Howard Morgen VS Robert Conti training

[lw216316]

In another post I asked for suggestions on training material.

Although I do not aspire to be a jazz player -
A search for the things I want to learn
that will improve my beginner level (plus)
fingerstyle playing seem to be leading me in the general direction of basic jazz instruction.

Two suggestions were made - that I have purchased.
Fingerboard Breakthrough by Howard Morgen
and
Source Code - the chord melody assembly line.

Each of these ' jazz ' players present the material in a way that is general enough to benefit someone not aspiring to specialize in jazz.

I want to learn to play ' horizontally ' on the fretboard -
smoothly moving from position to position -
and
to play chord melody solo instrumentals in a more advanced way -
(I'm just ' playing it straight ' now)
- to use chord substitutions,
- to add voicing - moving bass lines etc.

I've watched a small portion from each of these DVDs.
Both are going to be helpful.

Tony suggested Conti before Morgen might be better for getting started.
I agree.
Conti reminds me of John Madden doing football commentary.
John kept it basic and said BOOM a lot.
Conti says this a lot, 'just play these chords and it will be ok, don't worry about
scales and theory or reading music'

Morgen is more like your favorite, friendly uncle who just happens to be a college music professor but sits down with just you and in a warm, kind manner explains music to you.

Both guys ' keep it real ' - using sample songs and showing how its applied as they go along.

So far, what I see Conti doing is
giving you a chord to learn for each melody note in a major scale,
then you 'assemble' your chord progression based on the melody note...
simple chord substitution for each note - where each chord will have the
melody note in it on string one or two where the melody is being voiced.

I've only watched the 1st lesson by Morgen -
He showed how to take a common chord progression -
such as what is used in Danny Boy -
and instead of playing it as basic chords in the open position -
to play chord inversions in a way that keeps a descending voice going
on the bass string.

This is exactly the kind of thing I want to learn.
It adds so much beauty to even a very simple song
when being played as a solo finger style instrumental.

I'll report more as I go along - IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED.

My thanks for the suggestions !
Each dvd was about the price of 1 or 2 private lessons -
and I think I will get a lot more out of it -
I've not had good results with private lessons.

- Larry

[hazmuz]

i followed the previous thread and AM interested to hear your (chord) progressions

[lw216316]

Originally Posted by hazmuz

i followed the previous thread and AM interested to hear your (chord) progressions

Well, here is what I'm learning so far....

Let's say you are playing a simple folk or popular song....
and it stays in a chord for a measure or TWO....

You can take each NOTE in that chord and play a chord for it !

This adds interest and variety and makes it sound interesting
and better.

You can also play different inversions of that chord or
a chord in that ' FAMILY ' of chords for each note.

By Family of chords I mean
Let's say you are in the Key of C
then any variation of a C chord may be a possible substitute chord
Like
C maj 7 ,....C 6 etc....

You can use inversions to come up with a BASS LINE
for example a descending bass line
This creates a bass VOICE that is interesting and not just playing the same note every time.

For example,
If you are playing a song in the key of
c
and it stays there for a measure or two,
You can play inversions of the C chord or a member of the Chord family
during that TIME that create a MOVEMENT of the bass voice
that is interesting - typically a descending bass line.

You begin to think of your strings as HARMONY SINGERS
instead of just CHORDS.
Each SINGER is doing something -
they don't just keep singing the same note

For example if you are in a C chord
the BASS singer does not just keep singing a C note.
He MOVES around !


The guitar becomes more like a piano -

James Taylor did this with bass lines
while playing melody stuff with the treble lines (voicing).

- Does this make sense ?

- Larry

[tbeltrans]

Conti's "Assembly Line" is really just the beginning. The REAL meat of what Conti has to say about chord melody is in "The Formula". "Assembly Line" is the best introduction to chord melody playing that I know of for the reasons you have mentioned and as we have discussed in the other thread. "The Formula" takes off from there, showing you how to build those harmonies that do result in moving lines. The focus is on the bass line as the driving force to create an infinite variety of possibilities under a given section of melody. On one of his DVDs, Conti says that there are many approaches to learning to play music, but they should all arrive at the same place. I believe that is true.

