Extensions for Dominant 7th Chords

How do know what extensions to put on what dominant 7th chords?  What are extensions?  This lesson should shed some light on that.  Keep posted for more lessons like this in easy to print/save .pdf format on my soon-to-be-unveiled website!

Also, special thanks to Mr. Jamey Aebersold for catching a typo on this sheet.  The 13th is the same as the 6th, not the 5th.  Updated lesson is below:

Secondary Dominants

Here's a lesson sheet on secondary dominant 7th chords.  Understanding this concept will help you make sense of chord progressions you encounter.  Keep an eye out for more updates like this soon, and also a more download/print friendly .pdf lesson format on my upcoming website!

Deriving major scales from the triad map

In this lesson we're going to take that triad map we learned last time, and use similar construction principles to flesh it out into five basic major scale positions.  This process is important.  Instead of mindlessly reading a major scale diagram and having no idea what notes you're playing, you'll know what exactly is under your fingers because, well, you built it yourself!  

For review, here's the triad map we're working with before.  If you recall, we can break this down into five main positions, these will become our five major scale positions.  If you aren't totally confident with your triad maps (in many keys!!) yet, you're going to want to spend some quality time getting to know them.  Everything will be easier if you can rock a triad map up and down seamlessly.

Alright, now let's get to the principles of how we're going to add the rest of the notes in the scale.  There's seven notes in a major scale, and we've got three so far with our triad map (root, 3rd and 5th).  That's 43% of the scale already under your fingers if you've really learned "the map."  (Yep, I used a calculator for that)  The degrees of the major scale are root, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th.  The ones in bold are the scale degrees we need to add.  Let's get started with finding the 2nd:

The 2nd is one whole step, or two frets, above the root.

In some cases, it's easier to find the 2nd in relation to the 3rd in the triad map.  The 2nd can also be found one whole step below the 3rd, as shown here.

Next, we'll add the 4th scale degree.  This one's easy- it's one half step (one fret) above the 3rd.

Here's the 6th of the scale.  We can find the 6th by going one whole step (two frets) above the 5th, or...

We can also find it easier sometimes by going a minor third (three frets) below the root.  One more note to find and we're done with this position!

The 7th note of the major scale can be found one half step (one fret) below the root.  Note- the two half steps in the major scale occur between the 7th/root and the 3rd/4th.  Advanced note- in the 7 modes of the major scale, where these half steps occur in relation to the starting note determine the mode's character.  Deep stuff.

Well, that does it for this position.  Here's a clean copy with out my Microsoft Paint drawn orange arrows messing it up:

For best results, get your axe and blank guitar diagram out and follow these procedures for the remaining four positions.  Then come back, check your results with what I have below.  You'll gain a deeper understanding of what's under your fingers if you do the work yourself.  So this is your spoiler alert... don't scroll any further down until you've done this!






(I promise it's worth it!)












(Hmm, what a nice sunset outside.)




















(That should do it.)






Alright, here's the remaining positions.  Go ahead and check your work with these:

Well, there you have it.  Five positions of the major scale, all figured out by yourself from the triad map.  Take a second and think about a few observations:

1.  Note the overlap between the positions- it's what will help you link them together mentally.

2.  Note how the lowest note of each position makes a certain mode.  Position one is Ionian, or major.  Two is a Dorian shape, with the 2nd as the lowest note.  Three is Phrigyian, with the 3rd being the lowest note.  Four is Mixolydian, with the 5th as the lowest note.  Five is Aeolian, or natural minor, with the 6th as the lowest note.

The fourth mode of the major scale (Lydian), fits into position three if you use the 4th scale degree as the lowest note.  The seventh mode of the major scale (Locrian) fits into position one if you use the 7th scale degree as the root.  Bam- there's all your modes for you.

3.  Remember:  modes are all about context.  What the bass/harmony is playing along with what notes you emphasize will make position five sound either major or minor.  Just like social interactions, it's all about context and how you say it.

4.  Aren't you glad you learned your triad map so well?  Do you want to spend some more time with it now?

5.  Could you do this with your harmonic and melodic scales as well?  Yup.  Should you do that eventually?  You bet!

6.  Should you, after approaching the scales vertically like this, take a whole different horizontal approach?  Say for example, playing a scale up a single string?  That would be a great idea, and Mick Goodrich wrote an awesome book about this.  Check it out, it's called The Advancing Guitarist, and it's got lifetimes of great "stuff" inside.

Alright that's all for today.  Have some fun with your major scales and triad maps now!

How the guitar works: the Triad Map

A lot of times us jazz guitarists can play hip voicings of a Bb13, or Gmaj9#11, but when it comes down to harmonizing a simple triad we're at a loss.  Or maybe we can shred a rock solo in that one minor pentatonic position everyone knows... but that's the only place we're comfortable playing in.  Both scenarios lead to a frustrating feeling of limitation- we're confined to shapes because we don't understand the overarching logic behind the fretboard.

