[Dixielandjazz] European chord symbols

[Mic from Burgundy]

Jim Kashishian ecrivait (wrote),  le (on) 26/01/2006 16:33 :
> 
> Ain't Misbehavin'
> http://www.massifjazz.com/images/aintmis.jpg
> 
> 
> Craig, you've got it all wrong.  The "left-hand, right-hand" notation is not
> for the bass.  It is dividing the measure up into half....the left hand side
> of the slash being beats 1 & 2, and the right hand side are beats 3 & 4.
> 
> To clarify:  if you look at Ain't Misbehavin, the verse, bar one has a slash
> from corner to corner with Eb being played on beats 1 & 2, and Bb9 being
> played on 3 & 4.  Then on bar 15 of the verse, you have the measure divided
> in three parts, the bigger top half being beats 1 & 2 with G being played,
> and the A7 in the small bottom right half (beat 3) and D7 being played in
> the last little square which is beat 4 of the measure.
> 
> Looks real childish, but it is a way of writing out chords very, very
> quickly.  For those that memorize their chord changes, it would seem to be a
> very "visual" way of putting it to memory.
> 
> Most of the chords in that collection are quite good, by the way, and if
> your band follows them, you can't go wrong.  (Nasty bit is the chord players
> don't get a hint as to what the melody is!)
> 
> By the way, as far as I know, that is a French way of writing & may have
> been actually invented by the people that did those books.  It is not
> European, as such.
> 
Hello Jim and all.

Jim's explanation sounds right to me. I'm based on a book (in French
language, unfortunately for only English speakers) where Philippe
Baudoin give some explanations about the chord notation he use.

I made an excerpt of the Baudoin's book "Jazz mode d'emploi". It is
here: http://minilien.com/?9l05E39nni

Page 24 : some tables indicate the correspondence between the various
chord notations.

Page 29 : some explanation and charts about the "european charts".

I'm not a fluently English speaker/writer, but perhaps if you have some
questions Gary is able to enlighten about the document above ;-)

Best regards.

Mic (from Burgundy)