Both Howard Morgen and Robert Conti are very accomplished players who also teach. They have different approaches to teaching, and both are quite good. Where Conti has the clear edge (in my opinion) is the very early stages, because nobody else "connects the dots" while having the student do the actual work so s/he really understands exactly how the concepts translate into actual music in a very real-world manner. But it makes sense to me to just continue on with "The Formula" because you are already familiar and comfortable with Conti's way of teaching. Many people have said that Conti's "The Formula" is arguably the best and most clear presentation of advanced jazz harmony. It really is easy to grasp and make use of after having gone through "Assembly Line".

Howard Morgen used to have one really good book that I believe is now out of print called "10 From Guitar Player". It was a collection of 10 of his best articles from Guitar Player magazine, and was published in 1992. Each chapter took one solo fingerstyle arrangement and discussed it at length. There were some TV themes, such as "Cheers" and "Taxi", along with standards.

Then, there was a guy, Stan Ayeroff, who had several books of very accessible fingerstyle arrangements of tunes. I think all those are now out of print too. "Best In Contemporary Standards For Solo Guitar" was full of well known tunes such as Desperado, Evergreen, The Rose, even a solo fingerstyle version of "Stairway To Heaven". Another was "Cavatina and 20 Movie Themes". Another was "Play It Again, Stan", which was all standards. Finally, there was "21 Christmas Songs and Carols". Each of these books had nice, accessible fingerstyle arrangements of the tunes in standard notation (no TAB).

To me, Conti is the gateway to all this stuff (though his materials collectively can take you as far as you want to go too), because once you are playing your own arrangements of tunes, you have a context for understanding how an arranger would think. Then, all these other materials start to REALLY make sense. It is too bad that these kinds of books are not around anymore. I don't really see anything quite like them replacing what was once available. However, I mention all these because they are definitely relevant to the current conversation and can probably be found through used book outlets if you keep an eye out for them. There are many used book dealers online.

I believe that Howard Morgen's "Concepts" is still available, as might be his books of arrangements that really goes with "Concepts". The style and approach is decidedly different from Conti's, which is great because both together will give you quite a palette for your own arranging efforts.

Just the stuff mentioned here is a lifetime of fun to work with.

As an aside, I think one great way to alleviate GAS, as is so often discussed in guitar circles, is to be actively engaged in really fulfilling music-making activity.

Keep us posted on your activities, Larry. I am glad you took the initiative to dive in!

Tony

[lw216316]

Tony,
I understand WHAT Conti is doing but I don't understand WHY.

WHAT he is doing is assigning ONE particular chord that can be used for each note in the scale.

Yes, he wants to keep it simple to start with to avoid 'confusion' as he says and to get the student started as soon as possible to play music.

...but WHY does he pick the ONE chord that he does for a particular note ?

I'm guessing there is not JUST ONE chord that could be played to give that melody note.

Is he using the ones that are MOST COMMONLY used by jazz players ?

Take for example-
his use of the C6 for a ' C ' note in the C major chord.
Why not just play a C instead of a C6 ?

Does he pick the C6 because because it is a MOVEABLE chord form (using strings 5-4-3-2 ) ?

I say this because ALL of the chords he uses are MOVEABLE.
....and of course I see the value of moveable forms.

- Larry

[tbeltrans]

Somewhere on the DVD that goes with the "Assembly Line" book, Conti talks about the things you are asking about. He picked only one chord to go with each melody note so that there is absolutely NO confusion for the student regarding what to play under a given melody note. When self-teaching, Conti realized that there had to be no confusion in the beginning. If you get "wrapped around the axle" about which chord to use to harmonize a given melody note or why did Conti pick this form and not that one, you will get frustrated and "stuck". To me, it is this approach that Conti takes that is the beauty of "Assembly Line". Yes, there are many chords that can go under a given melody note, and Conti readily acknowledges that. He addresses that toward the end of "Assembly Line" and then "The Formula" really blows that whole world open for you. But to start, he eliminates all possible confusion to make sure you stay on the right track in preparation for "The Formula".

Once the student REALLY gets the mechanics of putting a chord under each melody note, and can do that to create a full chord melody arrangement from a fakebook lead sheet, then Conti can begin to expand that knowledge base to include more voicings (chord forms) as possibilities for a given melody note (which he does in the back of the "Assembly Line" book) and then open the door to a world of infinite possibilities for ANY chord to go under a given melody note, given the right context for that chord (in "The Formula").

