, flat fifth, augmented fifth, Thirteenth, flat nine. All these are contained within the major scale.

Basically, a triad--has three notes--diads (used in jazz) have two notes. In addition, you could go beyond tertian harmony--and play quartal/quintal stuff. These chords are based on stacked fifths and fourths.

You could try taking any tone in your major scale and make a non-descript ambiguous chord. It's considered ambiguous because it doesn't contain a third.

The third is the tone that either qualifies a chord as major or minor--without that you have chords which break the rules (of tertian harmony).

Here's an example for creating your own. For example: you could write out a chord (In the key of c: - c, d, a (Root,9th, 13th)----You have to use string skips to pull these chords off, but try this idea out by fingerpicking it.

A quick tip before I forget. You can harmonize a melody with any chord tone (In major keys always avoid the 4th though) When you take the melody from "Take the A Train" you could stack your tones in fourths---try working on making up your own voicings. Regular chord books tend to offer stagnant versions for each chord.

This is probably the first post on this blog that's actually been worth spilling printer ink over. A very big thank you to both my correspondents, and to the wonderful community of jazz guitarists.

A Chord-Melody Chord Vocabulary

Remember this: The Camarillo Chord Melody Reference Chart?

Well, here's the companion piece I've been working on: A Basic Chord-Melody Vocabulary (PDF)

This is essentially a mini chord dictionary specifically tailored to chord melody playing. To be honest, not all the grips are ones I use regularly, but neither are any entirely beyond my purview. I used the Joe Pass Guitar Chords book as a reference, as well as this little online tool, which I think is much better than the other online chord dictionaries as you can tell it what you want, rather than selecting from a prescribed list.

This is the first draft, so probably contains many mistakes, and does not claim to be a method or primer on how to play chord melody. I do think it could be useful, but would really appreciate your feedback and comments on how I could enlarge and improve (Mrs.) You may also find this primer particularly useful: http://www.guitarnotes.com/notes/noteget.cgi?chord_melody

(Le Massif Central crack one out for the Lurking Ladies of Loch Lornadoon.)

The Camarillo Chord-Melody Reference Chart

The Camarillo Chord-Melody Reference Chart

Here's a downloadable chart in MS Word format that I put together with the intention of helping you find useful chords for making your own chord melodies. I’m not sure if it’s actually that useful or not as this is the first draft, but basically, it's for real beginners who don't know quite what to do when the tune is telling them it's an Emin7th chord with an ‘a’ in the melody. Referring to the chart reveals that an Emin11th will work nicely.

Instructions:

1. Find the required chord type (reduced here to their most basic forms: major, minor, dominant, half diminished) in the top row.

2. Next, refer to the first column to find the melody note you need to put in the top voice (aka highest note of the chord).

3. Cross-reference to find a chord that will work. From there you can alter the chord to whatever you ear favours. Unfortunately, actual chord shapes are up to you at this point, although I am working on putting together a matching sheet of chord forms.

Notes

i) Numbers in parentheses following a 7^th chord represent the chord tone that needs to be in the top voice: Root, 3^rd, 5^th, or 7^th. Aim to learn four inversions of each chord on string sets 1-2-3-4 and 2-3-4-5 fairly soon.

ii) Always try to find fingerings that place the melody note on the top e or b string. Joe Pass (who strongly discourages fingerings that require difficult or gymnastic stretches) recommends having the root note in the bass, although all of these chords work fine with no root at all.

iii) Try to connect chords smoothly - aim for chord shapes that are in the vicinity of one another and do not require huge leaps up the neck (unless this is a particular effect you are going for). Also, bear the bassline in mind, even if it's only implied. Chromatic movement is always effective.

iv) At the bottom of each column is a list of the most obvious substitutions you can use for that chord. One that's missing is the one that counts for all chords - tritone (flat five) substitution. Remember: any chord can be replaced by a chord whose root is the flatted fifth of the original chord. For example, G7 can be replaced by Db7, as Db is the flatted fifth of G. The ear is the ultimate arbitrator.

v) These examples are all for notes diatonic to the key of C, but in instances where the melody note is non-diatonic and therefore not on the list, (like, say, e flat), simply alter the note nearest to it in your chord. Actually, that's a bit of a dodgy fix, but it should work in most cases and you might come up with something cool.

vi) I have made no allowance for diminished chords. They are just too weird to deal with at this time of night. Content yourself with playing what's in the original tune and move quickly on while trying not to draw too much attention to yourself.

