Improving Chord "Vocabulary"

[DaveKnific]

Good afternoon everyone!


What are some of the best ways to improve your chord vocabulary? In other ways, what are the best ways to expand your knowledge of different chords and progressions to use when you play? I've tried transcribing music, but I never end up using any of the chords!


Thank you!

[P-dur]

Start playing jazz.

[Premetheus37]

Agreed.

~Premetheus

[DaveKnific]

Thank you for your reply!



The thing is, I AM playing and writing jazz.. I would like to expand my vocabulary for jazz. I feel like I'm playing the same "minor 7," "minor 9," and 13 chords though.

[gylfih]

Experiment a bit. See what you like. I've also got a couple of books, one called 'The Golden Age of Jazz' and one of Oscar Peterson transcriptons. Get something like that and see the chord changes and progressions that are used, and you can hear how they sound, and fit in. Personally, I think the only ones you need are 7ths (maj and min), 6ths, sus4, 9ths, minor7th+9s and 13ths.

[PinkFloydDudi]

Thank you for your reply!



The thing is, I AM playing and writing jazz.. I would like to expand my vocabulary for jazz. I feel like I'm playing the same "minor 7," "minor 9," and 13 chords though.

Are you playing the chords the same way? I know my jazz teacher never lets me play with the root at the bottom.

Cmaj7 is "E,G,B,D", instead of "C,E,G,B".

Always throws the 9ths in there instead of the root.

Play around with the tons of inversions for all the chords. Play the 7ths as the bottom note, top note, middle note, etc...


That way when you read a chart that says "Cmaj7", you have about 6 different ways to play it - each having a different sound.

[glassprison]

Are you playing the chords the same way? I know my jazz teacher never lets me play with the root at the bottom.

Cmaj7 is "E,G,B,D", instead of "C,E,G,B".

Always throws the 9ths in there instead of the root.

Play around with the tons of inversions for all the chords. Play the 7ths as the bottom note, top note, middle note, etc...


That way when you read a chart that says "Cmaj7", you have about 6 different ways to play it - each having a different sound.
I see people giving examples like this allot. But, to me, that's an Emin7 not a Cmaj7 w/9.
I mean, how do you have a Cmaj7 if you're not playing a C?

Please explain?

[P-dur]

That kind of stuff is what you do if you play with other people. It would be a waste if both you and the bassist played the root. And since you're not playing the root, you have some fingers free to play 9ths, 11ths, 13ths or whatever you like, to spice up the chord a bit. A good way to practice that while making the song sound as it should chord-wise, would be to make a backingtrack with bass (root note) and other tracks you would like, like drums.

Edit: Minimal movement is also a "concept" in jazz. If you can change chords with changing just some of the keys you are playing, it will give you more fluent progressions and subtle changes, which makes the music sound more "pro", imo. (easy example: if you're playing a Cmajor (right, no 7, 11, 13 you name it) you play C, E and G. That's the, arg, what is it called, the root position. And, instead of moving your hand up to to play an Eminor in root position, you can just take the B from the top and play it an octave lower, and you have an Eminor chord with just moving your pinky a half step from the C to the B. Though that may sound obvious, it's actually just the same you do with bigger chords.)

[EthanBaldwin]

I see people giving examples like this allot. But, to me, that's an Emin7 not a Cmaj7 w/9.
I mean, how do you have a Cmaj7 if you're not playing a C?

Please explain?

That is more of a theory question, one I had myself awhile ago. Basically, you have to decide how the chord works in the key signature, and how it affects the tonality of the piece.

And yes, it is confusing to be playing a Cmaj7 without a C, but that's music for you, hahahaha. There isn't always a clear cut way of describing these things, and half the time it doesn't make any sense.

[PinkFloydDudi]

I see people giving examples like this allot. But, to me, that's an Emin7 not a Cmaj7 w/9.
I mean, how do you have a Cmaj7 if you're not playing a C?

Please explain?

Yeah, I asked the same question...and it really throws you for a loop because there is no "answer" that can be applied everywhere.

The others have mentioned it though, as it has to do with the key you are in and where in the progression you are.

With jazz, you should know the "2 5 1" pattern.

Well if your pattern is "Dmin7, G7(add9)..._____ " the last answer is some form of C, not E. Now how you play that C might actually be a different chord, but its still a C chord.

For example at the end of that you could play G, Bb,D (5th,7th,9th)...now when looking at that chord, you see "Gmin". But in the context of the song, it is C7(add9).

As someone else also stated, the reason you do this is to not muddy up the bass. For the C cord I told you about in my first post here (E,G,Bb,D), that would be played in your right hand!
Guess what your left hand would be playing if there was no bass player?
Answer: The C! (or some walking bass-line)

P-dur brought up a great topic...(as did my jazz teacher when I learned this stuff)...its all about hand movement.

For a 2-5-1 progression, most (all?) of the time you should only have to move 2 fingers for each chord change! When you get to some complex jazz, knowing what fingers you don't have to move makes things 1000 times easier! But to know this, you have to know every inversion of every chord pretty much by heart!

[mlunapiena01]

Common Chord Progressions in almost all styles of music:

1 4 5
b6 b7 1
Any progression moving up in fourths or down in 5ths
1 5 4
1 5 b6 b7 1

There's others too ...

now for improving chord vocabulary - learn all your diatonic (in a key) 7th chords, then 9th, 11th, 13th

Then add the sus chord (either 4-3 like C-F-G or 9-8 like C G D)

then you can also build chords based on P 5ths (C G D A E) or P 4ths (C F Bb Eb) or any interval really ...

that should give you a good amount of options.

The other thing is to learn different inversions/voicings of each chord (where you place the root note). If you play guitar, translate the chords onto keyboard note for note & that can give you some good ideas for inversion.

Finally - get dream theater scores to find out all the cool chords they use ...

Hope that helps!

-Mike