So, in a sense, exactly which chord form he chose for a given melody note in the beginning was somewhat arbitrary. If you look in the back of the book, you will see a section called "Alternative Chord Voicings". Look at the first section "The C Major Group - Alternate Voicings & Fingerings". There, you will see 4 voicing choices, including the original C6 from those first "one chord per melody note" voicings. Some melody notes will have many voicings to choose from, some will have fewer. Conti explains all this on the DVD as you progress, but cautions you to not get into these until you have thoroughly mastered using the initial voicing sets he provided.

Once you have mastered the initial voicing sets, I would suggest you pick just one or two of these new voicing sets (i.e. today, just the 4 voicings that can be used for that C6, for example) and play them over and over until you see how they are related so that you don't confuse or forget them. There is a "method to the madness" of how each vertical row of chords relates among those chord forms. One thing Conti does in most cases, is consider the lowest note of the chord as the root (i.e. most voicings in root position, rather than an inversion). He says somewhere on the DVD (or maybe it is on "The Formula" DVDs) that it is best while learning to stick to this idea instead of diving into inversions because you are learning to drive new harmonies with the bass line and thinking of all these forms in root position keeps your thinking clear as you work all this stuff out for yourself.

One of Conti's main things is not to take on too much too soon. I would say that one of the things a "real" teacher brings to the table is that s/he can "feed" information to you at a pace that is suitable for the rate at which you can show that you have REALLY internalized the information already provided. If you go too fast, it all ends up a jumble rather than something that can really be used to make music. When self-teaching, you have to regulate yourself. Conti spends a lot of time on the DVD addressing this and how to approach his materials. To me, this reminds me of a pet owner going on vacation. From what I understand, you can leave a supply of food out for a cat and it will regulate its usage of it without interference from a human. But a dog will tend to eat the whole supply in very short order. Self-teaching can be like either the cat or the dog. Conti wants you to regulate yourself according to the rate at which you can REALLY understand the material. Most of us want to get through it and get on with it, and then wonder why we still can't really play anything. Have you noticed how many guitar players CAN'T sit down and play a "real" song all the way through? Most of the time, you will here licks and strums and bits and pieces of this and that when a player picks up a guitar. Rarely will you hear a discernible song, and even rarer still, hear that song all the way through.

When I was working with the David Sudnow course on the piano (which is very similar in approach and philosophy to Conti's teaching philosophy), I realized that while going through the motions of putting a chord under each melody note on the piano, I was really learning a lot of stuff that would not become clear to me until benefit of hindsight. I took that realization with me to the Conti materials. People in other forums have criticized Conti's approach in "Assembly Line" as "paint by numbers", while praising "The Formula" for its clarity in presenting how jazz harmony works in a very practical and immediately usable manner. Yet, to me, the two books could have been one book because "Assembly Line" perfectly prepares you for "The Formula", which is why I recommended you continue on with that book/DVD set after "Assembly Line". Conti's "paint by numbers" approach is the best vehicle I have seen for getting a person both the discipline to play a song all the way through on the guitar and for getting the mechanics of chord melody at its most basic level into your hands, while ingraining the chord forms as a vocabulary that you will use in a myriad of ways later on in "The Formula".

If you listen carefully to Conti and do as he says on the DVD, you WILL get it and it will all make sense. I am willing to answer any questions I can here in these forums too. It may well be that none of what I have said was necessary, but just in case, I thought it important to get it said. It took me a long time to understand what I am saying here, so I have to assume that others (not necessarily you...) are in the same boat.

Tony

[lw216316]

Tony,
Thanks for your response.
Yes, I understand Conti's approach. I'm fine with it.

I'm not clear why he includes F sharp and G sharp
in his list of 'all possible notes' in a C major.

He basically follows the diatonic 7 note scale for C major
but then includes a couple of sharps...
Why include the F and G sharps ?

If he is going to do that -
why not cover the entire 12 note chromatic scale ?

Does it have something to do with diminished and / or augmented
chords used with C ?

Also,
it was a little confusing at first when he said there was a chord for each melody note -
but then he covers almost 2 octives -
and he has different fingerings for the 2nd octive-

...but I think I see what he is doing-
the first octive covers the melody note falling on the 2nd string
that's why the 1st string is not played in those chords
and the second set covers the melody note falling on the 1st string
and those chords show the 1st string being used.