Have fun, and a big cheers at Camarillo to Leo for leaving such a nice comment just as I was feeling de-motivated. Thanks man!

Diminished Responsibility

Torrential rain for the past three days as the arse-end of Ernesto passed through. Amazing how big those buggers can be, considering how far north we are. Still, if I remember correctly, an 1815 eruption of the Indonesian Tambora volcano was the reason Frankenstein got written as it made the weather so wet and miserable in Geneva they all had to stay indoors.

Bad weather hasn't brought on anything so wonderfully dark and creative for me I'm afraid, although I have been ruminating further on the various arcane applications of the diminished chord - a rainy day activity if ever there was one. Here’s what I’ve discovered most recently – you can use the diminished chord in place of a V chord when comping and playing chord-melodies to provide interest, tension sounds, and delay resolution.

As we already know, the basic, entry-level way to sound hip is to play a flat 9 over a V chord. You get this by playing a diminished arpeggio whose root is a half-step above the root of the V. In the key of C, where G7 is the V chord, you would play Abdim7 to get that sound. Here’s why it works:

The notes of G7 are: G-B-D-F

The notes of G7b9 are: G-B-F-Ab (There’s no 5^th in this spelling of the chord.)

The notes of Abdim7 are: Ab-B-D-F

As Abdim7 contains all the notes as a G7b9 (minus the root), we might as well think of it as a G7b9.

But there’s more… as diminished chords are built out of minor thirds stacked on top of each other, their magic symmetry means that those notes repeat themselves in every time you move up or down a minor third (or three frets), as we see here:

Abdim7= Ab-D-F-B

Bdim7= B-D-F-Ab

Ddim7= D-F-Ab-B

Fdim7= F-Ab-B-D

For soloing, that means that any of those four arpeggios would sound good over G7 as their basically all the same. When playing chords, it means you could replace the V with any of the four dims when comping, or in a chord melody play around with the diminished to create movement and tension before resolving to the tonic chord. Instead of doing four beats of G7 in a ii-V-I, for example, you could do a run of diminished chords like this instead:

Dmin7 /// | Bdim7 | Ddim7 | Fdim7 | Abdim7 | Cmaj7 ///

The shape below, based on a Abdim7 (but with an A natural in it instead that means you can think of it as a G9 with no root) can be moved around in minor thirds for a diminished tension sound. Use your spare little fingers to add notes for a bit of colour. To transpose this into different keys, find your place by thinking of it as a dom9^th chord with no root.

which would allow you to do something like this...

Finally, because each diminished chord can belong to four different keys, each individual chord can resolve into one of four possible key centres, e.g.: Abdim7 (which is also G7b9) resolves to Cmaj - but as it's also Bdim7 (which is also Bb7b9) it resolves to Ebmaj - but as it's also Ddim7 (which is also Db7b9) it resolves to Gbmaj - but as it's also Fdim7 (which is also E7b9) it resolves to Amaj.

Needless to say, all this is set out in the magic diminished relationships chart.

Charlie Parker 251s

Walter often said that the best way to learn bebop lines was to open the Omnibook more or less at random, find some ii-V-Is and work out what he's doing. I checked the Omnibook out of the music library sometime in September last year, but apart from learning the head to "Donna Lee" (I did, I really did... it took a week and now I've forgotten it), I haven't looked at it, until yesterday, that is, as the kids took their naps and it began to rain. In lyrical mood, I decided to take Walter's advice literally, opening the book at random to dig out four examples. So let's have a look, in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye, at what's going on:

Example 1 from "She Rote"

Example 1

Here's a ii-V-I in Bb (Cm7-F7-Bbmaj7). I've transposed it up an octave to make it more obviously lead-guitary, though I 'spose there's no real reason I should do that (there's also an Mp3 clip of me playing each excerpt twice at about a 10th of the original tempi.)

