The Shadow of Your Smile

[elixzer]

I just found this interesting reply you gave in another thread:

The year I spent setting aside scales, modes, books, etc. And just concentrated on teaching myself chord melody through trial and error was the best thing I ever did for my playing...I learned the fretboard inside out, learned how to construct chords, started truly visualizing chords as pools of notes (not just "grips")which helped my improv too.

The most important thing it showed me though was that even a music as complex as jazz is still about playing songs.

https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/jazzg...want-play.html

I would be very grateful if you explained more about your breakthrough in more detail please?

[mr. beaumont]

It's something I realized in the process...

It wasn't as much a breakthrough as it was a slow realization about things that eventually really made sense...I'll try to find some time a little later to really post about the whole process...it might get long!

[2bornot2bop]

You want as many places to play each chord as you can under your belt...

One of your goals in comping the chords of a tune should be to do it without flying all over the neck...another goal should be to create smooth voice leading or keep common voices between chords.

The end goal should be to be able to play any chord anywhere with any note on top in the melody. The only way to do this is to have the fretboard down cold and learn how to build chords...if you just try to memorize a bunch of shapes, you'll never get there...

I reccomend breaking things down...major, minor, dominant...Once you know how to build chords, you'll quickly be able to figure out that all an Em6 is is a Em triad plus a C#. Eventually, you'll also be able to make decisions about how many notes you really need to get the point of a chord across (for example, a 13th chord can have seven notes in it...but you're not going to do that on the guitar!)

Excellent information all around. And yes a "13th" chord only requires a 3rd, b7, and 6th(13th) to convey a 13th chord.

[2bornot2bop]

A "2" chord (often called a sus) Implies Root, 2nd, and fifth...no 3rd, no 7th...

It may be worth noting that in jazz "sus" chords are more commonly used to describe a Suspended 4th, and not a sus2nd chord. In all my days I've never seen a sus2 chord on a jazz leadsheet.


"Sus" is chord shorthand for a SUSPENDED chord, referring to the omission of the 3rd and the 4th being used in its place. A Root, 2, 5 chord isn't a jazz chord.

I'm open to hearing more about this "sus2" chord. Personally I'd not see a purpose to attempt to voice that combination, even while not playing jazz.

[elixzer]

It's something I realized in the process...

It wasn't as much a breakthrough as it was a slow realization about things that eventually really made sense...I'll try to find some time a little later to really post about the whole process...it might get long!

I really will look forward to it.

I have an improvisational nature. I have never really dug the 'learn some songs' --this is pre-getting into Jazz--and then just keep doing them and adding to the list. My way was finding some chords, and creating my own stuff which I have recorded--even if only one chord and singing over it
So it will very suit me to really understand how chords voice and colour and relate, and to also improve ear training so on the fly, and solo, so I can find my own creations of possible tunes and melodies, and/or 'my own' version of The Shadow of Your Smile, Round Midnight, etc

I am very interested in Shell chords, because I struggle with the full Jazz chord grips. my hands are small and my wrist bends and aches when I do the full grips too much, so instead of that I need to work around it and find other means to voice chords. I believe that Gypsy Jazz uses shell chords a lot?
I also love when I see guitarists play and they seem to be playing very freely with both left and right hand--not full barring, and fingerstyle

[mr. beaumont]

seems gypsy jazz chords are often four strings, electric jazz is all over the map, freddie green style is usually only two notes...

Alright, so my year of revelation...

First a little preface...I got into jazz in high school, but I didn't think I was capable of playing it, so I didn't even try...I floundered for a while, learning little bits here and there, having a stint in college where I moved away from the guitar a bit and composed electronic music, found myself growing tired of that and getting back to jazz by junior year, still floundering, etc...

About 10 years ago I graduated college and got back into guitar playing...somewhere around that time I heard a recording of Wes Montgomery playing a chord melody of "I've grown accustomed to her face" and I felt like I did when I first picked up a guitar...I simply HAD to do that.

I was working my first full time teaching job and dating the woman who'd end up as my wife...I didn't have $ for lessons really, so I went about it on my own..I did a little online research, bought a real book, picked "Misty" because I loved the tune, and set out to create a chord melody for it.