So he uses a chord that will have as its highest note - the melody note
(the highest note in the 'stack' )
and the chord used depends on where the melody note falls - 1st string or 2nd.

On a few occasions the melody note may fall on the 3rd string-
in those cases he uses what he calls a half-chord-
In other words he plays all the lower notes stacked under the melody note but none of the chord notes that would be above the melody note.

- Larry

[tbeltrans]

To move on to "The Formula", there are a couple of very basic music theory items you need to know. Here they are...

1. The set of all notes available consists of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale.
The chromatic scale can be stated using sharps (#) or flats (b):

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A

In the cases where there are two names for the same note, these are known as "enharmonic" notes (i.e. example: A# and Bb). Also note that there is a "natural" half step between B and C, and then again between E and F.

2. From the chromatic scale, we can derive the 12 major scales. There is a "template" used for extracting these scales. There are 12 of these major scales because you can start a major scale on any of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. The "template" for the major scale consists of the intervals (i.e. distances) between each of the 7 notes that make up the major scale:

whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step

Note that it is easier to memorize this as: "whole whole half, whole whole whole half". A "whole step" is the distance of two consecutive frets on the guitar, while a "half step" is the distance from one fret to the next. So it is easy to visually lay out a major scale along one string as it is on the piano keyboard.

Using this template, we can derive the C major scale (easiest because it does not use sharps or flats):

chromatic scale as presented above:

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A

Now, lay it out starting on C so we can see how to build a major scale:

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
C D E F G A B C

You can now see the pattern of half and whole steps to get to this:

C D E F G A B C

For building major scales, there are a couple of guidelines:

a. Every letter name from A through G is used exactly once.
b. Sharps and flats are not mixed (i.e. if a sharp is first usd in building a major scale, then sharps are ALWAYS used for building that scale).
c. All of the major scales use the same template (wwhwwwh).

So, build the G major scale from the chromatic scale starting on G:

G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G

G A B C D E F# G

Notice that the pattern of distances between the notes is identical here as it is in the C major scale.

The idea in building a major scale is to pick a starting note from any of the notes of the chromatic scale (can use either sharps or flats to start with on the first note). Then, build the scale, adjusting the NEXT (not the previous) note up/down/unchanged according to the major scale template (wwhwwwh). Note that a sharp (#) RAISES the note a half step, and a flat (b) LOWERS the note a half step. You can't adjust a note that you have already set up because that messes up the relationship to the note that comes before it and will most likely end up violating the rule that you can't mix sharps and flats to build the a major scale. Go through building all 12 major scales and you will see that they all build properly according to these rules.

This post was getting too long for the forum to post, so I have to cut it into multiple posts. More to follow...

Tony

[tbeltrans]

Here is the next piece:

3. This is the final piece of theory needed for "The Formula". For each major scale, there is a set of chords that can be built on that scale by "stacking thirds". This set of chords is known as the "harmonized major scale", and consists of the chords associated with that "key" (a "key" is the scale and set of chords that you are using to play the song). If the scale is the C major scale, then you are said to be playing in the key of C, and the chords most likely used for that song will be C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G7, A minor, and (rarely) Bmi7b5.

Here is how those chords were derived:

The C major scale:

C D E F G A B C

The C major scale with "stacked thirds":

B C D E F G A B
G A B C D E F G
E F G A B C D E
C D E F G A B C

I ii iii IV V7 vi viio I

Normally, the harmonized major scale is initially taught only stacking three notes to form "triads" (three note chords). But since Conti uses four note chords, I put them in here. Beneath the chords, I put their nomenclature. The upper case Roman numerals indicate major chords and the lower case Roman numerals indicate minor chords. Most simple pop songs use what are known as the "three chord trick", which consists of using the I, IV, and V(7) chords, which you can now readily find. You will often hear about the ii V7 I progression in jazz, and you can now easily see that here.

To briefly explain the concept of the "major" and "minor" chords, you need to get into how to "spell" chords. Here is a chart from a paper I wrote that is available at:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneych...odylesson.html

for free that explains all of what I am talking about in much more detail, along with the CAGED system.

