Right, have a look at this. As you may have seen in my previous blog, the next class of Sussex Jazz Guitar School will focus on creative practicing and how to approach learning to solo over the changes of a new tune using a variety of methods. First up, here’s the tune!
It’s the Jazz Standard – “I’ll remember April”. I’ve chosen this tune in particular because it contains a number of harmonic traits which would be useful to identify and work on. As with all jazz standards, you will find small variations of the chords depending on where you look in Real Books, I Real B apps etc.. but what is important is the road map of the tune and the over all harmonic layout. For example you may see this tune in books as a bar of GMaj7 then a bar of G6. This is basically the same chord as it functions as a I chord. So I’m going to list the standard basic changes to the tune here below..(% means same chord as previous bar)
Here’s the chart from the Real Book… Notice the m7b5 chords, the G7 on bar 12 and other variations which we’ll discuss in class. But for now concentrate on the chart above if you want to understand and play the changes easier.
This lesson will focus on getting through the complex chord changes and key centers of a tune. By all means, learn the above melody and we will address this in class. But the October class (using a different tune) will look more in depth at chord melody guitar playing.
Try and make sense of what is happening in the tune, spotting II,V,I’s and key changes.
Try and memorize the chord changes but also print out a copy of the Real Book chords (or use iphone app – ireal b) for reference in class.
Also try and revise the scale positions from one of my previous videos as we will be looking at how to solo through key changes without jumping around all over the guitar neck, ie smooth key transition within specific points of the guitar neck. Here’s the vid…
September 28th class will be taking a jazz standard tune and tackling it using a multitude of approaches, expanding on concepts from previous classes plus new ones. We will be developing Creative and fun approaches to practice specific material because if we practice at home in a fun, creative way, thinking of plenty of wacky and outside the box ways to work then this will come out in our playing!
This is going to be used to develop a structured, thorough practice regime so that whenever you want to learn a new tune you will have specific things to practice over it both single note line wise and chordally!
This is exactly the same regime I use whenever I learn a new tune and we will also be analysing the tune and relating it to other tunes.
The approaches used to tackle the tune will be primarily like drills over the changes as I know you all like structure! This will get the ideas under your fingers and also importantly in your ears! But after the “Boot Camp” part of this, we will be getting creative with each drill to make beautiful music!
This will be done by showing you wacky and imaginative ideas on how to be CREATIVE with the concepts thus taking you from structured exercises to the realms of MELODIC, INVENTIVE & SPONTANEOUS IMPROVISATION!
A lot of the ideas will be practiced placing a heavy emphasis on Deep Groove, Phrasing and dynamics.
This process will make practicing fun and exciting giving you a feeling of progress and achievement where you will actually look forward to and enjoy your practice sessions.
I have devised endless ways of practicing devices and concepts over tunes and I hope to cover a fair few of them. We’ll try and get as many approaches done in the class but without glossing over them, so we get a thorough understanding of each concept drill. I will constantly be introducing new ways of tackling a tune over the course.
We had a similar look at this in a previous class on “Rhythm Changes” where we practised patterns over the tune and also tried to be creative with the patterns.
And thanks to Laurent for suggesting this at the end of last class!
As always, limited places available so those who sign up first will guarantee their places. The last few classes have been filled to capacity. See link below for info!
This is a no nonsense jazz guitar course with the aim of giving you the necessary skills to become the musician you want to be.
I will be providing specific information in key areas by introducing concepts and rinsing those concepts for all they’re worth and providing countless ways of practicing them from many angles to make learning fun whilst progressing at your maximum potential. No more plateaus, no more frustration with practice and development – but plenty of ” eureka” moments and a focused route for improvement as a jazz guitarist.
Practicing: I always found I never knew what and how to practice when learning jazz guitar. I would get frustrated and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material to work on. Should I practice licks from books? transcribe solos? How should I practice scales and arpeggios? How can I learn and memorize tunes? “There’s just too much, I’m never gonna learn all this!”
Improvising with arpeggios & scales: When I asked musicians about how to solo over this tune, chord progression, chord whatever – I’d always get responses like, “Well, you can play D Dorian over that D minor chord” or ” To get an altered sound over C7 alt, whack Db melodic minor over it” or “play the arpeggios of the chord”etc… And I’d always think, yes fine, but HOW should I play these scales and arpeggios? How do I make it sound like JAZZ?How do I get the twisty, turny, zig zaggy melodic lines that sound jazzy? How do I apply this to tunes and make it come out in my playing ?
Time is precious, and how do I make the most of that time to learn and improve as a musician? So over the years, I started investigating concepts. I’d listen to recordings, watch live jazz gigs, read books, get the occasional lesson off a high profile jazz musician and through practice and hard work stumble upon certain concepts. I had many eureka moments finding these concepts. But the main point is that I take a concept and think of as many exciting ways to exploit it so that I practice it in countless ways using different approaches.