Triads are more important (and cooler- more on that later) than you may think.  A clear familiarity with the triad map, the basic structure of the fretboard, will serve as a solid foundation for anything you play.  Chords and scales.  Think of it as the skeleton that connects the fretboard into one thing.  Can you imagine how knowing this map well might open things up for you?

You'll need to know some prerequisite information before getting started.  If you know what a triad is (the first, 3rd and 5th notes of a scale stacked up on each other) and can play all your open position chords  (C, A, Am, G, E, Em, D, Dm... etc) then you're ready to start.

Here's a pictorial walk through of what I go through with my students.  All of my students, by the way.  Triads are the structural key to everything, so it doesn't matter if you play jazz, classical or metal.  It applies everywhere, so grab your axe and follow along!

 First, we'll establish some guidelines for finding the notes of the triad.  Here, you can see use a formula to find the 5th from the Root.

We find the 3rd from the Root as well.

From the 5th we found earlier, we find the next Root by going up one string.  Easy!  Keep going by following the guidelines....

Uh-oh.  When we get to that pesky B-string we have to compensate.  Not a big deal, just move one extra fret up when you find a note.  Here you can see the Root is moved up one extra fret from where we'd expect it to be from the guidelines.

Now what?  We've ran out of fretboard.  Keep going by transferring the note on the high E-string to the low E-string.  Now keep going with the guidelines...

Here's another example of compensating on the B-string!  Keep on truckin...

And here's another example of transferring from the high E-string to the low E-string.

Alright, we're all done.  The Root is back on the 6th string.  We can go back to open position now and fill in the notes behind where we started in third position.

Ta-da!

Now let's break this map down a bit.  Take a look at the five positions I've marked.  Can you see how they're the same shapes as the open position chords you already know?  That's the pattern of the guitar!  These five positions are the backbone to the five main pentatonic positions, major scale positions, and a ton of chords.  Knowing them up and down is imperative!

How do you practice becoming familiar with these patterns?  Here's three exercises in ascending order of difficulty to guide you in mastering these.  Do a little bit of this kind of work regularly and you'll start to see the fretboard as one giant possibility, instead of this:

Bonus:  For those of you who teach, here's a blank outline of the form I created for this lesson.  Filling the triad map out in real time with a student will help them learn the most, so use this template and fill in the notes, guidelines and exercises throughout the lesson.

Who wrote Solar?

 If you said Miles Davis, think again.  One thing I've learned studying with Corey Christiansen here at IU is that Chuck Wayne actually wrote this great jazz standard.  Today I came across on this article through NPR's "A Blog Supreme."  Turns out they found an original recording of Chuck's tune (called "Sonny" before Miles took it).

Take a look for yourself

Getting your hustle on

So, you're a music student learning all kinds of great music related things.  But then one day comes and you're walking across a stage wearing a funny looking cap and gown and a diploma is placed in your hands.  Now what?

I tend to think about this a lot.  In less than a year the school train will be over for me and I'll have to start making money.  I have two choices:  plan now, or ignore reality.

Planning requires information.  And if you're planning how you're gonna eat after you graduate with a music degree, you better have lots of information about what professional musicians do to earn income, what their expenses are, and what skills are necessary to not only establish yourself musically but also business-wise.

Getting your business hustle on isn't covered in core music classes... and it's a shame because you'll never need to know what year that isorhythmic motet was written by that one guy, but you'll probably need to know how to keep your finances in order.  (There is a trend in schools now to prepare students with this kind of real world knowledge- IU has an extracurricular program called Project Jumpstart that is focused on this)

Start preparing yourself now by gathering information.  Here's a great set of case studies about artist revenue streams that every music student needs to read.  Study them, take notes and prepare your skill sets accordingly while you're still in school.  Now's the time, so get reading!

The main website:

Artist Revenue Streams

Specific studies/information:

Case study: Jazz Bandleader/Composer:  These case studies are a must read!

Case Study: Jazz Sideman/Bandleader:  Especially take note of the summaries at the end of the studies.

How can you make money with music?:  With these 42 different revenue streams.


This information is a reality that every music student faces eventually.  Start thinking about this now while you're in school, and you'll be well equipped and informed when you are thrust out into the "real world."

Selling what you do: Make it easy for your audience to find you

So... we all know jazz is a niche market.  I was reminded of this yesterday at a Board of Public Works meeting for approval of an upcoming jazz festival we're putting on through Jazz from Bloomington.  One of the board members said, "It sounds good to me, and I don't even like jazz."  (The meeting went well, and the festival was approved)


I recently read a blog comparing Wynton Marsalis and Kenny G, two of the most polarizing figures in the jazz world.  One thing they both have in common is they value connecting with an audience.  Specifically talking about Wynton, whether you like his stuff or not, there's no doubt he sells his own personal brand.  He writes books, has a very strong web presence with a website, social media and mailing lists that update subscribers.  Granted, he probably has the funds to hire someone to maintain this web presence, but still it is a great example of how to sell what you do.  Especially when what you do hasn't been popular music in 70 years.


