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Good advice from Joe Pass


DdBob

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Posted

Looking through an old issue of Guitar Player (Aug 86) I ran across this bit of wisdom from ol Joe'...

 

"One piece of advice I stress is keep things simple. Think in simple terms. Use your ears and develop your instincts. Don't rely on theory and other academic devices that fill your head with complicated information and numbers that have little to do with music. When you do learn things like that, forget them when you play, or else you'll sound stiff and might even loose your place."

 

good advice really, although I'm a big fan of theory and think it's important, at least to open your ears to sounds and ideas you'd never just "stumble" across.Also as a means to get "inside" other players playing and figure things out or to "talk shop" with other musicians, but I think Joe is right...

you can sound like a pre- concieved machine (by playing with your brain) or you can sound like a free flowing human (by playing with your heart).

 

You need to learn it and forget it...play instinctivley...

If it sounds good it is good.

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I was reading an interview with Leo Kottke and he relayed something Joe Pass had told him. The quote is "there are really only three chord forms, and you can find anything in those 'grips'...".

 

Does anyone know what he meant (Joe Pass, that is).

 

I get the sense that Pass knew where he was on the neck and could find the forms he needed from there and not working on moving up and down the fretboard.

 

I am, no doubt, taking this way out of context and would appreciate any thoughts or clarifications. The experts like Kottke and Pass say these things and make is sound easy, but they are making those comments from inside decades of focus and learning.

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Posted

 

Originally posted by cnumb44

I was reading an interview with Leo Kottke and he relayed something Joe Pass had told him. The quote is "there are really only three chord forms, and you can find anything in those 'grips'...".


Does anyone know what he meant (Joe Pass, that is).


I get the sense that Pass knew where he was on the neck and could find the forms he needed from there and not working on moving up and down the fretboard.


I am, no doubt, taking this way out of context and would appreciate any thoughts or clarifications. The experts like Kottke and Pass say these things and make is sound easy, but they are making those comments from inside decades of focus and learning.

 

 

He might be talking about chord types.. like major minor and 7th everything is really just a version of one of those.

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Posted

 

Originally posted by cnumb44

I was reading an interview with Leo Kottke and he relayed something Joe Pass had told him. The quote is "there are really only three chord forms, and you can find anything in those 'grips'...".


Does anyone know what he meant (Joe Pass, that is).

 

 

This sounds to me exactly like the PlaneTalk method, which I would highly recommend - it's about seeing those three chord forms, and adding whatever you want without relying on fixed scale shapes... (I know I've mentioned it before, it's just that this question seemed really relevant).

 

In fact, all those quotes (about being musically free and following the chord changes) are very specifically relevant to PlaneTalk, so I'm pretty sure Joe Pass must see the neck and approach improvisation in the same way...

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Posted

 

Originally posted by cnumb44

I was reading an interview with Leo Kottke and he relayed something Joe Pass had told him. The quote is "there are really only three chord forms, and you can find anything in those 'grips'...".


Does anyone know what he meant (Joe Pass, that is).


I get the sense that Pass knew where he was on the neck and could find the forms he needed from there and not working on moving up and down the fretboard.


I am, no doubt, taking this way out of context and would appreciate any thoughts or clarifications. The experts like Kottke and Pass say these things and make is sound easy, but they are making those comments from inside decades of focus and learning.

 

 

I think Joe was referring to his method of thinking about chords as all being either major, minor, or dominant. Everything else is just a permutation of those three. It doesn't seem to account for diminshed chords, etc. However, it's a very useful way to think of chords and serves the purpose of keeping everything fairly simple.

 

Joe talks about that in his Jazz Lines DVD. I may be wrong about what he meant -- hopefully someone will correct me if I am.

Posted

 

Originally posted by chittypantz



I think Joe was referring to his method of thinking about chords as all being either major, minor, or dominant. Everything else is just a permutation of those three. It doesn't seem to account for diminshed chords, etc. However, it's a very useful way to think of chords and serves the purpose of keeping everything fairly simple.


Joe talks about that in his Jazz Lines DVD. I may be wrong about what he meant -- hopefully someone will correct me if I am.

 

 

Diminished still does fit into that.