I had taken lessons when I was younger so I understood the basic idea of finding chords everywhere, so I painstakingly went through and figured out how to put the melody note on top of every chord of the tune. My first attempt took at least two weeks, and sucked, but by the end I had learned a bunch...and a bunch of new chords that I went back and figured out the names of.

Around this time, I started teaching guitar lessons on the side as I was trying to save up enough money to buy a house...Through a twist of fate I ended up teaching at the same little music studio I took lessons at as a kid...the place was owned by a husband/wife duo, the former of which was a monster jazz piano player...just great. He'd hear me tinkering with ideas in between students, and poke his head through the door of the room I was in and say things like "flat the nine there" or "try a m/maj7 instead."

By the time I had ten arrangements under my belt I knew literally hundreds of new-to-me chords. It was pretty much a year before I even thought of practicing anything else...then an opportunity popped up to fill in for a guy and play some cocktail music with a singer...first rehearsal she points at me for my solo on "Satin Doll" and I decline, happy just to play backup...but I went home and said, "Well, if I'm gonna play jazz I gotta be able to improvise too."

I had done some very basic jazz improvising with my teacher back in high school, and flubbed around with some stuff on my own since then...I was essentially using a mish-mash of CST, arpeggios, pentatonics with chromatics, anything I was able to haphazardly smush together over ten years of guitar playing...having not practiced improvising in well over a year I figured it would be a really rough go, but I found the opposite...I knew the fretboard so much better...I could visualize things very cleanly, I could hear things in my head and find them (almost) simultaneously on the guitar...after a few months of this sort of practice the fretboard really started to light up with possibilities every time the chord changed. Soo I was finding myself able to see more than one voice at a time when I improvised...that was really cool...

It's been 10 more years of working on that stuff since. I'm not great, but I can hang in a lot of situations and get through most tunes with a chart, some just by ear (which is still terrifying!) I figure in another 10 years I might not be too bad at this jazz thing!

So that's pretty much my story...it all comes back to chords...

[Gerard45]

I play it this way, with my own intro (descending bass-line):

[elixzer]

As soon as I read your inspiration from the Wes Montgomery I went to Ytube to hear it, and it is cool. I noticed this comment there:

Tell me about it.I studied classical guitar for many years, dabbled in Gypsy jazz, but the chord voicings in the song are wicked hard! That's the reason this simple melody sounds so rich and full - some crazy fingering going on just to support a simple melodic phrase. Very creative.

Maybe that is one reason I am not that crazy on getting to hung up in playing standard songs (though I DO realize the value of this for experience), because it could be easy to always compare yourself with someone you think you can never reach, and this could undermine your own unique creativity.

I did a little online research, bought a real book, picked "Misty" because I loved the tune, and set out to create a chord melody for it.

So a 'real book' is a book with all the songs in? And I am guessing it was just chords, and not single melody notes? I am doing that with the tune I am doing by singing. So I am trying to understand----you wanted to add colour to the chords? add extension notes? like 9ths, etc?

So you say you had already learned chords all over the neck? I am assuming 7th chords? and that when you found the melody line notes added to them this changed them into chords you needed to find a new name to? lol

Thanks for sharing all that. Interesting story

[2bornot2bop]

Reharmonized version from my piano days:

Intro: 8 bar vamp

GMaj C13+11 GMaj C13+11 GMaj C13+11

GMaj C13+11 C#13+11 rest 1 beat then to pickup notes


F#-7 C7+11 B7b9 F7add9 E-7 A7+11

A-7 Eb7+11 D13b9 Ab9b5 Gmaj6 Db7+11+9 Cmaj7#11

F#-7(b5) B7+5 F7b9 E-7 E-7/D

C#7+9b5 G7 F#7+9+5 B7 C7 B7b9


F#7+9 F#half dim/B B7:

A-7 A-Bb-B- C-7 F7 B-7 F7+11 B-/E E7b9

A13 Eb7+11 A-/D D7b9 GMaj C7+11 Gmaj C7+11 C#7+11 to head

The intro is used on Pieces of a dreams version of TSOYS:

[2bornot2bop]

I've got this 1968 transcription book of Wes Montgomery that's been out of print for decades.