Now, take a look at my teacher, Corey Christiansen.  Here's his website, Facebook, his albums, a list of his published books and if you search Youtube you can see and hear him play.  You can find out, without ever meeting or seeing him live, that 1) he's a killer guitarist and 2) he's a cool dude.  As a prospective student, you can even get an idea of his teaching style by picking up a few books by him.  Corey makes it easy for a potential customer, like me, to learn about him.  His web presence is a huge reason why I decided to come to IU.  I knew, with a simple Google search, what I would be paying the big bucks for.  His superior web presence gave me confidence that I was investing in a worthwhile education.  


Now, the inspiration behind this post comes from a certain Indiana jazz club that has a poor web presence.  Some local clubs do a great job like Cafe Django or the Jazz Kitchen. Another one, and I'll leave this particular one unnamed, has a few problems with it's web presence and marketing.

1.  Out of date calendar.  How is anyone outside of your inner circle supposed to know what's going on if it's not up there?  Over a month ago, I emailed them this:

Hi [person at jazz club],

My name is Neil Ferris, and I'm the jazz intern for WFIU in Bloomington.  Every week we put together a calendar of local jazz to read on the air, and we'd like to include events at [your club].  I looked at the website calendar, but I wanted to check if you had any other jazz related events going on throughout the week in June.

Thanks!

  
I never heard back.  Maybe there weren't any other events (even though I suspect there are in fact more things that I would put on the radio if I knew about them).  Why would you turn down free advertising directed at your niche market?


2.  This:

Nope, that's not blank space.  It's just black text on a black background.  Doh!


3.  No pictures!  Did you notice the appealing graphics, photos and color schemes on Wynton and Corey's websites?  Check out the local Cafe Django's website, and look at the photos and layout.  It makes it look like a cool place to check out.  Even better, check out Small's jazz club in NYC.  You can pay to watch a streaming live feed.  Can you imagine what a young Miles Davis would have been doing if that technology existed in the early 40's?  Small's is taking the pictures thing one step further- it allows you to join the club even when geography doesn't permit.  Boosh.

To be fair, there are some (user-uploaded) photos on this unnamed club's Facebook page.  But no calendar.  I still don't know who's playing there, except for one date that I found out about from a friend who is playing there.  My friend, in effect, is doing a better job of selling the club than the owners.  Here's an interesting perspective on this phenomena, and I think perceptive club owners would take some notes. 


Now, all these criticisms are simply about the web presence.  I've never been to this club, but I'm sure it's a very awesome place.  It's so awesome, I bet, that more people should know about it.  People like me for example, a nearby jazz musician and fan who would be a very easy customer to reach.


As jazz musicians, we can't afford (literally) to be exclusive.  Make it easy for people to come out and enjoy your work.  Don't complain about jazz being unpopular if your web presence sucks.  Get out there, tell your story in a compelling way, and sell what you do.  And go practice.

How to Like Jazz

You don't have to understand what jazz musicians are doing to enjoy listening.

I don't know very much at all about how my car works- it's an amazingly complex machine.  Still, I enjoy driving it around, and it helps me get places I need to go.  I'd be open to learning more about how it works, but even though I don't know what's under the hood it still is something I enjoy using.

The same logic applies to jazz listening.  Some of the first jazz I listened to when I was 15 or so was "Giant Steps" by John Coltrane, mainly because it was what I found first at the library.  If you're not familiar with the recording, it's the pinnacle of fast moving key changes that requires the improvising musician to have an inside-out knowledge of their instrument and the music.  Over 50 years later it's now still used as a test for new musician's ability, and it's very challenging to play.  Check out this Youtube sheet music animation of it.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on behind the scenes, no idea of the form, changes, substitutions, cycles, digital patterns, rhythm section interaction or style.  Still, I enjoyed listening to it because of the powerful sound of Coltrane's improvisations.  Maybe the face melting intensity resonated with my angsty teenage sentiments.  Either way, I'd listen to it over and over without the foggiest idea about the intellectual stuff because I enjoyed the sound of it.

It seems to me that somewhere down the line the idea came about that to enjoy art music you need to understand it first intellectually.  Then, after this proper debriefing, you're ready to listen and enjoy the music (or your "musical vegetables").  That's flat out backwards.  First comes listening to the music, and if you like what you hear you'll naturally dig deeper into the stuff "under the hood."

