Ted Gr, reson = JA7Z GUITAR SING!TABLE OF CONTENTS - VOLUME II _ PLAYING THROUGH CHANGES: Condensed Arpeggios; More on Soloin ‘Note Arpeggia Fragments; Progrestions for Soloing Over One Position; 2. CHROMATIC TONES: Lower Neighbor Tones; Upper Neighbor Tones; Chromatic Passiny ‘Tones 19 3. SOLOING OVER “FAST” CHANGES: Focusing on Higher Chord Tones, Eesemial Notes; ‘Sparse Playing. 27 4. SLURRING AND DECORATION - PART 2: Consecutive or Combined Pull-offs; Hammer-ons 5. RHYTHM AND PHRASING: Accents; Syncopation; Polyrhythm; Rhythmic Displacement; Legato and Staccato; Ghost Notes, Vibrato; Delayed Notes and Playing Behind the Beat; Syncopation Exercises 3 & MELODIC PATTERNS: In Position; “Lengthwise” and Shifting Positions; Exercises. Al T. (MORE) ON SHIFTING AND CONNECTING POSITIONS........ 63 8. COMPLETE SOLOS AND DEVELOPING A MELODY LINE Sa 9, THE MINOR 755 SOUNDS: 4 Common Scales; Arpeggios, Chord Forms and Runs.......... 69 10. THE MELODIC MINOR SCALE: Chord Forms: nt Anpessios and Runs; The Minor 7th Scale for m6 and m6/9 Chords . .. 2 THE HARMONIC MINOR SCALE: ‘Arpeggios; Chord Forms; a Minor Key Solo. 96 11, THE DIMINISHED 7th CHORD: Chord Forms, Arpeggios, Runs; The Diminished Seale and Runs, Modern Diminished 7th Type Arpeggios, veneers 8 12. BASING YOUR SOLO ON THE ee uno Decorating or Varying Given Masti, ‘Jazz Treatments of a Plain Melody . o 10 3. THE DIATONIC VIEW. TONAL CENTERS AND TONAL SCALES: Diatonic 7th Chords; Roman Numeral Symbols, Diatonic Plaving and Thinking; Keys or Tonal Centers, Special Treatment of iii? and vi pOMnee Diatonic Chords: Diatonic Chords of Other 5: ‘4 Chromatie Progressions . ERED DOMINANT SCALES - PART 2: Type 4 (Half-Whole Scale): A: sand ‘Chord Forms: tae 3,789 Arpeggios and Chord Forms; The Whole Tone Scale; Chord Forms and Arpeggios, PARTING COMMENTS 0 8PLAYING THROUGH CHANGES While we have already touched on the concept of soloing through chord changes (in Volume I), there is a good chance that more examples and discussion will prove helpful, so we're going to really ‘hit it’ now, In this chapter, there will be many more musical examples illustrating the principle of staying in one position while soloing over various chords. There is one new visual tool given with these lines, namely ‘digrams of CONDENSED ARPEGGIOS. The reason for giving these condensed versions to facus on, instead of the whole arpeggios, is that they will help you to achieve faster results in learning to solo in one position, Just give them a chanee and you will see. To further explain, when you have to solo over, say, the progression D7 B7+ Em9 A7+ you might focus visually on the following diagrams, to at least "get your bearings”: Biade Emil AT#9« Dag 4 “rel 5g t Notice that these little fragments stay pretty much in one position (the A7#9+ does not quite, but sometimes, if you want certain notes, you will have to shift up or down one position). Also, you will see, in this chapter, how condensed arpeggios give you an casily-grasped general framework for building good lines that have smooth transitions from ‘one chord change to another. In the musical examples to follow, the condensed arpeggios serve as the main tones while the ather tones in the runs are taken from some complete scales of which the arpeggios are only part (this will be clear if you analyze the runs carefully). The condensed arpeggios will contain six notes each, this number being chosen for two reasons: 1) Six notes can be absorbed by the mind, eyes, ears and hands pretty easily, Suggestion: Try breaking each diagram into twa groups of three notes each when memorizing it, Example: Day F ‘You might learn iH and then even a these notes first ~e these 2) Six notes give a full and rich sound from which many interesting and varied runs can be easily derived. Here is a suggested routine to follow with the condensed arpeggios and accompanying musical examples: 1) Learn the given arpeggio diagrams (listed above the music) first. The word ‘learn’ here means at least be able to play the arpeggio diagrams from bottom to top (or in some other logical way), cleanly at a slow tempo. Example: given these arpeggios .,be able to play ‘Y something logical Dep 78+ Emil Aro#o+ Deo ike this, before proceeding TASH 7| Tie] oe A to the musical examples H #4 that will follow the ai / a tela! Mainly in 7th position pao eae‘Speaking of the musical examples, they are only that — examples. It is hoped that they will inspire you or ive you some ideas for making up your own runs from these arpeggios. 