The next concept (chord construction) builds on the previous scale
building concepts (which is why it is so important that you clearly
understand how to build the scales. Chords are "spelled" in much
the same way as scales, by sequences of ahlf and whole tones. The
letters for the chords are selected from the diatonic scale in the
same way that the notes for the diatonic scale are selected from
the chromatic scale. Do you see a pattern here? One piece of
information logically follows another. Also, there is a repetition
and similarity in how these concepts are applied over and over.
That is how the mechanics of Western music work.

There are a number of spellings for various typoes of chords. These
will be presented in this section after dissecting a typical spel-
ling to illustrate how to make use of the information.

Chords (for our purposes with regard to chord-melody) can be
divided up into three broad categories:

major: 1 3 5
minor: 1 b3 5
dominant 7: 1 3 5 b7

Let us start with the major chord:

The spelling "1 3 5" means that this chord is constructed from
the first note of the diatonic scale (also referred to as ROOT),
the third note of the diatonic scale, and the fifth note of the
diatonic scale.

For example, to construct the major chord from the C diatonic
scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

C E G
1 3 5

On the guitar, you would typical play more than one of some of the
elements of the C major chord to produce a good sounding chord. In
the chord information that is presented beginning with the next
section, the 1 is always referred to as 'R' for ROOT. Therefore,
you can expect to see: R 3 5 for the major chord.

To construct the minor chord from the C diatonic scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

C Eb G
1 b3 5

To construct the dominant 7 chord from the C diatonic scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

C E G Bb
1 3 5 b7

THAT IS ALL THERE IS TO IT!!!!

Note that earlier I said that the construction of chords is done
in the same manner as scales. With the scale, we have a specifi-
cation which details the intervals that make up the scale. The
same is true for chords. Up to this point, I have provided a use-
ful way of building chords. This method, I think, is the preferred
method because it is the simplest. However, in keeping with music
theory (and for the sake of a logical connection to the scale build-
ing method), I will briefly explain how a chord is built from inter-
vals.

For our example, we will use the major chord: 1 3 5

If we look at the makeup of the major scale:

whole whole half whole whole whole half
step step step step step step step
1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 7 to 8

we see that the distance from the root to the third is:

whole whole
step step
1 to 2 to 3

which is 2 half steps + 2 half steps =3D 4 half steps

We also see that the distance from the third to the fifth is:

half whole
step step
3 to 4 to 5

which is 1 half step + 2 half steps =3D 3 half steps.

If we apply this knowledge to build the C major chord from the
chromatic scale, starting on C, we get:

ROOT 3rd 5th
| | |
v v v
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
Bb Db Eb Gb Ab

However, the most efficient way to look at all this is as we
originally presented it. The basic idea is to create the pool
of notes that constitute the major scale we wish to use (our
"key"). From this pool, we grab notes to build chords. The
standard chord spellings give us this. When we refer to 1 3 5,
or 1 b3 5, or 1 3 5 b7, we are referring NOT to the half and
whole step intervals, but instead to the elements of the diatonic
scale. All we have to do is count up from 1 (root) to 3 or 5, etc.
For flat (b) or sharp (#) altered notes, we still use the same
idea. But, when we get the note, we flat or sharp it. The flat
or sharp used in this way refers to what is known as an ACCIDENTAL.

An accidental is a note that does not contain the same KEY SIGNATURE
as was specified by the key. The key signature is a term that
refers to the sharps or flats in printed music that indicates the
key. If you went through the excercise of building all the scales,
you are now familiar with the patterns of sharps and flats that
constitute each of the keys (notice I did not say "memorized").
These patterns are the "key signature". In printed music, the
sharps or flats (not AND flats) are specified at the beginning
of each set of lines (staff). All occurances of notes that are
flatted or sharped as specified in the key signature are flatted
or sharped throughout the piece. A flat or sharp may be placed
in front of a particular note to cause all occurances of that
note WITHIN THAT MEASURE to be sharped or flatted. That is an
accidental and not part of the key.

There are other scales that can be built (as mentioned earlier)
to minimize the number of accidentals required. For example, in
a minor key, the third will be flatted. Instead of using a major
key signature and accidentals for every occurance of a third
throughout the piece, you could use a minor key instead. We are
not concerned with that here, since we are merely indicating a
minor chord when it is used instead of writing out music. To this
end, we are keeping things conceptually simpler.

Hopefully, the final piece will all fit into one post - the next post...

Tony

[tbeltrans]

Here is the final piece of this puzzle...

