3 note chords - another justifcation

I'm very skeptical when I see youtube videos of people purporting to be lessons on swing rhythm guitar. Most of them are complete crap, and you can usually tell by the pick ups on their guitars - I mean because they have pick ups. 

Anyway, I found this clip which gave another reasoning behind the use of three note chords: smooth voice leading. Judging from that 30's-40's Epiphone Emperor, I'm guessing he might have a some idea of what's going on that most of the youtube lessons out there. 

Mr. Clark correctly begins by passing much of the credit for the three-note chord system, usually called Freddie Green-style, to George Van Eps. Allan Reuss studied with George before taking George's spot in the Goodman band, and it was Allan Reuss who gave Freddie Green lessons. But his main point is that 6-string barre chords don't really resolve well from one to the next. The fact that there are a bunch of repeated notes makes for odd leaps and unresolved tensions. 

While I still feel that the main justification for the three note chord tradition is that the timbre of the three note chord cuts through the band better, sonically, it is clear that you can much more effectively voice lead with the three note chords. Here's the video:

Lester Young - Boogie Woogie (1936)

A couple months back I posted about the "Do the Math" Blog run by the Bad Plus' Ethan Iverson, who transcribed 18 different pre-1941 Lester Young solos. I've been very slowly working through some of the transcriptions, and I wanted to share some of my progress.

Here is my guitar version of Ethan's "Boogie Woogie" transcription:

Lester Young - Boogie Woogie 1936 (pdf)

This version dates to the November 9, 1936 session of of "Jones-Smith, Inc." which was the same as Lester's famous "Lady Be Good" and "Shoe Shine Boy" solos. Not bad for a day's work, right?

Here is a soundclip of the solo excepted:

And here is the solo in context:

I think two hard parts about transferring Lester to guitar are the bends and the vibrato. With a little practice it sounds pretty good. Good luck and happy woodshedding.

Just watch Freddie for a bit

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a 30fps video must worth 30,000 words a second.

With that in mind, just watch Freddie Green for a bit. This the Count Basie Octet from a 1950 Television transcription playing "Basie Boogie." The horn line up a pretty modern sounding one (just listen to how laid-back they are), but the rhythm section keeps things solidly thumping away. Here's the line up: Count Basie, piano; Wardell Gray, tenor sax; Buddy DeFranco, clarinet; Clark Terry, trumpet; Freddie Green, guitar; Jimmy Lewis, bass; Gus Johnson, drums.

This video is probably one of the best for watching Freddie Green's hands working, at least in the "Old Testament" era of the Basie band. Freddie's position just behind Basie means that he's in the frame for much of the clip.

Notice how Freddie is using the "back and forth" strumming method, hitting closer to the bridge on the back-beats, except that he's pretty much staying right in the area around the end of the fretboard. Most people who use the "back and forth" method, have a much greater distinction between the two. Listen the Bass solo especially, because you can clearly hear Freddie seperate from the Bass, and you'll hear four even beats to the bar.

Rhythm Guitar Posture: Yes, it makes a difference.

Playing acoustic rhythm guitar can be challenging acoustically. Getting the most acoustic potential out of your guitar is one way to make playing a lot easier. Playing an acoustic guitar helps, as does avoiding things like floating pickups that touch and weigh down the top. Suffice it to say that allowing your guitar to resonate as freely as possible is key.

Aside from spending money a nicer guitar, or removing things that dampen the top, or getting better amplification, there is one very simple thing you can do to improve the resonance and projection of your instrument: change your posture.

If you look at photos of Allan Reuss and Freddie Green, both of them have a similar playing position, and that should tell you something! Both cross their left leg over right, and sit the guitar on their left leg, with the guitar angled back, so that the back of the guitar doesn't touch anything. The neck is angled up a bit, too. This position accomplishes a couple things. 1) Such posture allows the top and back of the guitar to resonate freely. 2) Tilting the guitar up helps the player to hear better as well as project a bit further. And 3), the neck position is a bit more comfortable for playing the chords as well. I've looked at many pictures of Freddie, and his legs might have been different depending on the situation and also I think the size of the guitar, but the angle was always there. In his later years, the angle became more and more extreme, until the guitar was almost parallel to the ground.

Here's some photographic evidence:

Freddie Green has the guitar angled out so that the back doesn't touch his body. Charlie has his guitar in a more conventional position, but still angled a bit.

Update on 2010-07-05 20:18 by Campus Five

One other thing to note: Allan and Charlie are playing a 17" guitars, and L-5 and ES-250, respectively, whereas Freddie is playing a 19" Stromberg. That's one big guitar!

More Tunes for Rhythm Guitar

Here's a couple more example tunes with Rhythm Guitar chords.