It features Wes' note for note Verve recording transcription of The Shadow Of Your Smile as well as Wes favorites:

Bumpin' on Sunset
Bumpin'
Boss City
Tear It Down
Lara's Theme from Dr. Zhivago
Laura
On Green Dolphin Street
Theme from Valley of the Dolls
If You Could See Me Now
Windy
Stairway To The Stars
Tequila
and of course The Shadow Of Your Smile

I don't know if copyright issues are in order so its probably not kewl to scan and paste here, but when I get the chance to write it out on paper I'll scan and post it. Great octave solo notation...pricelss stuff.

[2bornot2bop]

About 10 years ago I graduated college and got back into guitar playing...somewhere around that time I heard a recording of Wes Montgomery playing a chord melody of "I've grown accustomed to her face" and I felt like I did when I first picked up a guitar...I simply HAD to do that.

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

I've got Wes' note for note guitar transcription of "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face."

Here's a real decent tube transcription too:

[elixzer]

Great advice from these guys. I can't stress enough the importance to understand how chords are built and how to find their extensions (colors)......

Something that was not mentioned here was when learning break downs of triads, Major, minor, dim...or when adding the next logical extension the 7th, giving you M7, Dom 7, min7, half dim (-7b5) or full dim (-bb7b5), try keeping all of these voices rooted in one key. So do C, C-, Cdim triads, then CM7, C7, C-7, C-7b5, C dim (C-bb7b5). If you do this you will be cycling through different keys while staying on one root. You should do this the same way with both inversions of the triad and all three inversions of the 7th chords. When you get it all down in one key do the same thing with another key. You could use the circle of fifths to use as your guide choosing the next key. Go for either G or F etc... This will give you a very powerful insight into what is going on as well as letting you play these shapes all over the neck, opening many new doors for you..

Good luck..

I have started reading this thread from the beginning because there are so many pieces of wisdom here that it is silly to just not absorb and go deeper with whats already being suggested for me to do.

I thought I would quote brownhornet59, about a practice to keep all voices in one key. This is how I began learning triads (still AM learning them of course), well I did G, C, and D, along the three top strings, and then found you could find them in about three positions (this is what Mr B emphasizes about finding chords in closed positions and not jumping all over the neck), but I of course have gone on to find all the Cs, Bs, etc and their positions on the sets of strings, and their different forms, and inversions.

With 7ths, I have been mainly string the grips with root notes on lower E, A, and D strings, in thier Maj7, m7, 7, -7b5, and fully diminished shapes--how they change into one another. But am not yet savvy to how to find their inversions, yet, which give different voicings, and top melody notes, as Mr B puts it:

One of your goals in comping the chords of a tune should be to do it without flying all over the neck...another goal should be to create smooth voice leading or keep common voices between chords.

The end goal should be to be able to play any chord anywhere with any note on top in the melody. The only way to do this is to have the fretboard down cold and learn how to build chords...if you just try to memorize a bunch of shapes, you'll never get there...

&

I learned this in kind of a weird way...because I dove headfirst into chord melody and solo arrangements, I was sort of forced to learn inversions in order to get the chords I needed with the melody note I needed on top...I never went about it systematically...I know a lot of folks do, so hopefully they'll chime in as to what worked for them...

LOL, I like learning in weird ways to, and so would like to also begin exploring inversion now as I did straightaway with the triads.

brwnhornet59--I think I dug most of what you said but not sure I do this:
(I bold the bit I am not sure about:

So do C, C-, Cdim triads, then CM7, C7, C-7, C-7b5, C dim (C-bb7b5). If you do this you will be cycling through different keys while staying on one root. You should do this the same way with both inversions of the triad and all three inversions of the 7th chords. When you get it all down in one key do the same thing with another key. You could use the circle of fifths to use as your guide choosing the next key. Go for either G or F etc... This will give you a very powerful insight into what is going on as well as letting you play these shapes all over the neck, opening many new doors for you..

