[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Vuk,
Sorry about the slow response. I’ve had a bit of a health crisis here and am just trying to get caught up. Anyway, thanks for bringing it to my attention and the pdf link is now fixed.
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Vuk,
Sorry about the slow response. I’ve had a bit of a health crisis here and am just trying to get caught up. Anyway, thanks for bringing it to my attention and the pdf link is now fixed.
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Dolf,
Not sure which one you’re referring to. Can you let me know the title or URL of the page?
Thanks!

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Steven,

I think as you’ve already mentioned, it is largely subjective. Yes, I could definitely pick faster with smaller picks (though not necessarily thinner). I used the Dunlop Jazz IIIs for many years and could get a lot of speed that way. But at some point I started opting sacrifice some speed for a better sound and for the last 20 (or more) years, I’ve been using the VERY heavy and contoured picks made by Dugain. I started out with the wooden ones, but in the last few years have gone over to using those made of acetate because they don’t wear down as quickly (I was constantly filing and sanding the wood ones to maintain the shape of the tip). I’ll also mention that I don’t particularly like playing the Dugains on round-wound or lighter gauge strings (my usual setup consists of flatwounds going from a .0135 down to a .052) I like a really dark sound (as you can probably tell from the sound I get on the videos).

I think the best approach is to find the sound that you like, and then work your technique out around that (at least that’s what’s worked for me). After I switched to the Dugains, I did modify my right-hand technique for efficiency (to makeup for some of the speed I lost by going to such a thick pick). But I found that the improvement in sound helped me to not be in such a hurry to always play so many notes. It was almost like a basic dissatisfaction with my tone was causing me to constantly hurry.

I did work on things like tremolo to train my right-hand to keep the pick closer to the strings, and would work out specific fingerings and picking for bebop heads, licks and phrases so that I was keeping my pick motion to a minimum, and I do believe that helped a lot.

Hope this helps.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick Stone

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Good question! As with most things, the real answer isn’t necessarily the simple one. I can tell you that when I play, I don’t think much about scales at all. I’m really playing “by ear” (which is what’s supposed to happen) but am deeply aware of the melody, lyrics and chords of the tune. And when I’m in the zone these things suggest tons of melodic ideas that certainly come from scales. What I really like to make a point of telling my private students though, is that we don’t “play scales” we “use scales” and there’s a world of difference in these two concepts.

Is it useful to practice scales and modes? Absolutely, but maybe for different reasons than you might think. I spent a ton of time (measured in years) practicing scales, modes and arpeggios in every key, all over the neck, but I was really training my ears to understand the intervals, hear them, feel them under my fingers, understand their relationship to the chords, etc., on a very primary level, so that when I play, all of this is just part of my natural language (in the same way as when I type these words, my fingers move on the keyboard and the thoughts are able to translate into letters automatically).

So the real issue is how do we learn music as a language? Stan Getz probably best expressed this in a famous quote:

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about

So the guys who are just running up and down the alphabet aren’t really saying anything. You have to dig deep into it and study the language. Transcribing solos of great players that you love is one of the best ways to do this because you’ll be highly motivated and these ideas start to find their way into your own musical vocabulary. You can of course also be taking these ideas and working out your own variations. I find it most productive to be doing this in the context of studying tunes since you’re just focusing on solving the particular problems or issues that come up in a real-life context. Of course in order to do this, you need to have some grasp of spelling and the vocabulary you’re dealing with (and here’s where having a deep understanding your chords and scales help you tremendously).

In playing “tonal” music (and that’s mostly what we’re talking about when we discuss jazz standards), the main sounds are either Tonic (major or minor key) or Dominant. Then of course there are substitutions; for instance the Dominant gives us the most varied color choices; Dominant scale (Mixolydian or whatever you prefer to call it), Altered Scale, Lydian Dominant, Whole-Tone, Dominant-Diminished, Phrygian, Phrygian Natural 3rd, Phrygian Natural 6th, etc. Tonic Major has fewer choices; you can use Major, Lydian, or stretch it with Lydian Augmented, and even occasionally substitute Diminished. Tonic Minor is usually Melodic Minor but often it “goes modal” (as James Williams once told me) by using Dorian and introducing “modal interchange” chords for color, or sometimes it can go Harmonic Minor (for a more “exotic” color). And there are various ways of reducing the pool of notes created by the above scales such as Hexatonic and Pentatonic Scale constructs (which basically just leave specific notes out of the previously listed scales). But again: these are just the alphabet. Do you need to know the alphabet in order to write intelligently? Absolutely! But does anybody care how fast you can recite the alphabet? I think that question answers itself.

Anyway, a whole bunch of food for thought there!

