Gospel Jazz guitar

[PosterBoy]

Where can I find lesson material to learn this style?

Is it worth getting a product like this and then using Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry to find the chord shapes on guitar, or is there similar for guitar?

[frdagaa]

What are you actually wanting to learn? How to play these chords on guitar? Why these particular chords work together in this progression and sound good? Guitar arrangements of particular songs in this idiom? Probably different answers for each.

Some chord books I like are Steve Khan's Contemporary Chord Khancepts, Jon Damian's The Chord Factory, and of course the Ted Greene stuff .. though that is so dense I don't usually turn to it much.

[PosterBoy]

More the approach of the chord choice of this style (the video was more of an example of the style and what's out there for piano tuition) etc. I'm guessing coming from a rock background I need to go from the basics and theory.

Charts that show lots of examples would be good too.

[PosterBoy]

I'll look into the other books you suggested thanks

[frdagaa]

The Khan book has a section on Gospel Blues, suggesting voicings, etc. There's a song where everything is notated out (and in tab) and it's on the accompanying CD I think. It's not as jazzy as what you have in this video, though.

Both the books are great. The Damian is unusual but I guarantee that if you were to work through it in a dedicated fashion you will advance quickly into these types of chords.

[russ6100]

Robben Ford has a video...the one that has "Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" on it....the chord voicings are very gospel-ish....

EDIT: It's called The Blues and Beyond.

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by PosterBoy

Where can I find lesson material to learn this style?

Is it worth getting a product like this and then using Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry to find the chord shapes on guitar, or is there similar for guitar?

If you're going to learn this sort of thing, I think it helps to stop thinking of chords in terms of shapes. Learn the underlying theory of how these chords are constructed and then learn how to play them on a guitar. That may sound a bit daunting but it can be done and it can be done in a fairly organized way. Feel free to contact me if you want some specifics.

[guitarjazz]

Originally Posted by PosterBoy

Where can I find lesson material to learn this style?

Is it worth getting a product like this and then using Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry to find the chord shapes on guitar, or is there similar for guitar?

One thing that strikes me is that you should learn the piano keyboard if you don't already. The guy is showing you the top note of every chord, if you can't hear it.
There isn't one chord book that covers everything but it would be good to assemble a little library including the books mentioned so far.

[Sammo]

+ 1 on learning the piano! I've been doing that tryining to learn some gospel harmony among other things.

I think you may like this Rene Del Fierro clip -- it's not same but in ballbark:



It's not tutorial but it might give you ideas how to incorporate those harmonies in guitaristic ways.

Ted Greene had several gospel blues lesson sheets and they are available at www.tedgree.com ... If you google "ted greene gospel" you should find them there.

The gospel musician seem to have amazing sense of harmony. For example Eddie Brown:

[JonR]

Originally Posted by PosterBoy

Where can I find lesson material to learn this style?

Is it worth getting a product like this and then using Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry to find the chord shapes on guitar, or is there similar for guitar?

I would call that style pure jazz harmony (typical in jazz ballads). I don't hear anything I would call "Gospel" in it, although of course Gospel can be played with those advanced type of jazz chords.

IOW, if it's those kind of chords you're interested in (rather than Gospel music as such), then jazz harmony is what you need to study. But there's some really complex stuff going on there. Not only extra extensions and alterations, but functional substitutions.

Eg - to pick just one example - the first couple of chords (A9b5 - Abmaj7) are a bII-I cadence in Ab major, with the A9b5 being a "tritone sub" for the V7 of Ab (Eb7).

So the first thing to be sure you understand is how "functional harmony" works. That's basically the notion of chord progressions, where you assign roman numerals to indicate the job a chord is doing in the sequence. Eg, when a chord is a "V", that doesn't just mean it's built on the 5th degree of the scale: it has a "dominant function", which is to lead to the tonic (I).
These functional moves - at least in jazz - are assisted by various kinds of "voice-leading". So, in classical theory, the usual leading tones are 7-1 and 4-3 - half-step moves in each case. Eg, sticking with key of Ab major, that would be G-Ab and Db-C. In an Eb7 chord, you get both G and Db, making a tritone which "pulls" towards the Ab-C major 3rd in the tonic chord.
It so happens that an A9b5 chord contains the same inner tritone (G-C# in this case). So it can be used to resolve to Ab major just as well. Moreover, you obviously have an A note, which can descend a half-step to Ab (or go up to the 9th on an Abmaj7). And you also have a B natural (the 9th) which can go up a half-step to the C of the Ab chord (or indeed down to the 9th, Bb).
IOW, although the chord is strictly "out of key", you get a whole lot of half-step moves to the tonic, which is why it works.

