Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony - Bert Ligon

Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

He explains a few ideas and pitfalls in the intro so I think my questions will be answered.

Anyone interested in joining me on the journey and working through the book?
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Stefan
Bill Hatcher custom 12 string Lap Steel Guitar
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Ricky Newman · From: Ontario, Canada

It's so good!!!

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

I'm more interested in this for regular guitar, but I doubt it has any tablature. It is far beyond my skill level at the moment. How many people are successfully playing Bebop on lap steel? I would love to hear more!

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I have my own way of thinking about harmony and changes and how it relates to playing lines over it, but so do most other players. It's kind of what differentiates everyone. I've been around many great players all my life, all with different ways of looking at it. Some of the heaviest musicians I know, and I mean world class, never even think of scales and how they relate to harmony. I can't wrap my head around that yet, but more and more it's starting to make sense to me.

I will always advocate for learning the 12 bar blues form in at least a dozen different variations or as many as you can find. I believe that's where jazz was born and where all of the great harmonic ideas were tried out first. You can play Giant Steps changes on the blues if you want.

The changes to a tune are like a sketch map to me that I am always looking to refine. Sometimes there are scant changes, which gives an opportunity to assert your harmonic prowess and kind of reinvent the tune by adding move movement or changing direction, as long as you end up in the same place.
Peter Leitch is a great guitarist who I studied with and he introduced me to the idea of how to fill out a measure or two of a static chord with harmonic movement.

Sometimes tunes have a ton of changes, which can be a great opportunity to condense the harmony into more easily digested bites.

I will say that it has taken me a long time to get where I am, which is really nowhere, but one should expect to devote a lifetime to this study and practice because it keeps evolving, in other musicians and in your own approach. It's never a bad idea to start from the beginning and work up to it. Again, I would just say focus on the blues and see how many places you can identify someone playing a blues form in jazz--in fact, assume that what you are listening to is a variation on the blues until you are proven wrong (except for standard tunes). There are countless versions of the blues and I Got Rhythm, the two most important IMO.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

You can play a Coltrane cycle over the I chord in bars 1-4. So, for Bb blues you'd play something like /Bb Db7/Gb A7/D F7/F-7 Bb7/.

I used this in West Coast Blues on a few choruses of the solos. You can hear it here (check out Chris Crocco). https://mikeneer.bandcamp.com/track/west-coast-blues-feat-chris-crocco

Ricky Newman · From: Ontario, Canada

I found some tab I sketched out for the first outline a long time ago. I liked it, but I don’t think it took me very far as a lap steel instruction book. In the years since, I’ve enjoyed this book for listening and general jazz learning, mostly with a keyboard. It’s a very detailed exploration of voice leading in jazz, organized around three main outlines played over a 2-5-1 cadence with lots of great examples. It’s one really smart guy’s way of understanding and explaining jazz.

I’d love to be part of a study group, and can certainly tab some bits out for folks who are interested. That said, I don’t think it’s really the right approach to the book. Being able to play the lines as written is secondary to understanding why they appear so frequently and how they relate to each other. Mike, for example, does much more interesting things in the bebop vernacular than playing single note Charlie parker lines.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

Thanks Mike, Tim and all who chipped in.

What's misleading and frustrating is that the people who say lines (guitarists especially) and its not about scales all know and can play scales up and down in their sleep.

Not sure why there is a communication breakdown in the jazz world.

All roads seem to lead to confusion

But here is what I've discovered thus far in the jazz study journey.

Scales are essential - but that's not jazz
arpeggios are essential - but that's not jazz
Then players state - forget them and imitate lines of the masters
Then Educators study them and each come up with their own system of explaining the lines they learned/heard and why this player uses them
Then we buy their book/advice cause they can play it or explain it
We then play it and then think - this line can't outline the changes for this song
Then we noodle around a bit - come up with our own lines that are within our technical comfort zone
We develop our own sound out of limitation

So is jazz line after line and each line is a scale? If so when not just learn these.

Is that jazz? My head is spinning?

Surely the process of learning scales that outline II-V-I's cannot be that secretive and confusing. And Bert Ligon believes that he has codified it. So It's worth a shot for me as my head is spinning from all the other advice flying around.

I simply want a book that says
Major II-V-I - scales - type 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,...etc
Minor II-V-I scales type 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 ..etc

Over 2 octaves lowest note to highest then string skip once you know the scales. Then I don't mind jumping around and string skipping intervals creatively but Gee who would've thought that something so basic should be so confusing.