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Richard,

What’s the file name of the download you received? It should be:
“Scale Studies for Jazz Guitar 44 Daily Warm-ups ver (1-2).pdf”
I checked and that seems to be the one that’s online, so I’m not sure why you might have gotten an old version of the file.

Thanks,
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Guys,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. There was a copy of the e-book that had the mistake you mentioned but it was fixed months ago. Makes me wonder if some old files were restored to the server for some reason. Unfortunately I’m at my mothers in Ohio with no Wi-Fi right now making it difficult for me to check or correct this. But as soon as I can get to someplace with Wi-Fi and my laptop I will send you the file and try to figure out why the old one is up there again.
Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Nick,

Besides any of the Basics lessons, it would be a good idea to do the lessons on “Shell Voicings”
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/shell-voicings-freddie-green-chords/
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/shell-voicings-on-a-standard-tune/

And start learning a few tunes (the lessons on the Blues and Autumn Leaves would be ideal)
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/shell-voicings-on-a-standard-tune/
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/autumnal-eves/

The Ear-Training lessons on solfege would be very good for a beginner as well
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/solfege/

It’s important to note that you don’t need to finish one of these to work on the others, and in fact it’s probably best to be working on several different levels concurrently. I usually break practicing down to five main areas; reading, technique, theory, ear-training, repertoire (and realize that there can be overlap between these, especially when you’re working on repertoire).

Hope this helps!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by  Rick Stone.

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

David,

The Soundslice should print okay and I believe you can adjust the size as well. Be sure to check out all the options on the right-hand side of the screen (after you click on the gear). It will definitely print more than one page because I just tested that and it printed quite nicely except for a rather large margin on the right-hand side of the page (and I just wrote to Soundslice about that so let’s see what they say).

Thanks and Happy Holidays.
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Rich,

Thanks for writing and good idea. I’m always looking for new ideas to create lessons and I’ll try to get on this one ASAP.

Meanwhile, here are a couple suggestions for the two situations you mentioned in your question:

Minor key IIm7b5 V7b9 Im – In the key of Cm that would be Dm7b5, G7b9, Cm. There are two commonly used ways to handle this progression.

1) The first (and simplest) is to use the notes of the C Harmonic Minor scale over Dm7b5 G7b9 and then resolve to C Melodic Minor on the I chord (it’s common to play the Tonic minor as a m6 chord which uses the Melodic Minor scale).

2) Treat each chord individually in which case Dm7b5 can be played using the Bb7 scale rules (or alternately the F Melodic Minor scale), and G7 can be played use the Db7 scale rules (the tritone substitute) or Ab Melodic Minor. Then resolve to Cm6 as C Melodic Minor.

For the I #Io IIm #IIo IIIm; the diminished 7th chords are actually behaving very much like dominant chords. For instance in the key of C; C#o7 to Dm is like playing A7b9 into Dm. Likewise D#o7 to Em behaves exactly the same as playing B7b9 into Em.

Thanks and I hope this helps.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by  Rick Stone.

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Ken,

Okay, you’re in luck. I started transcribing the voicings for the first ATTYA chord study and it felt like deja vu, so I searched my hard-drive and found a pdf of these that I did way back in 2007. It’s now posted under the first video (with Roots, 3rds, 5ths, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths on top). It’s probably not exactly the same (like I said, I don’t always play these exactly the same) but it will give you a good idea and something to work with.

I’ll probably need to transcribe the other ones and will get them up there ASAP.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

David,

Thanks for chiming in. My recent health issues are slowing me down a bit. But the lessons on bebop lines and linear development definitely cover a lot of the aspects of playing on IIm7 V7 I progressions. In reality, when improvising, I pretty much hear the IIm7 V7 as a single entity, so it’s really about choosing colors and learning to resolve the V7 to the I.

These will also be of interest:
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/chordscale-relationships/
https://www.jazzguitarlessons.com/dominant-7th-line-study/

I do plan to make some more videos addressing this subject as soon as I’m able.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Okay, glad you figured it out.

All the best,
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

David,
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll look at the images you sent me and forward them to Soundslice. It is still a very new program and under development, so there’s been a lot of back and forth and dealing with technical issues that might not be happening on every single machine. Let’s see what they say.
All the best,
~ Rick

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

David,

Yes, I agree that it would better to be able to adjust the font size for printing (I did get in touch with Adrian at Soundslice and he says the “size” setting adjusts the on-screen size only and doesn’t effect the printout). There shouldn’t be anything getting cut off though (no measures are missing). It’s just setting a wider-than-necessary margin on the right hand side. I wrote to Adrian and sent him an example, so he knows about the issues. He’s been very responsive to issues with his program in the past, so hopefully he’ll be able to offer a solution.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick

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