"Undecided" is a very simple tune: the A sections go I-IV7-II7-V7, and the bridge goes I7-IV-II7-V7. I've presented the changes as simply as possible, which is how you might play them when the tempos get fast.

"Undecided" (PDF)

"I Found a New Baby" is another standard tune that highlights movement between minor and relative major, in this case Dminor to F major and back. Several tunes feature similar structures, such as "Love Me or Leave Me" and "Blues Skies."

I've presented two alternative versions. Both are simply example etudes, and I would generally use bits of both in each chorus, and move between them freely. The first version starts with the Dm6 at the 10th Fret, and the second at the 5th Fret. As you can see the voice leading chages based on where you start.

"I Found a New Baby" version 1 (PDF)

"I Found a New Baby" version 2 (PDF)

The Lost Charlie Christian Website FOUND

When I first started focusing on Swing guitar, one of the most useful sites I found was Greg Hansen's Charlie Christian Site: Legend of the Jazz Guitar. Aside from the discographies, trivia, photos and other biographical information, it also had a small primer on Charlie's playing style as well as many transcriptions. The transcription pages were particularly helpful because they had the solos in notation and tab, and a link to a real audio file of the solo. Given that it was in real audio format, that should give you an idea of when the site was created.

Well, a couple of years ago the site vanished. It just wasn't there anymore. This was particularly frustrating because some of the tunes were not transcibed anywhere else, and where they were transcribed, the approach to fingering was very different. I'd forget a small piece of a solo that I'd learned a while back, and not be able to just double check it. It was a bummer. I then read on the Charlie Christian Yahoo Group that Greg Hansen had taken the site down, and wasn't planning to put it back up anytime soon. Damn.

Well, I stumbled across this a couple days ago: http://www.music-open-source.com/source/Charlie-Christian-guitar-method-eBook/index.php?idArticle=76&langue=en

It's Greg Hansen's Website in the form of a PDF E-book. Awesome: One click, and now I've got it saved forever. Done.

www.music-open-source.com

Introduction to Block Chord Soloing

To borrow a term from jazz piano, block chords are how most big band rhythm guitarist took solos during the Swing-era, especially before the Charlie Christian revolution. In an earlier post, I posted links to several excerpted block chord solos.  Perhaps the finest practitioner of the style was (again) Allan Reuss. Take another listen to Allan’s ripping solo on “Bye Bye Blues” with Arnold Ross and Benny Carter. Awesome, right?

When approaching the style, I find the easiest place to start is to find chord shapes that leave the pinky free to play a melody alternating with the fretted notes. I'll start things off with a couple examples to show the idea in action.

Example 1 - "On the Sunny Side of the Street" Introduction

Here is the first two bars of the intro I generally play for "On the Sunny Side of the Street." It uses a couple different voicings that leave a finger free to fret additional notes.

Examples 2 and 3 - "Honeysuckle Rose"

Here is a two-bar excerpt that I use over quick ii-V vamps, like on "Sweet Sue" or "Honeysuckle Rose." Again, the basic idea is using voicings that allow the pinky free.

Example 2

This example is something I would play over the next 4 bars in "Honeysuckle Rose." This time we'll add in another technique common in block chord soloing, chromatic approaches. It is pretty common to slide up or down a fret to a chord.

Example 3

This is clearly not the alpha and omega of block chord soloing, but these are some simple ideas to get you started.

Leapin' Lester: the Bad Plus transcribes Lester Young

When working on my electric single-note playing, I've been really focusing on Charlie Christian for over a year now. I've been learning some of his solos, but even more so I've been trying to internalize his phrasing - to get in his headspace. To do that, it's useful to see where a person comes from.

Charlie Christian was a huge Lester Young fan. It clearly shaped both his phrasing and compositional approach to soloing. What better way to get inside Charlie's head than to learn some of Lester's solos.

Lester's most lauded and analyzed solo is his two choruses on "Lady Be Good" from 1936, recorded with a Basie small group credited as Jones-Smith Inc. The solo became almost a jazz etude - something that musicians learned as a part of their education.

A couple years ago, I took a lesson with Howard Alden at jazz festival we were both playing at, and that solo came up. Howard has transcribed and forgotten more tunes and solos than anybody, but he said he'll always know Lester's choruses on "Lady Be Good."

On gig with my big band a couple years ago, we had to play an extended version of the song "Lady Be Good" for a dance contest. Dan Barrett was playing with us, along with our regular lead trombone, Dan Weinstein. I signaled to have either one of them take a chorus, and they both stood up and played both choruses of Lester's 1936 solo in unison.

I'm going to be honest here and say that I have never been particularly good at transcribing, mostly because I don't have the patience. I found Lester's 1936 solo in Gunther Schuller's "The Swing Era" along with a full analysis of the solo.

