Groupings of tunes?

TheGarethJones

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/121697#Comment_121697

Isn’t that Mia Khalifa’s book published a few years ago?

Buco

I googled that...ha! Dude, every once in awhile you hit a proverbial mute button on the forum lol

paulmcevoy75

Mia Khalifa? Wtf

TheGarethJones

Hahaha yes ok, apologies for my

distasteful humor. Not meant for googling. 🤣

Chiefbigeasy

I get the idea of related tunes and grouping them especially when it comes to memorizing them. There are obvious examples of tunes like “Coquette“ “Swing 42” and others that use a lot of the standard rhythm changes structure.Then there are the minor kinds of tunes like “Minor Blues,“ “Minor Swing,“ and some more obscure tunes my band likes to play like “Just One for Babik,“ “Rhythm Gitan.“

I’d say I have about 40 to 50 tunes pretty well memorized, but that’s nothing compared to a lot of New Orleans working musicians who have 100 or more standards at their fingertips. The waltzes and musettes can be a little trickier because they are often longer, they often have three separate distinct sections; but even with them, there are chord groupings you come to recognize overtime.

After a while, I started to recognize patterns in groups of songs, and although I could dissect or recognize them by taking a look at the chord chart, I began years ago to just rely on my ear and the learned moves of my fretting hand that seemed to know where to go next. It’s like the chords underneath the Christophe changes. Once you learn the changes, you can hear the progression and you can pretty much know where to go anywhere on the fretboard once you start that ending. Same thing with turnarounds: once you recognize the chord pattern, you can do it anywhere without really thinking.

What has been interesting to me is how improvisation has also begun to work the same way. When I first started learning these tunes, it was very important to know exactly what chord I was playing over in order to look for an appropriate phrase or lick or triad to play. Now, 12 years into this, I’m letting my ear guide me, letting my fingers follow the remembered patterns, looking for a little embellishments to make it interesting, looking to state part of a melody if appropriate, or even better, coming up with a melody improvisation that really shines and grabs.

I do practice many of the basic patterns and illustrative licks as taught by Christiaan in his book series. I also do exercises to get a handle on where a diminished lines are connected up and down the neck and when they would make sense. But I also throw in some blues phrasing or some flashy guitar tricks when appropriate.

I started by memorizing solos, and I do have some of the more famous ones available to mine and paraphrase. But Christiaan and others have observed that even great players like Stochelo will play some tunes very similarly every time. I agree and I have a few like that as well, where what I’ve settled on to play over the changes sounds so good, I don’t want to vary it too much.

As I prepare for Django in June, my current most pressing harmonic question will be how to reliably identify where I can find the correct diminished run when it’s called for, as opposed to guessing and being right at least one out of three times.

It may seem a little haphazard to others, and good instructors can do a better job of explaining this than I can. But, I’ve tried to emulate the feeling and style and mindset of the older players who learned by ear with others.

Buco

Regarding the diminished runs, I used to think of it in terms of the root of the diminished itself. That was too complicated.

Now I think of it in terms how it relates to its cousin. Either the root of the key, or the dominant chord. So if it's something like G to Bbdim I'll often play the run starting on G. Or I'll have my hand in position to start with G but will the go to min 3rd. Same with G to G#dim. I'll think of the root of the key. Or in case of dominant, if I'm playing diminished over D7, if I'm starting on the 5 or 6th string, I'll look at at the root of the chord and start diminished on the b7. Or, start on D go to F# and continue diminished from there. If I'm starting on the 1st string, I'll look for b9 of dominant chord. If on the 2nd string, the 5th of the dominant chord.

Writing it out might seem complicated. But once I just thinking about diminished as they relate to whatever it's being played over, that made it so much easier. Instead of hunting for the actual root of the diminished chord. Whenever I'd do that I'd always draw a blank.

voutoreenie

Ahh, good ol' diminished runs...took me a good 3-4 years before I really started to "hear" them. Quick cheat code: if it's over a minor 6 chord, start on the root and if it's over a dom 7 chord, start a half step up from the root (i.e. if D7, start the diminished run on Eb). Wash, rinse, repeat ascending up in minor 3rds over the same chords until your ears get used to it and to build faculty over the entire fretboard.

I could get into more concepts like harmonic minor and the altered scale but if you're learning by ear that's probably getting a bit too esoteric lol.

billyshakes

I think threads like this where people talk about how they think about these things are really helpful. Everyone associates towards things in ways that makes the most sense to them, but sometimes someone elses way might be a new way of thinking of things for you or me. It might open a new pathway or a different perspective.

Along that line, it was interesting to see @Buco how your "starting point" depends on the context. (i.e. are you on the 1st string vs 5th or 6th.) I try to play the root of the dominant 7th to establish the tonality and then play the dim run starting from the 3rd (kinda like your D to F# example). That works well for me starting on either the 5th or 6th string. I don't really like going back down the dim pattern because I'm not good at it, so I don't have a 1st string reference (yet). I guess theory would say that playing the dim over a dom7 chord works if you start on either the 3rd, 5th, b7th, or b9th of the dom7 chord. Maybe I'll try some of your guys tips.

Buco

@billyshakes the starting has to do with the "pathways" we talked about. Because I don't think of improvisation in terms of vocabulary but in terms of fretboard pathways. So, depending on which pathway I'm taking and once I reach the final point of the current pathway, it opens the door for another one and that dictates the starting point of the diminished run (if that's the pathway I'm taking). I know there are a few more situations that I'm missing but that's the gist of it.

This is another one of pandemic practices I've done a lot back then. Playing diminished runs, going up and down the fretboard, in minor 3rds. Up and down the fretboard on the 6th string, move a fret up, go up and down the fretboard, go another fret up, repeat. Then go to another string, do the same. Do the same with all of the strings.

Eventually it finally established the fingerings I use ascending and descending, which I struggled to settle on for years. After all that my weakness is still 1st position diminished, using open strings which Django did a lot.