Here are all the standard chord spellings from the perspective
of formal music theory. Following this chart, we will present
the chart and rules as they apply directly to the limitations
(or opportunities) of the guitar fretboard.

chord type spelling
----------------- --------------------
major 1 3 5
major add 9 1 3 5 9
major 6 1 3 5 6
major 6/9 1 3 5 6 9
major 7 1 3 5 7
major 9 1 3 5 7 9
minor 1 b3 5
minor 6 1 b3 5 6
minor 6/9 1 b3 5 6 9
minor 7 1 b3 5 b7
minor 9 1 b3 5 b7 9
minor (maj 7) 1 b3 5 7
dominant 7 1 3 5 b7
dominant 9 1 3 5 9
dominant 11 1 3 5 b7 9 11
dominant 13 1 3 5 b7 9 11 13

OTHER USEFUL CHORDS:

diminished 1 b3 b5
diminished 7 1 b3 b5 bb7
half-diminished 7 1 b3 b5 b7
augmented 1 3 #5
augmented 7 1 3 #5 b7


Note that earlier we stated that you do not use sharps and flats
together in the same diatonic scale. With chords, this is not
always the case as evidenced by the augmented 7 chord. The guide-
lines for chord spelling and naming are somewhat looser than those
for scale spelling and building. Also note that the dominant 7
chord is commonly known as the 7th chord, while the major 7 chord
is known commonly as the major 7 chord.

You may have noticed the use of the numbers 9, 11, and 13. Here
is the explanation. By the way, we are almost done with all this
theory stuff. The major scale repeats itself over and over across
the range of human hearing. Each occurance of the scale is in a
different octave. In other words, a note at a specific pitch
only occurs in one occurance of the scale. [Note that a note of a
given pitch occurs in several places on the guitar fretboard. This
is a different situation than we are talking about here. This
situation leads to both the incredible flexibility and difficulty
of understanding the guitar fretboard and will be discussed in the
section introducing the CAGED system].

If we lay two major scales together, we will clearly see what the
9, 11, and 13 are:


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15)

The numbers in parentheses are simply indicating what the numbers
would be called if we were to continue counting after 7. We are
primarily interested only in those values that we can stack on
top of the 7 by thirds. These are: 9, 11, and 13. The other
numbers above 7 we really don't concern ourselves with when building
chords. Therefore, we are concerned with what are called "extended"
tones from which we build chords.

Anyway, I hope that helps. The material I presented here is VERY logical and simple. Starting with the fact of the chromatic scale, everything else builds on that one step at a time. You don't need to buy a book or course to understand what I provide here. this is it in a nutshell, and certainly enough to fully comprehend Conti's "The Formula".

I am sure that some of this here is not entirely clear, so if anybody is interested in discussing it for further clarification, I am happy to do so. But please be aware that, with music theory, it is all too easy to go overboard and get into all manner of intricate stuff that, for this discussion and "The Formula" is really not necessary. We humans tend to make things REALLY complicated when they often don't need to be.

Regards,

Tony

[tbeltrans]

There is one other piece of information I want to add to all this - the means to apply all this stuff directly to your guitar. The way to do that is to learn where all the notes are on the fretboard. The easiest means of doing this that I have found was provided by Ted Greene in "Chord Chemistry".

Every day, do this simple exercise using only ONE note picked at random...

Pick a note at random on the fretboard. I do this by looking away and just plopping my fingers down on the fretboard and picking the note that one of them is touching.

Find that note all over the fretboard, starting on the 6th string at the lowest occurrence of that note and going along each string in succession and finding that note, ending with the highest position on your guitar on the first fret where the note occurs.

Then do the same thing in reverse, finding that note along the first string, then back down the second, etc.

Pick only ONE per day to do this. Go through the exercise for that day and then just forget about it. This will allow your mind to soak the information in, and over a period of a few weeks, you will being to readily pick a note where ever you want to on the fretboard. At first, this exercise might take as long as 20 minutes, but with time and practice the whole thing is very quick.

Then, you can start spelling the major scales and chords as described in my previous posts anywhere on the fretboard. I do this every day and it only takes a few seconds now to do that note finding exercise. That few seconds really keeps the fretboard in my "mind's eye" so that it looks just about as clearly laid out as does the piano keyboard.

Then, when moving those Conti chord forms around, it is really easy to do because you know immediately where all those roots and melody notes are.

