Hi fellow jazz guitarists! Here’s some stuff to look at before the next class. Hopefully you’ve spent some time working on the previous lesson’s material.
The upcoming class will build on that material and we will be looking at how to get around tunes with fast moving chord changes, ie; 2 beats per chord!
This will build on our arpeggio studies and look more in depth at patterns such as 1,2,3,5 and guide tone resolutions. Once this July lesson is consolidated, we will have spent two full classes on building interesting single note jazz lines. So in the August class, we will be exploring chord concepts using movable chords and substitutions to create a flow in our chordal playing. We will be moving away from static chunky block chords and looking at moving inner lines in contrapuntal motion up and down the neck creating melodies within chord movements. These ideas will be employed in both band settings and solo chord melody style guitar playing. Anyway, enough of that. back to July’s lesson!
Many jazz guitar students I meet in Brighton, especially at the jazz jam, often tell me they have difficulties in playing the dreaded “Rhythm Changes” so called because these be bop tunes use the chord progression to the classic tune “I got Rhythm”. Tunes such as Oleo, Anthropology, Cotton tail, chasin’ the bird, Moose the Mooch and even the Flintstones!
First of all, this week if you can listen to as many of these tunes as possible to embed the chord structure sounds in your head that’d be great.
Then can you memorize the chords and just try soloing over the tune as you like this week. You will find the A section particularly difficult but once you get to the bridge, you can make exercises employing the material from last lesson.
For example..
Over the 2 bars of D7 – Use D7 arp, Fsharp half diminished arp, A minor 7 arp and Cmaj7 arp and do this for the other dominant chords (G7, C7, F7).
Here’s the sequence! There’s loads of variations to this which will be discussed and analysed in class but here’s one to learn first. AABA form
A Section
Bbmaj7 G7 Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7 G7 Cm7 F7
Fm7 B7 Ebmaj7 Ab7 1st time; Bbmaj7 G7 Cm7 F7
2nd time; Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7
Bsection
D7 D7 G7 G7
C7 C7 F7 F7
Look in any real book or irealapp for these changes.
Also if you don’t already know it, investigate the bebop dominant scale.
Basically just the dominant scale with an added passing note, the major 7th.
F7 bebop scale is F G A Bb C D Eb E F
We’ll discuss this scale in class.
Remember you can always look back on past blogs to refresh your studies.
http://paulrichardsguitar.com/sussex-jazz-guitar-school-recap/
http://paulrichardsguitar.com/sussex-jazz-guitar-school-additional-pointers/
http://paulrichardsguitar.com/sussex-jazz-guitar-school-prep-work/
See you all on Sunday for the next installment of Sussex Jazz Guitar School!