Not being familiar with the "under the hood" workings of a jazz performance or recording doesn't make you dumb, uneducated or ignorant either.  Jazz is a very complex, intellectual, and challenging music.  In an environment like this people (musicians especially) tend to feel fearful of looking uninformed, which can lead to an atmosphere of exclusivity and scrutiny.  As a new explorer of jazz music, don't be intimidated by this nonsense- remember that by taking the time to go out and listen to jazz artists is doing them a huge service (i.e. paying their bills).  Also, if you do have any questions about what's going on just ask!  Musicians love to talk about what they're playing, so don't be shy if you have questions.

It all comes back to remembering that you don't have to understand the music intellectually to enjoy listening to it.

As guitarists we come from all over the musical spectrum.  Maybe you were first into punk rock, or acoustic singer/songwriter stuff, or maybe you started playing Hendrix licks and Zeppelin riffs like me.  Wherever you're coming from, the world of jazz is rich with a ton of great music.  So if you're a new jazz convert yourself or if you're in the process of bringing someone else into the fold, in a future post I'll be coming up with some listening activities as a starting point for exploring jazz. 

Chords Galore by Jack Peterson

If you have some guitar background and have always wanted to:

-Expand your chord vocabulary
-Get started on playing "jazz" chords
-Feel less boxed in by familiar "grips" like your open chords and 5th and 6th-string bar chords

Then I highly recommend Jack Peterson's book Chords Galore.  Its a step by step method for learning a lot of voicings that will greatly expand your harmonic flexibility.  It starts with the basics and doesn't require too much prerequisite theory or reading knowledge, so if you have some guitar experience but have been intimidated in the past about "jazz" chords like Cmaj7(#11), or D7(b9#5), then this book breaks these things down for you.  Finding a good teacher to help explain things can further help your progress in this book.

-------Overview:

What does this book take you through?  First you'll work with the raised 2&3 voicings based on the 6th string and their inversions.  (The book will explain these various "raised" voicing families, inversions, etc.)  The next chapter focuses on raised 2 voicings based on the 5th string and their inversions.  In the next chapter, you guessed it, you combine these two sets of voicings.  Every step of the way is clearly explained in plain language- making it a perfect DIY book.  The theory behind these chords is presented in a very logical and functional way.

By this point you've covered some serious ground already, and you would be reasonably good at comping ("rhythm guitar" if you're new to jazz) behind a soloist in a jazz combo.  You could take out your real book and have couple voicings for each chord to choose from, chords like: Ebmaj7, Ab(6), Fm7, F#dim, D7sus/A, Gm7/Bb.  Play some standard tunes like Satin Doll, Girl From Ipanema, Misty, or All The Things You Are to try out your new chords!
 
So now you've got some new voicings and are playing some tunes.  But what about those weird (#11)'s, or (b9#5)'s?  Well, chapter 4 tackles that with 9th, 11th and 13th chords.  Now your G7/B can become G7(b9)/B, and your G7 can become G13, or G7(b13).  These are all based on the chord forms you've been working with up til this point, so you're taking what you know and adding to it rather than simply learning by rote memorization.

Chapter 5 covers a new family of voicings called "root color tones."  Knowing these will be valuable if you play in a big band, where the 3-note root color tones voicings will keep you out of the piano and horn section's way.  The next chapter goes over some very hip sounding open triads and shell voicings.  Whew, all these new chords... what else could there possibly be?

Take everything you've done so far and move it up a set of strings.  These are called "crossovers," and as the book says, it "increases your chord knowledge 100%."  (literally!)  The next and final chapter covers "transfers," moving a single note one or two octaves in a voicing.  This gives you even more new voicings, and brings you round about to some old familiar ones.

------Reference Sheets:

So, if you're serious about learning some new voicings I highly recommend purchasing Chords Galore.  I've made up some reference sheets that were useful to me when working through the book.  What I did is map out all the chord families.  Some have alternate names (ie "drop 2&3) and some you won't encounter yet in Chords Galore (ie drop 2&4's).  I also mapped out their crossovers to the right, so you can see them moving up a set of strings and adjusting for that pesky B string.  The inversions ascend vertically, and you'll notice I label the chord tones at the bottom of each diagram.

This labeling is important, because from that knowledge you can take the basic dominant 7th chord shape from my map and alter it to achieve any type of chord you want.  On the third page I show how you can get 14 different chords from one of these basic shapes.  It's a useful visual aid to have on your stand when you're learning the various examples presented in the book:

Page One

Page Two

Page Three

Page Four

(Download full resolution versions here: Page One, Page Two, Page Three, Page Four)

Anyways, I hope you find these reference sheets useful, and if you haven't already go out and pick up a copy of Jack Peterson's Chords Galore!

-Neil


------Links:

Amazon.com: Chords Galore

Amazon.com: The Real Book