I have troubkle a bit with abstract thinking (i was always crap with math) how do mean BOTH inversions of the triad? Aren't there 3 inversions of a triad, root, first and second---trhough of course you may mean inversion is inversion orf root which is counted as inversion)? But then you say there are THREE inversions of of the 7th chords? And I assume, by 'get it all down in one key' you mean the root being on top middle or lower string,,,,,,, which I dont know how that works out for 4 string 7ths?

[brwnhornet59]

The root in the bass would not be considered an inversion. Chords built with the 3rd or 5th on the bottom are the inversions. So you have the root position and two inversions in a standard triad.

When you add the 7th to the triad now you are dealing with the root and three inversions on a given string set. Make sense?

[elixzer]

The root in the bass would not be considered an inversion. Chords built with the 3rd or 5th on the bottom are the inversions. So you have the root position and two inversions in a standard triad.

I can understand that when--with a triad--the key note is in roote position it is not an inversion, but then when the key note alters position it becomes the two inversions, yes.

When you add the 7th to the triad now you are dealing with the root and three inversions on a given string set. Make sense?

So now I can add the 7th to a triad. And you say that now I am dealing with a root and THREE inversions on a given string set? It makes sense that instead of a possible 3 and 5, we now have a 7, so we have either root key note or different inversions of 3,5 or 7? have I got it?

[brwnhornet59]

That's it!

[elixzer]

That's it!

Great!

So next question. For example, The Cmajor7 is on 6th string 8th fret. It is 4 strings because 5th or A string is not played, right?....so. That seems like the root position Cmajor7 , and also you can transform it into C7, Cm7, Cm7b5, and fully diminished, etc.. ALL with root on lower string. So I am guessing there are three inversions to find. Would the notes be on 6th string where the 5th string is dampened also. that is what is confusing me

the method of finding the triads and their inversions I am getting. this I aint--yet

[brwnhornet59]

If you are skipping the 5th string, you are now out of a closed position, which is fine. To keep true to a closed triad form you would play either, 875xxx or 8,10,14xx. The first being the easiest.

To add the M7th in closed form..8754xx..810,99xx..87912xx..You get the idea...Stick to standard form for now.

[elixzer]

If you are skipping the 5th string, you are now out of a closed position, which is fine. To keep true to a closed triad form you would play either, 875xxx or 8,10,14xx. The first being the easiest.

To add the M7th in closed form..8754xx..810,99xx..87912xx..You get the idea...Stick to standard form for now.

I am now confused by your teminology:

OK, when I play that Cmajor7 in the 8th fret, root note on 6th string, I am assuming that is THE only way to play it that way because the root note is on the bottom E string. But the way you start off is though I have an option not to skip 5th string?
Up to now I have seen guitar professionals show that grip and say to dampen the 5th string for the 'basic jazz chords' when the root note is on 6th string.

What do you mean then 'if you are skipping the 5th string you are now out of the closed position?

Then you say To keep true to a closed triad form you would play either, 875xxx or 8,10,14xx. The first being the easiest.

But I thought I was playing a 7th chord and not a triad?

So I am a bit confused here

I am not sure if I have made clear why I am confused though?

[brwnhornet59]

Sure..those forms skipping a string are called drop 3 voices. I use them all of the time. I gave you examples in closed forms including drop 2. There are many options...

I showed you closed form options with both the standard triad and the triad with the 7th added..

[elixzer]

Sure..those forms skipping a string are called drop 3 voices. I use them all of the time. I gave you examples in closed forms including drop 2. There are many options...

I showed you closed form options with both the standard triad and the triad with the 7th added..

This is where I am still confused though. Triads no---this yes

[Dad3353]

[pedant] I think that's 'b9' (flattened 9th...), not B9 (B7 with a 9th added...). [/pedant]

[mr. beaumont]

Now, I had only previously kind of glanced at this Real music version of The Shadow of Your Smile. I have just noticed the tabs!

I am familiar now with the shapes for the m7 chords like the first chord F#m7, but THEN I am 'supposed' to go fo that stretcher with first finger on 4th fret B7 to B9 etc...?