I was planing to post the transcription when I stumbled upon a blog called Do the Math. Do the math is the product of Ethan Iverson, pianist of the Bad Plus - darlings of the modern jazz scene for their blend of jazz tradition and indie rock ethos. Clearly, the thoroughly modern music of the Bad Plus is not the reason I bring this up on the swing guitar blog.

Last year, for the Lester Young Centenial, Ethan wrote a suite of posts about Lester. Two of the post are particularly amazing. The first I noticed, is a tribute to the 1936 "Lady" solo. But even more than transcribing the solo, Ethan also transcribes 16 other "Lady" solos for comparison - two from Coleman Hawkins, one from Chu Berry, two choruses from Herschel Evans, a couple from Charlie Parker, and the rest from Lester himself.

The second post I want to highlight, is a Lester listening session / interview with Lee Konitz. Ethan and Lee listen to 18 Lester Young solos - ALL WITH TRANSCRIPTIONS and commentary! Amazing. Personally, I can't wait to learn Lester's chorus on "Jumpin' at the Woodside" from 1938.

Once I work out some of the fingerings, I'll post some transcriptions with tab.

If you absolutely must: making electric guitar work for Swing Rhythm

Electric guitars do not work for Swing Rhythm Guitar.

Let me say that again. Electric guitars DO NOT work for Swing Rhythm Guitar.

Amplified electric guitars have way too much sustain, plus they overamplify bass strings. What you end up with is mud, and not the crispness of an acoustic archtop. That inherent lack of sustain is part and parcel of getting properly short notes. Plus, the overemphasis on bass frequencies makes the possibility of playing too loud almost impossible to avoid.

But sometimes, even for a total rhythm guitar geek like me, you have no choice. Here is the best possible advice I can give for making the best of it.

Making Electric Guitar Work for Swing Rhythm

1. Roll down the volume knob

When playing acoustically, you would generally be hiting the strings fairly hard. Roll the volume knob down so that you can play as hard as you normally would, without being to loud for the band. Basically you want to avoid altering your right hand technique as much as possible, so change up the amount of signal going to the amp.

2. Consider rolling off some of the bass

Depending on the situation, you may not be able to do this but, rolling off some of the bass frequencies of the amp can be helpful. Electric guitars and amps over amplify bass frequencies - it's one of the things that makes electric guitars sound, well, "electric." Since you are trying to ape an acoustic sound as much as possible.

Generally, if I'm stuck playing rhythm on an electric guitar, it's because I'm playing mostly lead guitar all night. In that setting, I wouldn't want to compromise the lead tone, so I just make due.

3. Emphasize the D and G strings, and avoid the low E and A strings

I have in the past emphasized and urged the use of classic three-note Allan Reuss voicings. As I may have mentioned previously, there is something out there called the "one note theory" - which holds that after the Swing-era, Freddie Green leaned heavily on single-note and two-note voicings, on the D and G strings. These evolved from playing standard 3 note voices and leaving out the bass note.

I'm prefer to stick to three-note voicings normally, but switching to two-note voicings is a great workaround for the bass frequency problem.

UPDATE: Here's a simple example of how to change 3-note voicings to 2-note voicings just by leaving out the bass note:

Our French Cousin: "Le Pompe"

"Le Pompe" - Django-style Rhythm

I do not claim to be an expert on the vast expanse that is gypsy rhythm. There are numerous historic and regional styles among gypsies and other gypsy-jazz guitar players, which they're own variations and ideosyncracies. I suggest Michael Horowitz's book Gypsy Rhythm, available at Djangobooks.com.

However, I think I can cover the difference between the basic Pompe and Swing Rhythm Guitar. Again here is the notation of Swing Rhythm Guitar:

Now compare to this notation of Le Pompe:

Think of it sounding like this: "a-short, long, a-short, long."

In playing Le Pompe one of things to keep in mind is that the upstroke note shouldn't be thought of as an offbeat eigth note, but rather as a grace note. You should make a very, very small upstroke, and then in the same motion, turn the pick back down for the downstroke. That downstruck chord should be played short. The next downstroke is played long. Among gyspies in different locales there are some varying approaches, but this is a pretty standard "Le Pompe."

Try expirmenting with "Le Pompe", but remember, four-to-the-bar is essential to the rhythm of Swing music, so "Le Pompe" is more of an accent flavor, and not to main dish, unless of course you are playing in a Django-type hot club band.

UPDATE:

Here's a sound sample I quickly recorded of "Minor Swing" in both styles. 1st chorus is 4-beat, 2nd le pompe, and then half a chorus of each. Also, try soloing over each to see the differnce in how they make you play. 

 4beatvslepomp by campusfive