Anyone else not know a lot about theory and get really pi**ed when try to learn jazz?

[VickRamono]

Hello,

I think the title explains it a in a nutshell.
So I know the basics of theory but when you start talking about 5th 7th 9th notes I am totally lost.
And lately I really have been wanting to do jazz stuff and its literally all those 5th 7th 9th chords. I mean thats why there called jazz chords sometimes.

So can someone explain to me what they all mean... also if its a 7th dominate chord I think I know that the chord was made from or has something to do with a dominate scale; but again I have no idea about the numbers.

And this all really frustrates me.

If you can help, thanks!!!

[mmmaak]

I can play jazz instrumentals with more than 50 different chords and inversions and not be able to name you a single one of them. This is *not* something I'm "proud" of; my point is that you don't exactly need to know formal theory to be able to play jazz

Though it's definitely a good thing to learn the theory in due time, I think the best thing you can do to kick-start your playing is to get an album of acoustic jazz arrangements and try to figure them out by ear.

Eric Skye's (a forum member here) "Acoustic Jazz Solos" comes highly recommended:
http://www.ericskye.com/

As for basic theory, there are a lot informative sites online. Here's one:
http://www.torvund.net/guitar/index.php?page=theory

I'm also thinking of getting myself this popular book:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiot...1849795&sr=1-1

along with the "bible" of jazz guitar from Ted Greene:
http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Chemistr...1849782&sr=1-1

[johnra]

I am not a jazz musician so I don't play jazz.

In addition to ear training you should buy or get a book showing chord diagrams of all of the possible type of chords playable on guitar. These charts and books are available everywhere. Also get a good book on beginning scale/chord theory.

The C Scale is: C D E F G A B C D E F G A.....
The numbers are: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

So to play a C6th chord you would play C E G A
1 3 5 6

To learn theory is good if not great, but, BUT, take it slow and easy. That stuff can make your head hurt.

[Howard Klepper]

Vick, you do not yet know the basics of theory.

You do not need one of those chord encyclopedia books to play jazz.

There are some who can play jazz without theory, but they are few.

Best book for jazz theory is named (ta-da!) The Jazz Theory Book, by Mark Levine. It won't teach you to play jazz, but it will teach you to understand how it's played.

Pissedoffedness will not get you very far. Patience and a lot of practice will.

[Matt Mustapick]

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Method-.../dp/0634012339

I can empathize. I know a little about basic theory, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, diatonic harmony, 7 modes of the major scale, 7 modes of the melodic minor scale, lydian dominants, altered dominants, quartal harmonies, a few other things...and still, I cannot play jazz. Oh well...I'm okay at tennis.

[Doug Young]

Vick, this stuff seems complicated, but it really isn't. Chord construction is pretty simple, you just have to understand the notation, and a few hidden rules. As johnra says, you just count up a scale and keep going for an octave and a half. Chords are built from every other note of the scale, so the basic triad has the 1st note, the 3rd note, the 5th note of the scale, the 1,3,5.

The simplest way to think about the upper extensions is: 7th chord adds the 7th note, a ninth chord adds the 9th note to 1,3,5,7, an 11th chord adds the 11th note to 1,3,5,7,9, and a 13th chord adds the 13th note to 1,3,5,7,9,11

Now the exceptions: You usually don't really include all these notes. The 11th in particular has a specific sound and when someone says C13, they'd normally leave out the 11th note. Also, on the guitar, you can't really play all these notes at once like a piano can, and even there, you may not want to hear all these notes, you normally leave some of them out. All that's important is that the key qualities be there. For example a chord that has 1,3,7,13 would still be called a 13th chord on the guitar, even tho it's missing the 5th and the 9th.

Also, the 7th note gets special treatment and naming. If you are counting up a major scale, a chord with the 7th note in it is called a Major 7th, while if you lower that note a half step, it's just called a 7th. Similarly, if a 9th or a 13th chord has the major 7th in it, you call it a Major 9th and a Major 13th. Confusing? Yep, you just have to know what people call it.

The 11th chord is also a little special, and will sometimes be called a sus4 instead of an 11th, and with major chords (as opposed to 7th chords), the 11th will often be raised half a step, so that you get something like Cmaj9#11. Simple tho, just do what it says, find the eleventh note of the scale and raise it a half step.