Over the Cm7, Bird plays the following notes: F-Eb-D-B-C-B-C-D, representing the following chord tones: 11th-3rd-9th-nat.7-Root-nat.7-R-9. We could call this a variety of things, including a C Dorian scale with the natural 7th used as a passing tone. I don't like mode-speak so I'll call it a Cm arpeggio with extensions and a passing tone as I think that sums up the spirit of it better.

Over the F7, we have the following: Eb-F-F#-G-D-C#-C-B, representing the following chord tones: 7th-Root-b9-9-6th-#5-5-b5. We could call this an F Mixolydian scale with the alterations b5, #5, b9, or an F7 arpeggio with added hip tones.

Over the Bbmaj7, he plays Bb-F#-Eb-C-Ab-G-B-A-and over the bar-Bb, representing: R-#5-11th-9-b7-6-b9-7-R. Interesting this, as while it eventually resolves to Bb over the bar line, he piles in the additional tension notes #5, b9, with a b7 passing tone before he gets there.

Example 2 from "Donna Lee"

Example 2

A ii-V-I in Ab, not transposed.

Over the Bbm7, plays Ab-Bb-C-Db, representing: 7th-R-9-3rd. I think we could confidently call that a Bbm9 arpeggio.

Over Eb7, he plays Gb-F-E-D, representing: #9-9-b9-nat.7. Both flat and sharp 9s are alterations, and the natural 7th is a passing tone. That the first three notes descend chromatically gives it its Bebop sound, the natural 7th leads into the Eb in the next bar.

Over Abmaj7th, he plays Eb-C, representing the 5th and the 3rd of Abmaj, concluding this example which demonstrates pretty nicely how both the ii and I chords remain pretty conventional, whereas the V chord is altered to produce the inside-outside-inside, tension-resolution, sound so familiar in Bebop. Moving on...

Example 3 from "An Oscar for Treadwell"

Example 3

A ii-V-I in Cmaj transposed up an octave.

Over Dm7, we have D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D, which anyone who can spell can see simply runs up the Dorian mode, or, if you prefer, the Cmaj scale starting on D (for they are one and the same.)

Over G7, we find E-A-Ab-F#-F, representing: 6th-9-b9-nat.7th-7th. Flat 9 is an alteration of course, and natural 7 the passing tone of Bebop scale.

***Digression --- For those of you who don't know, the Bebop scale is basically the Mixolydian with an added natural 7th played as a passing tone (which means don't hang around on this note, just use it to connect other notes chromatically.) You spell it thus: 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7-nat.7-1, and it's most often played descending. If you play this scale over a G7 chord (say), starting on G and beginning on a downbeat, each of the four chord tones (G-B-D-Bb) will miraculously land on a downbeat, and each extension or passing tone on an upbeat. This means that all your strong arpeggio notes land on strong beats. Try it... once you get what's happening, it's really nifty the way it works. You can start on any of the chord tones and it'll have the same effect. Just make sure you hit that chord tone on "one" and not "and".

Anyway, back to business - over Cmaj7th we have E, the third of that chord.

Example 4 from "Constellation"

Example 4

A ii-V-I in Fmaj, transposed up an octave.

Over Gm7, we have G-F#-G-Bb-D, representing Root-nat.7th-Root-3rd-5th. This is a simple Gm triad, and we could call the F# a neighbour tone, meaning the note next door that you sidle in from.

Over C7, we have F-D-Eb-E-C-Db-D-C, equalling: 11th-9th-#9=3rd-Root-b9-9-Root. A C Mixolydian scale with b9-#9 tensions.

Over Fmaj7, we have Bb-A-G-F-E-G-Bb-D-and over the bar-C, representing: 11th-3rd-9th-Root-7th-9th-11th-6th-and-3rd, all tones that are diatonic to the key of Bbmaj.

So what have we learnt? Well, Charlie Parker was really flippin' good for one, had pretty bulgy eyes when blowing for two, and three, hit all those alterations on the V chord. You gotta laugh.

Creating Basic Chord Melodies

Bearing in mind the apocryphal words of the Hippocratic Oath, “First do no harm,” I thought I’d give some pointers on chord-melody arrangements for beginners. All you really need to know to produce your own arrangements are a number of different ways of playing familiar chords, or better still, knowing how to spell and construct chords yourself. Real Book charts come with chords written up top and a single line of melody notes beneath. Your goal is to unite the two, playing the harmony and the melody at the same time like a pianist.