2) Play a scale that fits with cach arpeggio in the same position. For instance, the following scales fit the previous arpeggios: Payer SES CMe ATTA Datgyek Playing the scales like this is also to be done ee before playing the musical examples. 3) Play the examples,working each one up to at least a slow even tempo using cither jazz 8ths or regular 8ths (or both), 4) Make up some of your ewn runs in the given ps 5) Then try applying some of what you have learned to other keys. mms used in all the musical examples. There will be a list of condensed arpeggios at the end of this chapter, covering some of the colors which you have studied so far. I hope it will be of use to you. There will also be a list of chord progressions that you might practice soloing over. Please note (in case you are not aware of it) that any arpeggio works over more than just its “own” chord. Examples: A Dé9 arpeggio works over any D major type of chord (like D6, D6/9, DaT, etc.) Likewise, an A769+ works over A7+, A769, A7#9, or whatever AT types your ear says it does. ‘One last but important point: Arpeggios aren't meant to lock you so much into what you are going to play, as where you might play. In other words, they form a strong "visual outline” of where the activity can take place, not so much what that activity might be. If you study some of the musical examples care- fully and compare them with the arpeggio diagrams from which they were derived, these words will have more meaning for you. PLAYING THROUGH CHANGES — BASING YOUR SOLO ON CONDENSED ARPEGGIOS ARPEGGIO FRAGMENTS, KeyofD DAT 7 Em wt 4 5| ne 2 Es Can write Wier 5 orG wateh the 47b3+ a7 BT bo+ 9 fingerin pas pot, : Em9 ering sake A = 4 or B,G Ag AT boS BRS pad ES o? Ve add tasty) thay =o — =| 3 — 4, Eas cat wo BM hae os, en aS a 44a = a Ee 3 * Also try the previous two runs in the following position: ay 4 ct ao eM ie Ky 10) 4 NOTE ARPEGGIO FRAGMENTS I have also found it helpful to occasionally work with arpeggio fragments of four notes. Following are examples of the progression D°9 B7s9+ Em9 A79+ D9 showing some smooth ‘connections’ of the four-note arpeggios. You might wish to try building runs off of any of these connections, and likewise for any progression. Jt Brbe emt Atm Ag [#) 2! 2 ‘CLO? 1 Yt BI em? 2 a a ee a i = “Ge eaee et @ i OF COURSE, YOU WOULDNT HAVE TO KNOW ALi OF THESE CONNECTIONS, JUST YOUR t FAVORITES. Arpeggios are just a means to an end, and if studied seriously, will quite possibly lead you to the place where you are no longer using them very much, at least on a conscious level. Instead, don't be sur~ prised to find yourself thinking just in terms of melody, that is, just in terms of what you inwardly hear from all your experience, all your studies, listening, and playing, Here is another example of playing through changes in one general position, but there are no arpeggio diagrams being given here: and & Ist Positions 7 789 oti Bom’ 35 4 Am DI at ——— a3 bas beg a 17 ic aa me cal 4th & Srd Positions 184 c4t Am?2 Gat 7th & 6th Positions — Li 43 bea, ay43 gal 6th Positions 4 24 Fim? Pad a bth Positions pmt/i 14CONDENSED ARPEGGIOS Familiarize yourself a little with these pages and their layout and then see the suggested practioe routine that follows. oa ee agg g 3 Fan vit So HECONDENSED ARPEGGIOS es el na Me LO oe oo Feel fre & a oe, Se oe FF FA 5 SOME OTHER GOOD ONES K HERE ARE R36, 00, 09 