I think I've hit a brick wall.

Thanks! I'm familiar with all of those sites except for the Charlie Christian one... the "method" pages are great!

And here's another site for anyone into this sort of stuff.

http://guitar-masters.com/

here somthing i like to do, dont know if itll help but...  I like to play songs I already know in totally different ways.  Arranging it differently or just strumming different.  You can make a pretty cool funky type song with stairway just by changing your strums (that is strumming in a funk type way instead of fingerpicking the intro.).  Try it, its fun.

That's a good point - House Of The Rising Sun done Reggae sounds really cool. Try "Working Man" from the first Rush album as a Reggae jam - it'll blow your brains.

After all, interpretation is paramount.

A :-)

Wow!!!  write this one down, i actually made a point!!!  And a good one at that!!!

Wow ,great thread....
Now this is an interesting topic!

First of all I love Steely Dan and secondly this type of chord movement (transposition) and root movement is interesting.

I'd like to learn how this stuff all works too.  :D

okay, for example:
"As for the Dmaj7-Cmaj7-Bmaj7-Amaj7 thing, I really can't put it any simpler than this:

The guy wanted to go from D to A.

He liked the sound of maj7th chords.

Using the same shape and just moving it is a lot easier than changing shape each time.

Moving down or up 1 semitone or 1 wholetone always sounds OK, no matter what key you are in.  It is a useful trick to know if you want to change keys.

Okay,so that explains the WHY but what about the HOW .....as in..... how do you land?

Where do you land?

How do you control it?

I take it this could be any shape or note grouping or riff?

What other chord types/shapes and root movements(cycles) will work,what diatonically and non-diatonically(equidistant movements) /cycles will work while transposing the same shape around and how do you know where to land or where you have landed?

whew,that was a mouthful  :P

I hope I am asking a question that makes sense?  :-/

He probably chose to go from D up to A  because shifting down a fourth is a nice kind of transition with a feeling of movement.  He had his starting and ending chords in his head, both seventh chords since he liked them.  There was something missing in the middle though, he decided to fill the gap with a straight walk down the fretboard.

So that's why again.

He knew where he wanted to land since he had the note (the root note of the chord) decided upon before he came up with the little walk bit.  He was going from the note D to the note A, so he took a movable seventh chord with the root on the D, and he slid it (literally just sliding his hand) up the fretboard until the root note in the chord shape was located on an A note.

You know where to land when you get the idea, because you have to decide on a place to land before putting the walk in (well, not exactly, but if you have the movement in mind before hand it's easier to structure the progression).   You figure out where you are from the root note of the chord.

The whole point of transposing  a chord shape like that is to create a sliding, or steadily moving in steps feel.  Since you use the same shape for each of the chords, staying in key is impossible, so you have free reign when deciding what it is you will move, it can be a riff, chord, whatever.  Just so long as it is the exact same pattern in relation to the note it starts on, the effect is maintained.

I hope I'm making an answer that makes sense.

Sure Paul,it makes perfect sense!

I like your logic as to the WHY part of it.
I hope argus takes a look at your first paragraph:
He probably chose to go from D up to A  because shifting down a fourth is a nice kind of transition with a feeling of movement.  He had his starting and ending chords in his head, both seventh chords since he liked them.  There was something missing in the middle though, he decided to fill the gap with a straight walk down the fretboard.

And as for the HOW I think you make some more logical points as well:
You know where to land when you get the idea, because you have to decide on a place to land before putting the walk in (well, not exactly, but if you have the movement in mind before hand it's easier to structure the progression).   You figure out where you are from the root note of the chord.

You're making good sense!

Then I was trying to push it further into the area of modulation when I said this:
How do you control it?

I take it this could be any shape or note grouping or riff? <--- note:I was hinting at melodic sequencing here ... either diatonic or nondiatonic

What other chord types/shapes and root movements(cycles) will work,what diatonically and non-diatonically(equidistant movements) /cycles will work while transposing the same shape around and how do you know where to land or where you have landed?

And then you adress this fairly decently in your final paragraph:
The whole point of transposing  a chord shape like that is to create a sliding, or steadily moving in steps feel.  Since you use the same shape for each of the chords, staying in key is impossible, so you have free reign when deciding what it is you will move, it can be a riff, chord, whatever.  Just so long as it is the exact same pattern in relation to the note it starts on, the effect is maintained.

I think I pretty much get everything but am still a little iffy in the modulation area....but the gray area IS disappearing!

So I'd say you've been very helpful Paul. ;D

This is all stuff I'm trying to figure out so I'm happy as hell that I found this site and am getting all this great help.It's interesting that there are these related topics to what I am asking about all around here such as the borrowed chords thread and some others etc. WHAT AMAZING LUCK!

THanks loads for the help!

[p.s. THIS SITE RULES!]

Guitar Noise rules !!!