#31
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I've spent several years building guitars chasing that sound out of an acoustic. I couldn't get there with a flattop. I now build an archtop guitar with a composite carbon fiber soundboard. There is a clarity of tone, long sustain and balance across the fretboard and strings that define "jazz archtop" to my ears. When I try to play one of my older flattop guitars made in a more traditional way I feel like I've put a blanket over the guitar. And yet for other styles I love my flattops. Like so much with guitars, our experience, culture, and musical history really define what is "right" in a guitar. |
#32
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Me, for one, using an OM cutaway. It works well for me, but I play the same stuff on a narrow-necked jazz box, too. The choice of instrument has to do with the playing situation...brunch gigs work great on acoustic, and smoky Saturday night background jazz benefits from a neck-position archtop humbucker and small clean amp. The music doesn't change that much with the instrument, though, although the archtop has a little glassier rounder high end and the acoustic has a little more percussion in the voice. |
#33
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Well, I'm playing fingerstyle jazz standards & other songs on my nylon string guitar.
I may not get the exact sound that an electric or arch top might have. But it sounds darn good to me and to others. Earl Klugh, Gene Bertoncini, Charlie Byrd & Ralph Towner weren't inhibited by playing their nylon stringed guitars. Pat Metheny sounds awesome on his nylon stringed guitars on his 2 CD's (One Quiet Night & What's it all about) as well. Quote:
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2003 Froggy Bottom H-12 Deluxe 2019 Cordoba C-12 Cedar 2016 Godin acoustic archtop 2011 Godin Jazz model archtop |
#34
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Joe Pass did a lot of recording using a nylon string classical guitar. Jazz is about melody, time, harmony. It's about playing things you haven't played before. It's not about an instrument.
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Brian Evans Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia. |
#35
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Thank you for taking the time to post/embed the John Jorgensen clip. I found that very insightful.
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#36
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How Did You Learn Jazz?
One. note. at. a. time...
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"Mistaking silence for weakness and contempt for fear is the final, fatal error of a fool" - Sicilian proverb (paraphrased) |
#37
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My progress toward being competent at what I call jazz has three main components.
The social component is playing music with others. I believe that jazz is not the music itself so much as what happens in the communication between players when they really listen, the sum being greater than the parts. The educational component is a book by Mickey Baker called "Improvising Jazz" which I picked up about 40 years ago. It is not about guitar playing, it is conceptual. It is still available. The third crucial component is practice. I am a great fan of Chuck Sher's "New Real Book" series, but there are many scores which lay out intelligent harmonizations of the great American songbook, and playing through the changes and learning the tunes is the thing. |
#38
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For me, the eye opener regarding Jazz took place during a concert at Suummer Jazz WOrkshops a few years ago.
up on a big screen during the performance, the music was displayed. someone sat there with a laser pointer, and bopped along the music as it was being played. the music was marked to draw attention to the leads and solos and how so many of them were simply arpeggios or bits of ascending or descending scales. it was possible to see and hear how a progression of altered chords changes and melody worked together. Since then, I've been working steadily on comprehending the structure of the chords i've learned and played by rote memorization. When I 'grok' another one, it's such a satisfying feeling. When I can hear a new chord name and successfully modify a chord I know to become the new chord, I'm so full of myself I could burst.
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amyFb Huss & Dalton CM McKnight MacNaught Breedlove Custom 000 Albert & Mueller S Martin LXE Voyage-Air VM04 Eastman AR605CE |
#39
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Bruce, I think you mean Jerry Coker. Mickey Baker is famous for his guitar-specific books that introduced a whole generation to the standard chord grips we know and love (not to mention his collaboration with Sylvia ).
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#40
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#41
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[QUOTE=godfreydaniel;5139917]I took lessons from a jazz player named Howard Morgen. He used the book "Jazz Guitar Method" by Ronny Lee (a Mel Bay book) to teach jazz chords. Very easy to understand.
WOW, what a small world. When I was about 8 or 9 back around 1960 I began taking piano lessons from a guy named Eugene Mancini who was teaching out of Howard Morgan's upstairs studio near Main St Flushing, N.Y.. Probably 14 years later I looked him up again and took a few jazz lessons but that never went anywhere because I was really into bluegrass and down home country fingerpickin at the time (still am). Howard Morgan is cool! How did I learn jazz though, well that depends on what type of jazz because there are quite a few styles of jazz that all sound very different. I really didn't resonate with lots of the jazz I was hearing in the 60s mainstream. In the 70s I remember hearing Louis Armstrong's intro solo on West End Blues which hooked me into early jazz styles. I began finding records and doing the back and forth with the needle thing copying licks and figuring out songs. Over the years I've dabbled in numerous styles of jazz but always seem to go back to the early stuff. Right now I'm going back to basics and listening to a lot of Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson and working out Joe Venuti solos on guitar. A great book I'm currently working with is Eddie Lang's Guitar Method http://www.djangobooks.com/Item/Eddie_Lang It's a little different than some be used to but if you empty your cup and just go with the concepts and exercises, it can lead to some really cool musical space, especially for styles played on steel string acoustic guitar (flat top or archtop). -Jim |
#42
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If you know someone that plays a monophonic instrument, lure her or him (along with their instrument) over with some food or beverage one evening. For references, I keep Mickey Baker's 2 books on Jazz guitar near by along with the book Chords for Jazz Guitar by Charlton Johnson (a more recent find). You my also find Julio Sagraras's classical guitar books helpful. His first book (Lessons 1-3) includes a number of studies that focus on harmonic intervals. I play these studies to keep my ears accustom to the sounds of different harmonies. |
#43
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I want to be a jazz guitarist when I grow up. I've been at it since the late 1970's. When I get it down, I'll let you know how I did it!
What I've done so far:
I think if I had a student that "wanted to learn to play jazz" I'd start that student out with the following:
The Jazz Guitar Forum is a good resource --> http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/ |
#44
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Yes, Jerry Coker! I have always had trouble with authors, being better at titles. Same with tune names.
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#45
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Listen to LOTS of jazz guitarists. Transcribe and learn as many jazz solos as possible (guitarists AND non guitarists). Learn all your extended 7th chords to start, and all their inversions on the guitar. Then you can use your inversions and try to add notes to play simple melodies. This is the start to learning jazz "comping" (accompanying). After you do your minor 7th inversions, then see how they apply when extending them to a 9th chord. Then 11ths (used less, but a few really good ones) and 13ths. That'll be a darn good start... ;-) As an aside... A trumpet player I studied with asked me if I listened a lot to McCoy Tyner (sp?), pianist. I said "yup". He said, it sounds like you guys are trying to fit all the chords into your accompaniment. Using lots of chord inversions and added notes to enable greater melodic possibility during accompaniment.
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---- Ned Milburn NSDCC Master Artisan Dartmouth, Nova Scotia |