 

Fully diminished 7th chords are merely dominant 7(b9) chords without a root.

 

Half-diminished chords are very similar to minor 7 chords (only one note difference) and they function the same way: as ii chords in a ii-V-I progression, except being a minor ii-V rather than a major ii-V.

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Posted

Originally posted by Poparad


Half-diminished chords are very similar to minor 7 chords (only one note difference) and they function the same way: as ii chords in a ii-V-I progression, except being a minor ii-V rather than a major ii-V.

 

 

I sometimes study m7b5 chords as a m6 chord built from the third, i.e. I think of Bm7b5 in terms of Dm6/B.

 

Seems to work for me but I'm clueless as for real usefulness of the trick :confused:

 

Cheers,

 

Alex

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Posted

 

Originally posted by DdBob

Looking through an old issue of Guitar Player (Aug 86) I ran across this bit of wisdom from ol Joe'...


"One piece of advice I stress is
keep things simple
. Think in simple terms. Use your ears and develop your instincts. Don't rely on theory and other academic devices that fill your head with complicated information and numbers that have little to do with music. When you do learn things like that, forget them when you play, or else you'll sound stiff and might even loose your place."


good advice really, although I'm a big fan of theory and think it's important, at least to open your ears to sounds and ideas you'd never just "stumble" across.Also as a means to get "inside" other players playing and figure things out or to "talk shop" with other musicians, but I think Joe is right...

you can sound like a pre- concieved machine (by playing with your brain) or you can sound like a free flowing human (by playing with your heart).


You need to learn it and forget it...play instinctivley...

If it sounds good it is good.

 

 

That is definately my "playing philosophy" - yes, do learn theory, but don't be tied down to numbers.

 

People often forget what music is really about.

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Posted

I think where we see the "hamstrung by theory" thing i that intermediate stage where something isn't fully, course this goes for mechanics too, really any body of technique -- once you integrate something, it's not so much that you "forget" it as such but that you don't have to think about it

 

like learning to drive a manual tranny - first you are "clutch in, start, OK let the clutch out WHILe..oh yeah WHILE putting on the gas"

then you eventually go the the racetrack and ask your buddy what gear he was in in turn 3 and the answer is often "dunno -- um probably 3rd" -- it' not that he forgot any of that info, or made his selections without benefit of the knowledge - it's just the experience has become so integrated so as to be a "background process"

Keith Code has a good whole schtik on "attention points" that's may be a good read for other things beside motorbike racing

 

In the same way, I think, at the beginning, we are thinking "OK, major chord...onto this minor, OK, now here's this tricky..."

later on we go through the piece and we don't think in those term specifically, if someone asks us "is that a minor?" -- we may go "yeah, sure, I wasn't thinking abt it though"

 

I think theory get a bad wrap a ot of time because we are shown some baic structures and concepts and we can start thinking of those a s "rules" instead of descriptions

Inasking a child who is only familiar with natural numbers "is 3.2 a number?"

they might answer no

Or aking a basic algebra student "What is the square root of -1?" and getting "there isn't one" instead of "i"

 

[and now we think "3.5 no biggie" and it doesn't trip us out]

 

Similarly, we might find the advancing theory student working strictly diatonically (in natural numbers) or within a set of contrapunctual guidelines...

The limitation there isn't "theroy" as such, it's just the limited scope of the exercise or the student knowledge

 

later we can see the theory a a description

Is a Canon that doesn't follow the rules wrong? nah, it's just a fugue! ;)

 

 

I think it' a matter of forgetting ABOUT omething during it' execution more than forgetting something

 

We call it "second nature" for a reason

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Posted

 

Originally posted by Poparad



Diminished still does fit into that.


Fully diminished 7th chords are merely dominant 7(b9) chords without a root.


Half-diminished chords are very similar to minor 7 chords (only one note difference) and they function the same way: as ii chords in a ii-V-I progression, except being a minor ii-V rather than a major ii-V.

 

 

Good points. I guess I already thought that way about the diminished, at least the voicing played on the highest 4 strings, since I tend to move through a diminished progression rather than playing it as a 7b9 whenever the chart calls for a 7b9, but I never really thought of that relationship in other contexts.

 

I guess it can all be broken down into major, minor and dominant.

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