Unpacking Little Blue: Jacob explains re-harmonizing chords and melody

What a fun conversation this was! Stay tuned for my transcription and tutorial for "Never Gonna Be Alone" coming up next. Please SUBSCRIBE to stay posted. Find all my Jacob tutorials here: bit.ly/JCtutorials

Bruh.. I figured out why I love jacob.. like most of the things he says I already knew separately but it’s the way he connects them as if there are no rules 😮

Justin, I LITERALLY tripped over this and decided to watch cause it's Jacob... Everything happens for a reason. Thank you SOOOO much for having done this and asking the question you did!!! Wishing you all the Best... Cheers

Dear Justin. I subscribed to you some time ago - and I'm not even a guitarist! Collier is so appealing for many reasons - but my favorite is his humility and joy. I really found this interview/conversation delightful. I just want to say that you are quite wonderful yourself. As the saying goes: like unto like - and you blend right in with the depth and quality and joy and enthusiasm that Jacob so abundantly possesses. Thank you. The world of music is shifting - it makes me smile at the thought.

The value in this is off the charts. Thanks so much for sharing! He really voiced a feeling I've had for a long time about not necessarily requiring complex chords for reharmonization.

YESSSS!!! So generous with his time and knowledge. What a treat for sure.

Thanks for posting this nice Q&A on reharmonizing. Collier's way of thinking resonates in such an easy way, since he's focused on play and creativity and fun and the nature of sound itself rather than the theory and theoretical description of it. I got a kick out of when he picked up the guitar and bumped it a couple of times on the piano but it didn't phase him for an instant. He probably played that guitar for one or two of those Grammys sitting there, but he was focused on talking to YOU and US and that was more important to him than any ding on a guitar. Love it!

This is brilliant, Justin! Great question and such a thoughtful response from Jacob. I love this and thank you for sharing it! ❤

I really enjoyed your question on the patron stream - this was great! And I loved your videos on Jacob’s tuning.

It was great to hear that Jacob was inspired by Ted Greene for some of his harmonic skills. I took some lessons from Ted Greene in the early 1980’s at the same time that I was studying guitar at USC. He wasn’t a teacher at USC but someone fortunately recommended that I take lessons from him cause at the time I was playing a lot of solo guitar pieces. Ted was an amazingly musical guitar player and is renowned and revered by many other famous guitar players including Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, session guitar legend Jay Grayson, and countless others. Ted’s one album was actually called Solo Guitar and it’s really worth checking out, it’s filled with beautiful modulations and harmonic gems. The second piece Jacob played was called “A Certain Smile” that I learned from Ted to play at my senior recital in 1985. One thing I did back in my years studying with Ted was I figured out how many ways that I could play various 3 note inversions of a simple G triad on the guitar. I think I found 88 ways (or was it 188?…) I limited myself to 3 note voicing on that study but to hear that Jacob did something similar but much more complex with 4 note chords where he kept the Eb as his bass note and the G on top and then tried every possible chord he could come up with the 15 notes that fall between. Since he’s picking out 2 additional notes out of those 15 that fall between then the result would a huge number of interesting 4 note chords some of which would “tickle’ the ears in different ways and lead him to different places/chords than where more standard diatonic harmony would have led him to. Fascinating and brilliant. It’s such a treat to live in a time to be able to witness Jacob’s musical brilliance and it’s very heartwarming to hear that Ted Greene was one of his musical inspirations. That harmonic genius flowed out of Ted as well and I agree that everyone should check out Ted’s one album Solo Guitar and all of the YouTube videos people have posted of Ted teaching or playing. Sadly he passed away and only recorded the one record (and released 4 instructional books) but his album (and many live lesson recordings people have posted) demonstrate his harmonic genius.

Awesome conversation Justin! Can't wait to see more of your vids unpacking his music... Just a brilliant musical mind!!! Hope to see you soon!!!

That was awesome! It constantly astounds me how far what Ted had to offer ripples out into the world. I told Ted the story once of how I was traveling in a very remote area in Fiji and I had a copy of chord chemistry with me. At the time I was playing at night with the Local tribe, and the men playing music at night, and I actually had a guitar with me. And in the morning a young man was asking me all these questions about chords and how I was able to play along with what they were doing. I gifted him the copy of Ted's Book and Ted laughed and said "somewhere in the world, at some point, there's going to be this monstrous Fijian guitar player who knows all the chords! Lol it's amazing to hear that Jacob makes a connection because I know Ted would've loved what Mr. Collier is doing.

Nice to see a genius like Jacob acknowledge the Genius of Ted Greene. Ted is one of the few musicians that has brought me to tears with his playing. Thanks for spreading the gospel of Ted, Jacob. He is, indeed, the Man.

Brilliant conversation with Jacob!!! Ted Greene aka "Chord chemist" was one of the most inspirational players and brilliant mind ever existed. No mystery Jacob digs him so much, he was a true master.

This is fantastic, thank you!

amazing stuff, thanks for that. thank god for Jacob.

Your questions were incredibly well informed, this was a wonderful interview!! I had a lot of questions about the chord shapes on the 5 string, as well as why Jacob uses certain harmonic options, all which was answered here!!

How cool. Good for you and as always Jacob incredibly kind and gracious with his time and focus on you and your question.

Brilliant! Thank you. Best wishes. 🌞🤸🏽‍♂️🫶🏼🖖🏼✌🏼

ughh I missed this one for a jazz lesson lol. Awesome question excited for the next zoom hang!