> On 15 May 97 at 12:45, Lawson G. Stone wrote:
> =
> > Kevin's diagonal idea is one of those things I realize now was there =
all
> > along and I just missed it.
> =
> I wish I could take credit for it. I got the idea from a heavy-metal
> guitarist and went, "Yeah! Right! Of course! Duh!"
> =
> > I see this fine for min7 and dom7 chords. Somehow, though, playing 3r=
d
> > and Maj7 as a two-note voicing sounds discordant to me.
> =
> > I am ready and happy to say "Okay, so I train my ear to like it....
> > I have heard that prior to the Maj7 chord's rise in popularity, many
> > jazz players actually played the 6: 1 3 5 6. Might the 3/6 2 note
> > voicing work...? or am I just scrambling to avoid learning to use a s=
ound
> =
> Yes, it works. You're just flatting the (flat) seventh instead of
> sharping it to make the maj7. I may sound like an anti-intellectual,
> but if your ear thinks something is wrong, it's usually wrong. That
> said, your ear may be getting confused by the fact that the interval
> between the 3 and the maj7 is a fifth so it sounds like a rock power
> chord with the 3 as the root. Hearing the bass roots would help, I
> think.
> =
> The 3/7 sound is kind of sparse, tho. "Jazz power chords" (as someone
> put it) is a good way to describe it. It works okay with ensembles
> when you have a bassist laying down the root, but without a bassist or
> keyboardist I think I prefer the sound of four-note chords, stirred
> not gripped.
> =
I am making progress on this point, but I think I'm cheating in a way.
With CMaj7, I've starting "thinking" of the 3rd/7th voicing as an Em
(E,B). Since I often play E minorish things over C major, that's an
easier leap. Somehow when I made that little adjustment in my thinking,
I found the sound easier to locate.
In general, when playing 2 note voicings, does it matter which is on
top? I notice, for example, in a jazz-blues progression using just 3 and
7, I can move around a lot chromatically on the guitar. In F, for
example, the 3/7 falls on strings 3 and 4, with the 3rd of F7 on the
fourth string. When we shift to Bb7, I just move the same two-note
voicing down one fret, and I have 3/7 for Bb7, but now the 7th is the
bottom note (4th string). Likewise, when it's C7 time, I go up one fret
from the F7, and the 2 note voicing has the 7th on the bottom.
I've actually found I can play a whole series of 2-note voices on blues
with passing chords, cycle patterns, etc, and keep the identical
fingerin on the identical strings and just move it around. Not very big
jumps either.
I conclude from this that there must be no major problem with whether
the 3rd or the 7th is on top as long as the voices move logically.
If anybody wants to see the voice movement on blues I worked out (I
assume most know this and I'm one of the last, btw, to get on board)
I'll be glad to send it to you privately.
-- =
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Lawson G. Stone=97Asbury Theological Seminary=97Wilmore, KY 40390
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"You know, a long time ago, being crazy meant something. Nowadays,
everybody's crazy." Charles Manson