Here’s the basics:

1. Play the chord that is written in the chart, finding an inversion of that chord that has the melody note on the b or e string. It is preferable (though not essential) to have the root of the chord as the lowest note in the inversion.

2. If the melody note is not a note in the basic chord, then add an extension: 9, 11, or 13. (If there’s suddenly too many notes in your chord, the note first to drop is usually the 5th).

3. If the melody note is not diatonic to the basic chord at all, then make the chord an alteration: b5, #5, b9, #9.

4. If you just can’t seem to make the melody note fit with the chord, or else it just sounds pony, then consider using one of the many reharmonizations -- substituting the written chord and putting another in its place. Here’s a link to the notes I took while watching Joe Pass’ “Solo Jazz Guitar” video, to which I added other reharmonization options from some books. Yes, I freely admit I am an enormous geeky tool: Reharmonization If you want to get more into it, here's a thorough "how to" article from Jazz Improv magazine.

Example:

Here’s the basic melody and chords for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in the key of C.

So, how do you make a chord melody out of that? Well, the first chord is a C, with a C note in the melody. As I want to jazz it up a little, I’ll play a C6 at the third fret (C6 and Cmaj7 are interchangeble), with the C as the highest note in the chord . The next chord is a C with a G on top, so I’ll play a Cmaj7 at the eighth fret, thus providing me with a G on the b string. Now I need an F chord with an A on top, so I’ll play Fmaj7th at the eighth fret. The reason I’m playing Fmaj7 instead of Fmin7 or F7 is that when you harmonize the C Major scale, we find that F is the IV chord, and that in the major scale the IV chord is always a Major 7^th:

I             ii            iii          IV           V       vi         viim7b7

Cmaj7    Dm7      Em7     Fmaj7      G7      Am7     Bm7b5

Next, I want to play a G chord (a G7, because G is the V of Cmajor, and Vs are always 7 chords), with a D on top. The middle bit ("up above the world so high") uses the same voicings, until we get to measures 7 and 8 ("like a diamond in the sky") which simply repeats measures 5 and 6 except an octave higher, where I’ve used voicings that place the melody note on the top e string instead of the b string where they've all been up 'til now. I did that just to add a bit of variety, but you could just repeat the voices of the previous two measures. There are literally thousands of inversions on the fretboard, some sound sweet, some sound weird, some sound dark, some sound muddy, some sound perky, and many are impossible to reach. Here's the various inversions of the chords I’ve used, all easy and conventional grips.

And here's the full chart:

A few other things to consider:

• Ballads are best to start with as you can play them in free time and it sounds romantic instead of just off-tempo.
• You don’t need to find a chord for each individual melody note. Usually an arrangement sounds better as a combination of single and chordal playing. Using all chords can sound a bit clunking.
• Listen to the bass line you’re making as well as the melody. Does it follow its own logic? Could reharmonization make the bass line stronger? Once you’ve grasped the basics of chord-melody playing, adding walking bass lines is the next big challenge.
• Don't be a slave to the chart. If you don't like what's on it, change it. Your ears are the ultimate arbiter of what sounds good.

Three classic chord-melody recordings:

George Van Eps, Soliloquy

Joe Pass, University of Akron Concert

Johnny Smith, Moonlight in Vermont

More on Diminished Relationships

Remember this?:

Well, I’m still working it through, but I think this chart explains why all those tricks and scales work in the post “Achingly Hip”.

Bear with me, this will all be a bit tortured, but basically, it’s all about the diminished chord, a peculiar chord made up of three minor-third intervals. Because the structure of the chord is so symmetrical, moving the shape up the neck in minor thirds gives you all the same notes, just stacked in different order. In practice, this means that a G diminished chord is also a Bb diminished chord, a Db diminished chord, and an E diminished chord as well. As one position of the chord can simultaneously be thought of as being four different things, you can cover all twelve keys with this chord using only three positions.

Diminished chords are important because they sound good over the V. As Mark Levine writes in The Jazz Theory Book: “Diminished chords often function as disguised V7b9 chords, because the four notes of a diminished 7^th chord are the 3^rd, 5^th, 7^th and b9 of a V7b9 chord. Since everything in diminished scale harmony repeats at the interval of a minor 3^rd, a diminished chord can function as any of four different disguised V7b9 chords…” (p.336). This is why the diminished sounds goods – it is basically a V chord arpeggio with a hip flat9 in the place of the root.

