Asgard and Midgard Chords  − 2 November, 2002

On this day, I began developing my own set of chord voicings for jazz guitar.

Why?

Simple: the people who came up with most of the jazz voicings I'd seen up to this point either 1.) had much longer and more flexible fingers than I, or 2.) were Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four. Some of the fingerings I saw in books were just impossible for me to hold.

So I actually began a systematic study of chords and voicings. I thought of every possibility, and developed a system of shapes I've used ever since. Now, the actual details are a bit on the technical side, but I think you can understand my key points:

1. I'm assuming there's a bass player, so for a chord like C major 7th, I don't need to include the root note, C. I can if I really want to, but it is not a necessity.
   
2. Also assuming there's a bass player, I want to stay away from any notes that are too low, and would get in their way.
3. I do, however, have to include at least one of the guide tone notes. For Cmaj7, this would be either E or B. (Some Jazz Theory Nazis say you always have to include both, but they're losers, and have evidently never listened to Thelonious Monk.)
4. I want the top (or highest) note in the chord to be something from the scale that defines the chord. Therefore, for a seven note scale like melodic minor, I want at least seven chord variations, going all the way up the fretboard in series.
5. I have to be able to hold them reliably and move between them quickly.
6. Also, it'd be nice if I could completely change the sound of the chord just by moving one finger.

Whew. As you can guess, all that took a while. November 2nd, 2002, was the day I began my analysis. I would still be working on it months later.

I came up with three main groups of chords. Now, you have to understand something about me: I have an internal language all my own, and the problem someone reading my music notebooks would have would be decoding my shorthand, abbreviations, and nicknames. In this case, the three families of chords I use are the following:

• t4 or Asgard chords -- "t4" just stands for "top four." These are chords made on the highest four strings on the guitar, often with unusual voicings (for example, my common voicing for Am7b5 is Eb-A-D-G, which doubles as Cm69 and F13 -- notice for Am7b5, there's no minor 3rd note, C, but it works anyway).
• d2 or Midgard chords -- "d2" stands for "drop two." These chords are played exclusively on the middle four strings. Take a five note jazz chord like Cmaj9 = C E G B D; drop the root note, and you have Em7 = E G B D. Now, here's the trick: drop the 2nd highest note so it is the lowest note. E G B D becomes B E G D -- and you have a great voicing for Cmaj7.
• bb or Bossa Bombs -- a later style I developed that makes use of chord voicings on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings -- then picks and chooses between notes on the 5th or 6th strings. Useful in chords for, well, bossa nova type tunes, hence the name.
• 6-3's -- Two note chord voicings, based on intervals of sixths or thirds. Often these are played in a quick series to outline the actual sound of the chord. A good example of this in practice is "My Own Avalon" (from my apocrypha album, on DMusic.)
  
• Open or Psycho chords -- Basically, since I hate the traditional guitar chord shapes, I came up with my own "illegal" versions of them, chords that intentionally sounded a bit dissonant, creepy, sad, or alien. One of the best examples of "Psycho" chords was on "Missing You (Song for Hannah)", track 7 on evolution (my first Jamendo album).

Holy cow. You know, I never saw all these written out and explained before -- I just do them, now, without thinking. That was a lot of work!

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