Grateful Dead Music Forum

I am looking for help/advice anything.. I've been playing guitar now for a lil over a year. I'm in the navy and needless to say I've had ample time to practice. I only play acoustic. I know barre chords, 7ths, major, minor, basic theory, etc... What I have been trying to figure out is..

What are all those little easy looking jazz sounding chords that I see people play.. And then I see them sliding that same chord up and down the board and it sounds all melodic and pretty, ha.. Umm I just can't figure it out.. Anyone have any what the heck I'm talking about??? Thanks.

Any chord that is a closed form ( that means no open strings; all fretted notes ) may be moved up and down the neck. What you need to do is learn two things. First, what note ( or notes ) in the chord form is the root note, and second, how to correlate that knowledge with where on the fretboard you are.

For example, take a garden variety 1st position F Major chord. You have two F's in the chord; on the 4th and 1st string. Either of these are considered the root note. Slide the entire chord up to the 5th fret, you now have an A Major chord.

In jazz, lots of times they are playing only partial chords, or rootless chords, and almost always some type of extended chord ( a chord containing more than just the 1-3-5 notes, usually has a 7th and some sort of "color" note, like a 9th, 13th, #11, etc. ). This is a bit trickier, because you need to know the chord well enough to know where the root would be, even though you probably aren't playing it.

A good jazz chord /theory book would be immensely helpful to you, if you relly want to delve into this. It's a huge subject. I would suggest you visit www.jodyfisher.com, and check out his book on Chord Melody ( that is what this type of playing is called ). It's the best one I have ever found.

Mel Bay's Orchestra Chord Instructional Booklet
circa 1964-66 might be an interesting read

That was exactly what I think I needed to hear. I will surely get those books... I love bluegrass/folk, but I guess I'm still finding which direction I want to take my playing.

nedcat wrote:Mel Bay's Orchestra Chord Instructional Booklet
circa 1964-66 might be an interesting read

Or the late Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry

I second that Ted Greene emotion there, great great book! He looks like a cross between Jerry and Jim Henson if that makes it more enticing.

The Ted Greene book is pretty advanced stuff, though, for a novice. Can't really think of agood book for bluegrass chording, though.

Yeah that Ted Greene book is totally whacked out. It's this tiny, handwritten chord notation and there's pages and pages and pages of it. It's really dense material. I've never been able to crack it.

I am really interested, and relieved that I have this community now..Anyway. I am most definatly going to purchase the Jody Fisher beginning jazz guitar book. I look at it on Amazon, and read the reviews. Sounds perfect.. I will keep you all posted.

THANKS!!

Good for you. Jody Fisher is a fantastic teacher, as well as an unbelievable player. He is also one of the jazz instructors at the National Guitar Workshop, and he is a teacher on workshoplive ( www.workshoplive.com ), which is an online music education site. Very worthwhile, especially if you are in a situation like myself where you live in a rural area, and are probably already one of the best players around, but still want to learn.