OK, try this!

Lango-Django

I've been trying to get my fingers to stay right on the Givone positions as I improvise, and today I found something that seems to be working for me.

-I chose just two of the positions, the first one on page 20, and the third one on page 24. I chose those two because they use the same fretboard real estate for the tonic and the dominant chord.

- I used Elliott's idea and drew out little fingering charts for just those two shapes. I had to transpose the one from page 24 to fit into the fret 2-to-5 area "D7" area.

(Actually I made an "ascending" and "descending" chart for each shape; you've probably noticed by now that Givone's patterns aren't quite symmetrical going up and going down!)

-Working in an 'easy' key like G, or A, or Bb, or C, I to play just those two of Givone's shapes over an ultra-simple 'three chord wonder' type tune like "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" or "Down by the Riverside"... so far I've just been using my own fingering when I play the subdom chord, but adding that third chord will be my next step, once I'm ready

-At first I try to limit myself to only using Givone's fingerings--- but as I go along for five or ten minutes, I find myself accidentally slipping some of my own variations every now and that's cool too.

Hope this is helpful... good luck!

Will

tomcunn

tried it; like it

Lango-Django

Good, Tom!

Last night I stayed up late and made similar fingering charts for all the other I and V7 pairs of shapes. Today I'm going to try improvising using these pairs too; just one pair at a time of course.

I'll let you know how I make out...

Elliot

I've been thinking about this also - wouldn't there be a simple formula that would apply here?

Lango-Django

Here's my latest brainwave... maybe others will find it helpful.

I made up little tab charts with all Givone's I and V7 forms transposed so that the I forms are all for an F chord and the V7 forms are all for a C7.

That way I can put all my little charts in front of me and practice improvising over all five forms using "Band In A Box" alternating between a couple of bars of F and then a couple of bars of C7.

I chose F as my home key for a couple of reasons---

1) all five forms fit on the fretboard comfortably, if you start with the "D shape" aka "form 5" aka "the one with the starting note as the third of the chord"--- in the case of F major, of course it's an A note.

2) the key of F is a very commonly used key in jazz--- unlike the key of E, which would also fit all five positions comfortably.. D flat would also fit the fretboard pretty well, starting with form 1, aka the "C shape", but for a rank beginner like moi, I think F is better than D flat.

3) And I guess I could've just left the tonic phrases in G like they are in the book, but the reason I didn't want to do that is that I tend to overuse that E shape (form 4) and I wanted to put it up there at the top of the fingerboard so it would be the last one I'd come to!

Plus, I know G is a great key for guitar, but most jazz players I play with tend not to be so keen about it... especially trombone players, for some reason; I've heard some of them claim it puts them in an awkward register where they can't really use either their top or their bottom notes...?
I don't know anything about that, apologies to any lurking trombone players if that's untrue.

Now I'm in Spain right now (a sunny 20 degrees C, woo hoo!) and don't have access to a printer or a scanner. But when I get back home at the end of the month I could scan my little tab charts to share with anyone who's interested via our DropBox.

However, it is my impression that probably most of our group members are longtime players who are probably knowledgable enough to transpose the five forms to make up their own little "F and C7" charts... hope I'm correct, fellas?

Will

PS By the way, I'm finding now that it's not very hard for me to improvise over the Givone shapes--- as long as I just stick to a couple at a time! I don't have them firmly enough in my mind to effortlessly use all five all over the fingerboard yet.

Plus to be honest, I find that D shape aka "form 5" kind of hard to play over, though its dominant twin is quite user-friendly...

Passacaglia

Intrigued. First, need to just get to work physically playing his patterns - but I think I'm getting you, above.

I think. If not, I'm just going to play as if I meant to do that. 8)