Archive for Jazz
Autumn Leaves in Classical Style
Posted by: | CommentsIf you like this lesson and would like to do webcam guitar lessons drop me a line.
Playing open chords, bar chords and bulky block chords can get quite boring after a while. And it also can prevent us from seeing and creating independent lines within the harmonic progression of a song. This is because we tend to think of the overall shape of the chord, not the individual chord tones. And the bulkiness of some chords prevents us from being able to move certain notes up or down to create a melody. It can also prevent our development of voice leading (smooth movement between lines) as we sharply jump from one chord to the next, unless we are aware of inversions perhaps.
If we want to play solo guitar (aka chord melody) in jazz, classical or other styles, outlining the harmony while playing a melody, then using 2 and sometimes 3 voices gives us the best options. It’s small enough to allow the freedom of movement of certain fingers but enough notes to reflect the chord changes.
An approach that I’ve found very useful as of late is to focus on the movement of one ‘voice’, so we’ll focus on the bass line. We start with an ascending bass line. A very important thing to be aware of is that each note of the ascending line can be considered chord tone in some inversion. This type of approach can be useful in creating a baroque-style version of the classic jazz standards and also for classical improvisation.
Let’s take the chord progression to Autumn Leaves: Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 F#m7b5 B7 Em. And we’ll start with the note A on the 7th fret D string. The line will ascend from there. So what we do is play A over Am7 which is the root. Then we look at the next chord and decide if our current note is also a chord tone. If it is we can stay on the same note. Since D7 also has an A in it (the fifth of the chord) we will stay on it. Then we will ascend to B (the third of Gmaj7) and so on. So the line goes A A B C C D# E. Each note is a chord tone of the current chord. We’ll stick to one string to emphasize the ascending movement.
Okay now we’re going to add a melody line. We’ve made the tune 3/4 time to help give it a Baroque feel. Let’s listen to it first:
The bass line is a bit faint in this image but it’s the same as the previous line!
Notice the repeating phrase/idea – basically a measure or so of eighth notes followed by a measure of quarter notes. Notice the melody uses chord tones on strong beats (and others). You can develop this idea by doing a similar thing in reverse – for upper voice do an ascending ‘bass line’ and create a melody in the bass. Move this around the fretboard and try doing it for the entire song. You can use this for improvisation as well, as you think of the chord progression and smooth movement of one voice, while adding melodies in the other voice(s).
If you like this and would like to do webcam guitar lessons drop me a line.
Jazz Up Your Blues – Easy Jazz Guitar
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s the Easy Jazz Blues Tab (PDF). For more please join Online Guitar Coaching.
For more please join Online Guitar Coaching.
How to Learn Jazz Guitar (or any style)
Posted by: | CommentsThis can be a life altering video if you’ve been frustrated learning how to improvise or solo on the guitar, like I have. I wasted a few years in jazz college and practicing various scales, modes and exercises along with analysis. I can’t tell you how frustrating and intimidating this has been for me. So I was so happy to find this video and approach by Robert Conti.
This is exactly how I learned rock, metal and blues – by learning songs and solos and magically it comes through in my playing in my own unique style. There were a few things I could have done better earlier on, like learn how the chord progressions work a bit better, tying everything into one visualization system such as CAGED and so on. But for the most part it was very effective to learn solos because I got the lines under my fingers, built speed and gained technique.
The songs drive the technique. For example if you are a beginner trying to learn a 3 chord song, you will have to learn the 3 chords, how to switch between them, and how to strum the guitar in a certain pattern. If you are learning a guitar solo you like, you might have to learn how to bend, pull off, hammer on, do vibrato, two-hand tapping, sweep picking, gain speed and so on.
Music is a language like speaking english. First we mimicked our parents, learned when we made mistakes and built up a vocabulary. Later on we learned how everything works in school but even that was mostly unnecessary for most of us. We all naturally improvise when we speak using the same small set of words. Imagine if we taught kids grammar before they knew how to speak – they would be talking gibberish! I saw this happen every day when people were improvising in college and in some online courses. They knew the scales and understood intellectually what they needed to do, but couldn’t make music out of them.
The bottom line is that you can’t play fast melodic solos by learning scales and modes alone. You need to go those melodic lines under your fingers so that they become automatic.
Jazz Guitar Licks
Posted by: | CommentsI came across this website that has some jazz guitar licks. The key is to learn them and then add them to your playing – not to regurgitate them verbatim, but to understand how they work, modify them to make them your own, connect logically with other ideas.
Some teachers are against licks but you need to get the lines under your fingers and learn the ‘language’ first. Many of us learned how to talk before we understood all the grammar!