But there’s more – because each diminished chord simultaneously belongs to four different keys at once, those keys are related, and those relationships can be exploited as a means of generating new and interesting sounds. So it’s about inter-changeability, substitution, and making incursions into different keys.

What helps is that there are only really two types of chord – the “Tonic” and the “Dominant.” We could also call these “One” chords and “Five” chords, or if we wanted to be really impressionistic, say that there are only really two types of sound in music: “Rest” and “Motion.” If you’ve ever watched any of the Joe Pass videos, you will have undoubtedly heard him say that he ignores all the chords in a chart save for V and I, only playing over them, honing in on the all-important points of tension and resolution while merely connecting or ornamenting the in-between.

Anyway, the “Tonic Function” Chords, or “I” chords are: I, iiimin7, and vimin7, which in the key of C equals: Cmaj7, Emin7, and Amin7. All these chords are theoretically interchangeable. Taste and context will be your guide to how useful or effective you think they are.

The “Dominant Function” Chords, or “V” chords are: V7, iimin7, IVmaj7, and viimin7b5, which in the key of C equals: G7, Dmin7, Fmaj7, and Bmin7b5. Similarly, all these chords are theoretically interchangeable, and taste and context, blah, blah, blah, snore, etc.

The “Diminished Relationships” chart is only interested in “Dominant Function” chords, and thus serves as a template of options for generating dominant sounds, especially dominant sounds with tensions. Each column represents a particular key, in which are listed the diminished, V, ii, IV and vii chords that belong to that key. As these are all Dominant Function chords they are interchangeable amongst themselves – for example, the ii and V are frequently thought of as the same chord, just as you’ll often hear the ii chord replaced by the IV (they are practically the same chord anyway: Cmaj7 is the same notes as Amin9 minus the root.)

But when it gets cool is when you take a step to the right. Moving to the next column along (moving up a minor third), takes you into a new key whose Dominant Function chords may be used in place of those in your original key. In essence, it’s a mix and match situation in which you can choose to change as little or as much of your basic progression as you like. For example, in the key of C, I could play an Abmaj7th (from the key of Eb) over G7... Oh look… that’s where Robert Conti’s “play a major shape a half-step above the root of V” idea must have come from. Cool. Now we’re learning grammar, not just phrases.

Here’s another example: over a ii-V-I in the key of C (D-7, G7, Cmaj7), you could play an Fmin7 and a Bb7 before resolving into Cmajor. Fmin7 would generate a third, flat 5, seventh and flat 9 over the Dmin7 in the accompaniment, while playing Bb7 would generate a third, sharp 5, major 7^th, and ninth over G7 before it resolved back into Cmajor. You can do anything you like, really, just so long as you remember that moving further to the right will always take you further “out”.

I played around with this a bit this morning and came up with this line, a ii-V-I in G (Am7-D7-Gmaj7). It’s nothing special, but serves as an illustration (click to make it legible).

It starts with a Cmaj7 arpeggio – a IV for ii substitution – which then goes into a Cmin7 arpeggio – the ii chord of Bb from the next column along – then into a F#diminished arpeggio – which is also a D7b9 arpeggio – before finishing on an Emin7 arpeggio, which is the relative minor of G and works in place of G because it’s a “Tonic Function” chord. You could say then (I think) that the first half of the line is in G, the second Bb, before going back to G (or Em). Even if that’s not quite right, it is the case that I’ve played a viable line over Am7-D7-Gmaj7 without playing a single direct arpeggio of any of those chords. Here it is:

Dimrelations1

Because it’s all symmetrical you can also move the whole line up a minor third, playing exactly the same pattern but starting on Ebmaj7th instead of Cmaj7th. Here it is again, played the first way, then moved up a minor third. Sounds more out, but still sort of works.

Dimrelations 2

Does all that seem reasonable to you? I’m right at the beginning of this, but I think it’s a “here are your options, use your discretion” sort of deal. Only problem is, I don’t really know what to call this idea – “Diminished Relationships,” I suppose, but Walter also suggested “Polytonal Substitutions.”