So it's not just about how delicious those extended chords sound in their own right (although it's partly that); it's how they lead and make logical sense in a progression.

Here's two possible shapes on guitar for those 2 chords:

---------------------------
---4----4------------------
---4----5------------------
---5----5------------------
---4----6------------------
---5----4-----------------

You don't get all the voice-leading moves there (you miss the Db-C), but you get an idea of the closeness of each voice move. Eg, the b5 of A is the 5th of Ab, and is of course the root of the V7 chord it's replacing. (You could interpret A9b5 as "Eb7#5/A")

Try this slightly trickier pair (it may help to fret the Ab with your thumb)

---7----6------------------
---4----4------------------
---6----5------------------
---5----5------------------
---0----------------------
--------4-----------------

Now you get the top B coming down to Bb (9th of Abmaj7) as well as the C#/Db coming down to C. You still miss the "classical" rise from G to Ab, but jazz tends to prefer just hanging on the G so it becomes the maj7 of the tonic (another option would be to take it down a tone to F, the 6th of Ab).


FWIW, I see the "Gospel" influence as a tendency towards the "sweeter" harmonies (even in jazz ballads, many players like to go for more "out" stuff sometimes, not hold so much to "mellow" all the way). A very simple way to bring that into blues, say, is to go more for major pent than minor pent. The vintage gospel singers always gravitated to major pent (of the key, over all the chords), and people like Sam Cooke rarely sang anything else.
Of course, once you get into harmonies like these, that kind of goes out the window, but I still hear a very "major" sweetness to most of what's going on. (Minors and dissonances occur, but they seem to be just temporary contrasts to the main deal, which is apparently maj7s or maj13s of various kinds, albeit sometimes with bluesy approaches.)

[PosterBoy]

Definitely need to walk before I can run with this stuff. Lots of great advice and infothanks.

Jon, I always have to read your posts a good few times, I really appreciate the time you take with your posts, you give so much information, and so much more for me to think about

[djbrough]

You need to listen to guitar players who play this style of music. There's another thread on here about it as well, but here's a few names to look up on youtube:

Tim Stewart
Jairus Mozee
Rick Watford
Eric Walls
Agape Jerry
Jubu Smith
Jonathan Dubose
Lawrence Jones
Ede Wright

The style that your looking for is a mixture of of old-school gospel, fusion jazz, and blues. Contemporary gospel really defines this sound right now. I know a few of those guys on the list, and they are very approachable. I know that Ede teaches in Atlanta and also offers Skype (and he's reasonable). It's worth looking him up.

[GovernorSilver]

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

If you're going to learn this sort of thing, I think it helps to stop thinking of chords in terms of shapes. Learn the underlying theory of how these chords are constructed and then learn how to play them on a guitar. That may sound a bit daunting but it can be done and it can be done in a fairly organized way. Feel free to contact me if you want some specifics.

+1

That is how I was able to transfer some chords I learned off of the "Urban and Contemporary Worship" DVD from piano to guitar.

Some of the piano chord voicings are not exactly transferrable because there are more than 6 notes in them, but if you know your intervals and chord construction you can make educated decisions about what notes to omit and what to keep.

[Matt Sarad]

Move to Bakersfield and take lessons from Waylon Petty. He is a guitar teacher genius who plays jazz guitar in the Pentocostal church. Imagine Joe Pass in polyester pants, a short sleeved shirt and tie playing church music.

[bobmc]

I add (with some reservation) Dr. John's book/CD New Orleans Piano Vol III;
"Sanctifying the Blues"

I got it cheap and work with it occasionally for both ear training (I like to work on learning from instruments other than guitar) other and note reading exercise.

Not the clearest teaching by any means, but there are a couple of nuggets in there. Look for it used.