Confused

_________________
Stefan
Bill Hatcher custom 12 string Lap Steel Guitar
E13#9/F secrets: https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress.com

"Give it up for The Lap Steel Guitarist"

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I have noticed that guitarists who can name the chords they are playing seem not to know what notes are in them.

So if I say "can you leave out the B?" I get a blank look. True, guitarists think vertically because they can only play the notes their fingers can reach, and they can seldom maintain horizontal lines like on the piano, where all the notes are laid out there and you can actually see the harmony.

All this is in the nature of the instrument and I don't regard it as a problem to be solved. I'm not sure that any amount of theory can enable what is not possible.

Now disagree! Smile

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Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

I've struggled with improv as much as the next person. Let's start by agreeing that there is no secret sauce to it all. It is hard work.

What I believe Mr. Lignon has done is exactly what Stefan stated: discovered that there are some common movements happening in ii-Vs which can be exploited. Then he shows his proof, showing dozens of players who manipulate these lines with various devices to get to a point. I hope it is very clear that I'm not saying that it is not successful. It's a book that offers a lot of things to learn that offer a lot more than navigating this all important change. The first few steps of Chapter 9 are what I believe is the key to the book - know where to see these basic building blocks all over your instrument and know them cold. The benefit of this is greater than one might think. I believe it helps one "see" the possibilities a little better. Most method books don't have a prescribed way to get it down. This one does and it is a good method.

My "proof" that I can offer for analysis is that I've gone through dozens of methods. I've tried things I've learned on the bandstand with mixed results. I realized that the only way these methods work is if I stopped and really learned that piece of information being offered me. My personal path led me to Barry Harris, which really resonated with me. It isn't for everyone, but it worked for me in the sense that the source I was using stressed STOPPING and learning the heck out of a concept before I moved on. This was frustrating as I was playing scales, chords, and arpeggios in all the variations that were prescribed in the method my source instructed. The beautiful thing was that they stressed to find ways to use the simple things like I described to create pretty melodies. When I got to some of the slightly more complex things in his teaching for melodic lines, I felt the ground work that I did paid off and I could "see" and "hear" a bit better. I'm not saying I perfected it, but the journey forced me to do the things I avoided doing and in that journey, I found pretty things in the things I was studying that did not sound like running a scale, chord, or arpeggio. And the process was engaging enough to me to want to find a way to expand this to lap.

That being said, jazz is broader than lines and I feel that it is deeply personal. It has a lot to do with creating melody (or what I like to think of as alternate melodies) and listening.

My overall take is that learning scales and arpeggios are part of it. Imitating the lines of those before us is part of it. Using your prior ways of learning to give it a "name" (for lack of better words), is part of it. To me, the use of of any of these are successful once you make it personal and authentic to you.

Non one here really know me or my playing so it's kind of hard to back this up. I can say that years and years of chasing shortcuts has led me to believe that (a) there is none and (b) you are never finished learning. Knowing this, my advice for this and any method that resonates with you would be to really be able to play each building block down cold befre you move on. It will make every next step that much easier.

My 2 cents.

<EDITED>

Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

Sorry for the youthful rant.

Just quite surprised that its so secretive.

only person who got close that I know of is Allan Holdsworth. But that is a whole different type of jazz. Still one of my fave's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wts2Mw6Nb5s
_________________
Stefan
Bill Hatcher custom 12 string Lap Steel Guitar
E13#9/F secrets: https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress.com

"Give it up for The Lap Steel Guitarist"

Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Man, there is no shortcut to any of this and no one way. The only thing that all will agree on is transcription, not only of the solos, but of the changes. You need to understand where the reharmonizations come from.

It’s good to practice scales in ALL intervals. When I say scales, that is especially including melodic, harmonic minor and major, octatonic (diminished). A lesson with a great guitar player taught me about adding chromaticism to playing arpeggios (on a single string). Approach each tone with approach notes or as they often call them “enclosures”. This is how you start to break free of sounding like you’re playing scales. There are a lot of great sites that offer instructional videos, such as My Music Masterclass, Jazz Heaven and Open Studio. I’ve checked them out. MMM is really great.

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Tim, you are too, too kind.

Another book recommendation here, but not to teach any particular method:
Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation by Paul Berliner.

Through a series of interviews and studies, the author presents a very deep analysis of the many different methods and techniques used in jazz improvisation and how many of the greats learned to improvise. It is a must read, IMO. The price is a little high right now at Amazon but maybe you can find a used copy or a copy in your library. Amazon tells me I bought it in 2012, and I’m pretty sure it was only about $5 for the kindle version then.

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