I don't take credit for having created any of the information I have provided here. If you look at the paper I wrote, at the end of it is a full bibliography, giving the sources I used to write it. For me, it was treated as a research project in which I pulled together into something that made sense to me, all the theory I needed to know to understand the guitar fretboard. Conti will readily tell you that you don't need the CAGED system, and that is true. I think his method is better, but that is what there was at the time I wrote the paper. Joe Pass was teaching with it, but he really didn't connect it to what HE was doing, as Conti does with his own approach. The CAGED system is good for teaching purposes, but Conti skips all that and goes right into the music - and it works!

For me, what is ultimately useful is that which fits in within the context of actually playing a song, so I really don't use the CAGED system anymore, though it was helpful at the time I was involved wit it. But both Robert Conti (guitar) and David Sudnow (piano) collectively changed my approach to music to the "learning everything within context of the song" rather than the more traditional approach of separating theory from practice.

There are many ways to approach making music. Some ways will work better for one person, and other ways will work better for another. However, I will say that I truly believe that Conti's "Assembly Line" is probably the best starting point (regardless of whatever direction one takes after that) to get right into the mechanics of building chord melody solos step by step in an experiential manner. From there, you can continue on with "The Formula" (which I personally found fascinating and valuable) or use Howard Morgen's books (which are very good and a different approach altogether) or whatever. But at least you will have the mechanics of it in hand before diving into the "deep end".

Tony

[Barb1]

Hi Tony,
I also bought the Morgan and Conti books/dvds based on your recommendation. They are wonderful. I can see that they are going to fill many of the gaps I have in my musical education. I also appreciate the information you just posted.

Thanks for all of you informative posts both here and on the Carbon Guitar Forum.
Best,
Barb

[tbeltrans]

Barb -

Thanks! I really appreciate your post. To me, one of the most satisfying things we can do with the guitar is be able to play songs instrumentally the way people often do on the piano. Finding the information we need to be able to learn to do that can be "hit or miss", so if I can help anyone with this, I will. I am sincerely glad that you have gotten use from these posts.

Thanks,

Tony

[oldhippiegal]

I appreciate all these posts. They're instructional.

I took two years of composition/theory at university and some of these concepts are familiar though I haven't integrated them into my guitar playing fully. (Indeed, I often have to translate, as I do in languages, where if I want to say something in French, I have to subvocalize it in English and translate it and then open my mouth--not a good habit. With guitar practice, I thinking, okay, what's Db augmented, and I swear, I cannot get my brain to quit bringing up a visual of the keyboard, where I pick out the notes, name them, then find them on the fretboard. The more I do arpeggio work, the more this is driving me bonkers. That's what fifty years with instrument A--the piano, for me--costs. I hope sooner rather than later, when I ask myself this question, my brain pops up a shape on the fretboard rather than on the keyboard, which is truly my native musical language.)

The one quibble I had with a video I watched, and it's minor, is with the descending/ascending bass line video I watched on youtube is that he intimated (or that's how I heard it) this is the only way to arrange...and it's certainly not. Perhaps later on, he gives other options. It certainly creates a pleasant sound, but if that's all I heard from a guitarist, about song seven or eight, I'd notice and grow bored with it.

On the issue of what chord do you pick to harmonize with X note, that was answered well, but I wanted to mention that there's a decent series of interviews with Paul Simon on youtube, the Barnes and Noble channel, and among the interesting things he discusses regarding his songwriting is how he was noodling around with staying on one note and then harmonizing it with as many chords as possible to end up with a listenable song. His guitar is in hand, and it might be interesting, Larry, for you to listen to it. (or not--sounds like you have plenty to fill your time already!) I only wish he'd gone on longer with it.

Again, thanks for the info.

[lw216316]

I should point out for those who may be following this post-

Conti's dvd is for use with a dvd player -
I'm watching it on my tv screen.

Morgen's course can be downloaded and played on a computer
or - as I did - the dvd can be ordered
but it is played on my PC -
It gives you a few more tools to work with that you don't have on the tv.

You will need to download (if you don't have already) a flash player
- just read his README file and he explains.

Both orders arrived quickly - Conti a little faster than Morgen -
at least to my area-
and the cost is very reasonable for the amount of teaching.

I have watched some of each of them and can recommend both.
It will take me months to go through each in detail.

- Larry