Re: What is considered good chord chops?

> But still, bass isn't chord, in my book.  I think of
>orchestrating as comprising four elements: melody, chord, bass, and
>pulse.  When I talk about voice leading from top down, I am referring
>only to the chord element.

I see - that's about the same as for me. 

IIRC,  I think the original context of my statement was that of playing solo
guitar, and how using a combination of drop voicings does the job for me of
dividing the guitar out in a manner similar to a left hand right hand or a
small group. 

If 'building' in four parts is the right way to put it, it would take too many
words to accurately describe the process for me - it's still developing anyway.


Referencing Mark Kleinhaut's post, I try to do 4 or 5 voices simultaneously,
and I tend to hear contrary motion and react to it, and I guess that is mostly
melody led from the top if I were just improvising chordally - still not sure -
I'd have to catch myself at it.

>On guitar, it is probably easy to create bad voice
>leading with relatively little hand motion.

that or good leading to clams - that's why I like that I built up from
overlapping drop voicings that cover every relevant note everywhere under my
hand more like what comes with the territory on piano - it's made me see
certain chordal relationships that I wouldn't have had any idea about - it's
the trick behind playing chord heads to up tempo bird tunes - location,
location location. :o) Those things are easier to play on guitar than they
would be on piano, I think.

Clif