So my question is: is this them telling you how it MUST be played? How the written music is.
If your reading this Mr B, I recall you saying about musicians who 'wing it' or something like that which I was confused about cause it seemed to contra-dict something you had previously said about 'there is no right way to play a piece of music'.

So this is what I am asking. How am I to experience looking at this piece of written music?

yeah, I cant really read music yet true, but the tabs seem to be suggesting that this is the way to play it. Would YOU play it like this? Would you for example choose thaty B7 to B9, for example, etc etc etc...? here it is The Shadow of Your Smile : Chord Melody Arrangement PDF

This is a chord melody arrangement...so yeah, they're suggesting you play it as written...which doesn't mean there isn't wiggle room...looks like this arrangement uses a chord to harmonize each melody note...they're not the only chord voicings that would work, but they work.

It's up to you if you wanted to learn this note for note or later take some ideas and inject some of your own into it...

To me it's not really jazz if it doesn't have some room for improvisation...


As far as "winging it"-- lets say the tabs weren't there...the written music part gives you a chord and a melody note...there's plenty of way to play that melody note on top of the chord...if I were winging it, I'd just do that as I went...I know enough places to play each chord, I can read the melody...it might not sound amazing, but I could get through that tune without sitting down and working something out that's a little more "permanent."

When I play solo, there's sort of a shell that I follow for the melody of the tune...I do it similar each time, there's usually spaces I leave where I can improv a bit, or sections I know of three or four was to harmonize and I'll grab whichever one I feel like...after the main melody, then I go into the improv, following the chord changes, but essentially improvising a new melody...

That chart you linked to is a little confusing as the Tab and the chord chart above are have the same melody notes in them, but they're not always in the same place on the neck! Yikes!

[fep]

I could do a video of the Shadow of Your Smile melody played straight as written on that pdf you posted if that's something you want and if it would be helpful. Just ask.

[2bornot2bop]

I am familiar now with the shapes for the m7 chords like the first chord F#m7, but THEN I am 'supposed' to go fo that stretcher with first finger on 4th fret B7 to B9 etc...?

With the Root based on the 7th fret the B7b9 truly isn't that long a stretch. Use a fingering of 3, 4, 2, 1 on the B7 including an implied 9th. Which of course could simply be written as B9 for a dominant or b7 is always implied in a dominant chord type, and then create the B7b9 with the same identical fingering, allowing your 2nd finger to move up one fret moving from a 9th of the B7 chord (C# at the 6th fret 3rd string) to a b9 (C at the 5th fret 2nd string.

I much prefer using Ted Greene's pdf of the Shadow Of Your Smile, carefully outlined for his students which suggests harmonic options (see attached pdf) or simply copy this jpg.

Also as an example I've attached the first 10 bars or so of TSOYS with embellished chord types to give you a quick reference to hear the harmony beneath your own fingers. Disregard the EMaj9#4 chord at the top...I was short of blank sheets. My poor computer skills aside, you'll get the idea the more you do this to each tune you attempt. Having begun just a year ago moving from jazz piano to guitar I too am learning just like you.

The Shadow Of Your Smile is a standard jazz tune and well worth learning. Analyze all the ii-V's and ii-V-I's and discover the patterns embedded throughout this tune so when you begin a new tune you'll say to yourself, "hey this is just another ii-V" I already learned from that other tune. Welcome to jazz.

Also check out Ted Greene's website, created for students. Many of the questions you're asking will become very clear if you spend some time perusing the website. Highly recommended.

Great jazz conversation here. Lovin' it!

[elixzer]

I could do a video of the Shadow of Your Smile melody played straight as written on that pdf you posted if that's something you want and if it would be helpful. Just ask.

I'm Askin...

Just to say this. That I dont want to fall into the block I had last phase which included becoming unnescessarily worried that because my hands are small that I 'cant do' what others do. I mean, fine, I really am looking foreward to you doing this tune, but maybe your hands being larger (and obviously you'll have far more experience than me) you will be able to stretch that that B7/A9 FROM F#m7---so instead of worrying about that in comparison or hoping for my hands to get used to stetching i would chose other means other than what is the 'standard'.