Names also get funny when certain notes are dropped and not others. For example, a 13th chord is expected to be a dominant chord, which should contain the flatted 7th. If the chord does not have the 7th, but has say, 1,3,5, 13, then it'll probably be called a 6th chord (the 13th step of the scale is the same note as the 6th, up an octave). a chord with 1,3,5,9 will be called an Add 9, or perhaps Add 2, or perhaps sus 2. Again, confusing, but it's just little quirks in the naming scheme, and you just need to know it. There aren't that many variations, but unfortunately not everyone follows the same rules, so it sometimes seems like there are more variations than there are. It's just naming conventions.

Now, when I hear someone talk about "jazz chords" I think alterations, like C7#5b9, which looks complicated, but just do what it says, take a C7 chord, raise the 5th and add and lower the 9th, so C E G# Bb Db. And there are only 4 common alterations, raise or lower the 5th, raise or lower the 9th.

There's a few other exceptions and little gotcha's but that's really about all there is to it. If you can name the notes of a scale and count up to 13, you're all set. You can read books all about it, and you should, but it doesn't come down to much more than this.

[Jesse Matthews]

Thanks Doug i have the same exact problem when trying to learn theory and everytime i try i get bored becouse its so dry and i just want to play but you explain it in a simple way and i understood some of it , maybe its just me but theory is boring as hell especially when you dont understand it .

[trion12]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Vick, you do not yet know the basics of theory.

You do not need one of those chord encyclopedia books to play jazz.

There are some who can play jazz without theory, but they are few.

Best book for jazz theory is named (ta-da!) The Jazz Theory Book, by Mark Levine. It won't teach you to play jazz, but it will teach you to understand how it's played.

Pissedoffedness will not get you very far. Patience and a lot of practice will.

Howard nailed it.

What you have asked for cannot be explained in a forum response except in a surface manner. It will only really become apparent to you by serious study and application on your part.
There is not another jazz player I have ever known who did not learn this stuff except by putting in the time and study.

If you want to learn this stuff your best bet is to find a jazz player who teaches and spend some time studying with them and to also spend a lot of time listening to jazz players to pick up the feel, phrasing etc . . ..

While you might be able to learn the theory from a book you will probably find it easier with a good teacher to help you through. It is unlikely that a book will ever teach you the "feel".

Like many jazz players, I started with the Berklee books to get some basic foundations in place and worked through them with a teacher.

Aaron

[FGBR]

- It really isn't too complicated, there's several books out there that can teach you the material, the book Howard Klepper mentioned is a good choice.

Make sure you understand the concept of chord formulas, (building chords by adding thirds, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.)

Take a chord like E9, you simply take the 1,3,5,7 and 9 (the notes E, G#, B, D and F#) to form the chord E9.

A chord like E7#5b9 might seem complicated but think of it like this, you take the five notes from the previous chord (E9) and sharpen the fifth (your B now becomes B# (C) and is moved up one fret) and you flatten the ninth (your F# now becomes F and is moved down one fret).


Oh, and by the way I find the Berklee series "Modern Method for Guitar" by William Leavitt to be extremely boring books . No question about it you need to put in alot of work to be able to use all of this in the real world on the fly, but it can be more enjoyable than the "Modern Method" books imo.


Good luck!

[AndrewG]

I found this book very lucid and useful. 'Jazzin' the Blues' by John Ganapes and David Roos, Hal Leonard, ISBN 0-634-02736-0. Comes with a CD, notation, TAB and chord boxes.
I'm a total theory dunce but even I could understand what was going on!

[Brent Hutto]

My guitar teacher has a university degree in guitar, can spell any chord you can name and play it anywhere on the fretboard, has been teaching for ten years and is an excellent player of both classical and electric guitar. But when a student gets to the point of really wanting to learn enough to be a jazz musician he recommends they switch to a teacher with extensive training and experience in the jazz-specific theory and practice.

There's a big jump from "knowing" theory well enough to work the example in a text book or make A's in undergrad music theory classes to being able to apply it without thinking and in real time in a way appropriate to making jazz music. I know a guy who plays trumpet, like in an orchestra. In college he was obliged to take one semester of jazz trumpet and after one lesson the teacher told him "Man, you've got a great tone and you know all the notes and scales but there ain't a bit of jazz in you".

I think if there's any "jazz in you" eventually you'll make your way through learning what you need to know. But it is going to take lots and lots of time and patience.