Exploring concepts: So rather than saying as mentioned above ” whack Db melodic minor over C7alt”, I’d explore all the possible permutations of that scale, which are the important notes, how I can incorporate passing notes, targeting and enclosure of notes, what are the arpeggios built off the scale degrees, superimpose arpeggios over the chord, which arpeggios sound best over the chord, how to link these arpeggios together, ooh well I could play the arpeggios in all possible inversions, which inversions sound best? How can I mix the scale and the arpeggios – so I devised numerous devices to mix scales and arpeggios, what interesting rhythms /time signatures can I use? Play it scacatto, legato, loud, quiet, fast, slow, standing on my head upside down, make it sound classical, baroque, old Skool, modern, jarring, nice, ‘orrible! , beautiful, sleazy, twee, anything! I want my practice to be fun and I want to sound good when I play live. I’m still learning, and am no where near where I aspire to be, but I am meeting my goals over time and am actually now where I aspired to be sometime ago when I set my old goals. So any, here’s the plan Stan!
COURSE CONTENT:
Soloing over chord changes using single note lines: We’ll be thoroughly exploring concepts using scales, arpeggios, triads, playing the melody of a tune and embellishing it, guide tones, targeting and enclosure and more to develop fluency when soloing thru the “changes”.
We’ll start by looking at the common chord types- minor, major, dominant and getting our gnashers around soloing over vamps over these chords.
We’ll move onto chord progressions such as the 2,5,1 in both major and minor keys and how to create interesting lines through the chords using guide tones and other devices.
We’ll analyse tunes, breaking them down into chord progressions and key centres and I’ll provide countless ways of practicing over the tune to gain fluency in creating meaningful lines weaving through the progressions and key changes.
We will leave no stone unturned in our quest for mastery of the fingerboard so will be practicing in all areas of the fretboard (including the dusty end!) and all string sets so that you are not limited by your easy familiar patterns. You’ll soon be flying all over the shop.
Chords: We’ll be looking at triads and 7th chords, inversions of these chords up and down the neck, quartal chords stacked in 4ths for that oh so modern sound, chord substitutions, tritones – tri what? Chord alterations, superimposing cheeky chords over chords, Voice leading, different ways of comping and of course – APPLYING it to TOONZ, it’s got be be used in context in real life.
Chord melody: The guitar is a solo instrument. As well as playing single note lines and chugging chords in a band, you can actually play it on your own playing the melody, chords and walking bass lines. It’s true! Check out Joe Pass, Martin Taylor, Fred Greene, Lenny Breau, Francecso Buzurro, Diego Figuerido and you’ll see!
And even if you don’t aspire to be a solo guitarist, this will still help fill out your playing in a band setting. We’ll be looking at how to come up with chord melodies by analysing the melody notes of a tune in relation to the chords, exploring which chord inversions can be used and various other techniques such as inner voice movement, baroque counterpoint and classical guitar stuff so your arrangements don’t all end up sounding like clumpy chords with the melody shoved on the top. Let’s make it sophisticated.
Threads running through the course: There will be threads running thought the subject areas. For example, it is common for jazz guitar students to learn all the info n bumpf then wonder why they can’t execute it. So I’ll be providing support on guitar “Technique”, a commonly neglected area. Minimal movement and pressure, proper hand positions, left and right hand techniques, playing with and without a pick. All the stuff that’ll help you play well and cleanly, develop speed, chops and avoid the dreaded RSI and tendonitis.
Making practicing fun so you actually want to practice and look forward to it rather than regarding it as drudgery and hard graft. As I mentioned, taking concepts apart and wringing them out, rinsing them for all they’re worth and practicing in as many fun ways as possible. Getting the most out of your valuable time, reaching your goals but most importantly practicing concepts over jazz standards, Latin and bebop tunes. Yes, I’ll show you drills, exercises and the like but when we find ways of practicing these concepts over tunes, it’ll come out in our playing.
Analysing / performing jazz standards, be-bop & latin tunes: We’ll be getting our teeth into jazz standards by analysing the chord progressions, key changes, melodies and heads so that you can play fluently through them. We will also work on MEMORIZING tunes and transposing them into all 12 keys so for example if a singer says “let’s play ‘Just Friends (or just fiends, teehee!)’ in D” you’ll be able to play it instantly without faffing with your iPhone to transpose it. I’ll be showing you techniques for this both on the guitar and AWAY from your instrument. If I’m ever in a boring que in a bank or something, I’ll take a standard and go through it in my heed in all 12 keys, stuff like that.