[mhs]

I agree with most of the points. I grew up in a great neighborhood in Detroit for Jazz when it was actually still popular. It was the 'default' music and many greats surrounded me.

I didn't learn theory at all right away but I was playing jazz gigs by 15 years of age and have been ever since. You don't 'learn' jazz so much as realize day by day/year by year, how little you really know about it, and study more and more.

Theory is often reverse engineered from what you've learned. I used to teach and aside from a few exceptions, would only teach jazz to people already pretty proficient in jazz. They just wanted to know more. Teaching to new players is pretty interesting and sometimes you find someone that has at least a knack for understanding how the basic building blocks of jazz work.

Those are the people that generally would have learned jazz with or without you.

For me: I started by hearing several recordings and some live music that was amazing, so I learned them verbatim, and took what I liked and could transfer into other pieces of music and built from there. Then I played live all that I could, was cursed at, thrown out, and became a jazz player eventually. I'm surely still learning.

Jazz is one of the few types of music where you can sometimes easily go right past 99.9% of the listeners and into your own personal joke which is mostly on you. It is wonderful, but my listening audience was usually inversely proportional to how mainstream I was. By the time I'd learned enough to be out of the mainstream, the audience moved back to those who were at an earlier stage that they could identify with.

I'm guessing that hardly any casual listeners really like real jazz. This is likely why so many types of music (the Kenny G's , Yawni's etc, are always mislabeled as jazz). Once you've got this in you, you'll never really care one way or the other about that stuff, just about learning more and playing ;)

The only books I can recall being of much use as a beginner (and I was pretty well a great sight-reader on cello before I started) were one page of a book called Mickey Baker's Jazz book, and later, "Thesaurus of Scales" by Nicholous Slonimski (sp?). A mathematical breakdown (for piano I think) that will get you comfortable with an axe in ways you never dreamed possible. This was something used by just about everyone in jazz, like Coltrane, Rollins, Tyner, etc.

[Pvee]

Scotty Anderson, who does not claim to be a jazz player, but plays some great jazz stuff. He will say when ask about a specific complicated chord sequence, " I am not technical, I just learned it this way."

When you see him live for 2-3 hours he plays many styles of pop, modern, jazz, and country classics.

I have noticed something though.
When late in the show and he plays something like, The Theme from the Perry Mason show, or Nauges, he starts losing the audience.

Beautiful pieces but the non guitar geeks don't relate to what he is doing.

I remember back when I played 3-4 times a week.

I would work on some song like The Chapel in the moonlight etc for 2-3 weeks before playing it for the audience and they would hardly look up and did not seem to enjoy it as I did, but then I would play Bill Dogget's Honky Tonk which I could do in my sleep and they would come to life.

That's still true today. I understand it but it's interesting.

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by Papol

The only books I can recall being of much use as a beginner (and I was pretty well a great sight-reader on cello before I started) were one page of a book called Mickey Baker's Jazz book,

That one page has 90% of the chords that you need to play jazz guitar accompaniment. It's a perfect illustration of why the chord encyclopedias are at best a highly inefficient way to learn practical chording.

The Wm Leavitt books are great for learning a fingering system that enables you to play all keys in any position. But they are kinda dry, and I have heard very good players who didn't use any stretch fingerings and instead moved their fretting hand a lot. I do think the fingerings Leavitt uses are worth learning. But frankly, while I understand jazz and guitar pretty well, I've never practiced enough to call myself a jazz player.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by mmmaak

I can play jazz instrumentals with more than 50 different chords and inversions and not be able to name you a single one of them. This is *not* something I'm "proud" of; my point is that you don't exactly need to know formal theory to be able to play jazz

Though it's definitely a good thing to learn the theory in due time, I think the best thing you can do to kick-start your playing is to get an album of acoustic jazz arrangements and try to figure them out by ear.

I agree with you. I can play some jazz standards like Georgia on my Mind and Ain't Misbehavin', which include "jazz chords" () without really paying much attention as to whether I'm playing a D 5th augmented or just a fancy version of C major. That's good enough for me because jazz is not really a style I want to concentrate on. However, I do think there are definite limits to such an approach. For someone who really wants to gain a sense of improvisational freedom within the genre, it looks like they have to sit down and make sense of all that theoretical stuff.