Course venue, structure and times: Each session will run for 2.5hours with me demonstating the material, answering any questions and you practicing it with the other students. I’ll be showing you how to play effectively in jazz guitar duos and other practical situations. I will provide students with Prepworkbefore each class – these will be key areas to look at and be aware of, which we will explore in detail during lessons so we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. I will email the link to the Prep work to students which will be found on the Blog section of my website ; http://paulrichardsguitar.com/blog-new/
The course will be run at the Brunswick Pub (where I run the Brunswick jazz jam, which I will encourage you to play at!). The Brunswick is a buzzing hub for the local community, providing various events and workshops. It’s a great environment to learn in with lovely friendly staff and the venue will be an ideal place to meet fellow jazz guitar nuts and hang out afterwards and talk jazz guitar and other stuff over the Brunswick’s great selection of beers and wines and gorgeous meals (which are often only a fiver).
Sussex Jazz Guitar prep work is here for 24th August class. Remember this class starts at 10.30am until 1pm! It’s half an hour earlier as I’ve got to shoot off to play my guitar at Rye Jazz Festival. So here are just some things to be aware of and if you haven’t already, just stuff to get under your fingers..
So we’ll be looking at chord movements, introducing contrapuntal concepts and soloing single note lines using wide spaced out intervals. We’ll be developing a way to solo and create chord melody style playing using the concepts I’ll be introducing in the class.
But first, here’s some things to be aware of so that I can introduce these concepts without back tracking over the basic foundations. So here’s some things to try…
1. Play major scales on one string, especially C, F and G major.. try more keys if you have time!
2. Memorize the sequence of harmonised chords in a major scale. This was covered in the first class, so see previous blogs to recap.
It’s basically…for example in G major…
I Gmaj7
II Amin7
III Bmin7
IV Cmaj7
V D7
VI Emin7
VII F#min7b5
3. We played these in position as arpegios in the first class in June. Now play them as chords up and down the chord neck.
Focus on the 6,4,3,2 string sets
If time, try strings sets 5,4,3,2 and 4,3,2,1
Once you work on this, it will be a good start for what I will introduce.
Now, remember when we built chords off the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th of a given chord?
Focus on what the chord from the 3rd will be for different chords…
Cmaj7 ……………..Emin7
Dm7……………….Fmaj7
G7……………….Bm7b5
Gmaj7…………….Bm7
Am7……………….Cmaj7
D7……………..F#m7b5
Fmaj7……………….Amin7
Gm7…………….Bbmaj7
C7…………….Em7b5
We will be using this info for chord substitutions and passing chord concepts! AAARRRGGGHH! Don’t worry, not as hard as it sounds! You wait till we get to Tritone Substutions… (Theyre easy too, once explained simply and applied in a thoughtful way!)
Check out the video below to work on.
And always remember, don’t worry if you don’t get it all. As working on these things will open little windows of light into your guitar skills and understanding of jazz guitar. The main thing I’m trying to instill in you in these classes, is developing a focused way of practicing by exploring a concept using as many different approaches as possible! You may be realising this by now, when in the first class we took the arpeggios and… 1. Went up em all! 2. Down em all! 3. Up one / down the other! 4. Down one / up the other!
Or with the second class…
1. 1235 on em all!
2. 5321 on em all!
3. 1235 on one / 5321 on the other!
4. 5321 on one / 1235 on the other!
It’s like my catch phrase (in a Bruce Forsythe voice)
“We go up one” Crowd replies “Down the other!”
“We go down one” Crowd… “Up the other!”
Good game, good game
Oh dear, little bit carried away, but I’m very enthusiastic about Sussex Jazz Guitar School. Now check out this video!
Hi Everyone! Just a little recap on what we did in July and hopefully what you should be practicing this month.
We focused on these drills over rhythm changes. So over the chord changes to the tune, we played the following patterns over every chord using quavers (1+2+3+4+)…
1. 1235
2. 5321
3. 1235, 5321
4. 5321, 1235
Bearing in mind that the G7 has a flat2.
This worked well over the A section.
When we got to the bridge, we could build 1235 (and 5321) patterns off the chord tones of each dominant chord as each chord lasted a whole two bars!
D7……F#m7b5, Am7, Cmaj7
and transpose this for the other dominant chords G7, C7, F7
We also looked at surrounding the 1235 or 5321 patterns with approach notes.
One below
One above
One above and one below sandwiching the target note and a variety of other combinations.
We also played a vamp on a dominant chord and tried to produce jazz lines using 1235 and 5321 patterns with approach notes off various chord tones.
Try working on these patterns until you can flow through the chord progression effortlessly with fluidity and try mixing them up with arpeggio ideas from the first class and different rhythmic ideas.
I’ll be in touch with the prep work for the August class which will involve chordal work, inner line ideas, chord substitution, linking chords to scales to create interesting movements and more!