nd 35,687, 69,3 Actually, you eould make up other variations of any of the given types 9, mI, etc.) if you wanted ta, FeSUGGESTED PRACTICE: Following soon is a list of progressions which are given for you to practice soloing over, usingcondensed arpeggios as a visual and musical framework, and staying in one general position at a time as demonstrated in this chapter. A suggested approach to these progressions might go something like this: 1) Take the first progression (C#9 F13) and choose a position you want to start playing the Csoundsin for now let's say the 2nd position (where you know C Major sounds finger very comfortably). 2) Locate the appropriate arpeggio diagrams that would put you in the 2nd position in C. In this case, using the previous reference pages as a guide, the following diagrams which are given in Eo would be the ones which would be in the key of C in the 2nd position (in order to know this you have to familiarize yourself (at least a fittfe) with all the arpeggio diagrams on the prvious pages — but, in case you're wondering, you won't be sorry you did): EPP rcveres vee Phe CAQer rere fe ’ 3) Then locate the F Dom. 7 type arpeggios that work over F13, and end up Ist, 2nd of 3rd positions — in other words, find the F13 sounds in a fingering that puts you close to the fingering of the C Major sounds you are going to use, In this case, first of all, the 13, 9, 9+11 and 13411 arpeggios all work over F13 so now we've narrowed down the field a little as to what specific types of arpeggios you are going to work with. Next, since all the Dom. 7 type arpeggios are listed as 7's, not F7’s, you ance again have to figure out which diagrams when played as “F's” (not “B’s") will put you around the first few frets whece you are going to play the C sounds, In this casc, these are some of the possible diagrams that would work: a a at ae | ‘ f : io | ‘Of course, you don't have lo know or use alf of these but you can still learn and use atleast a few — that’s all that’s needed anyway, sinos the purpose of arpeggios is largely to outline where you are going to play, and a few in one position will do this job as well as a hundred, 4) This is what it’s all about, what all this ma ly for, Make up musical lines that work over the C29 F13 progression. The arpeggio tones will help give you some idea of the main tones in the general position you are playing in, and you will almost certainly find yourself weaving in other scale tones too, as illustrated inthe earlier musical examples throughout this chapter. Experimentation and patience are essential here. 5) Repeat the same procedure for the same progression in other positions. 6) Do the same procedure on the other given progressions, in lots of positions. 7) All the progressions are listed here in the key of C, but the sound of one key will get boring after a while so: transposing them te other keys will help — also you would have to do some of this anyway if you plan ta be a musician, 8) All the chords normally are meant to get four beats (one measure) apiece, but two other things you might try are: a) give each chord cight beats instead of four. This really gives you time to stretch out and explore the position you are playing in; b) give each chord three or six beats apiece, thereby creating the jazz waltz feel briefly discussed in Volume I. 9) One last thing: put the chords on tape and practice making up your lines, while the chords are going on, because everything you do “right” will sound better, and vice-versa, Also, it will help ‘train you to be able to create in an actual musical situation. 18,PROGRESSIONS FOR SOLOING OVER: (Key of C) 89 FIZ Ca9 FID ete, 9 Bh13 Cad Bold ete. 9 D1} C49 DbII etc, CA13 Bol3sus CAI3 BSI3sus ete. Cat Clisus CAT Ciisus ete. O87 FIL CéT FIL ete, (use the 13sus arpeggios over I Ith chords) G9 GIL C89 GIT etc, ca9 G74 C89 GIF ete. i ae Most of the following progressions can be “repeated” as the above ones are, 9. CST C13 FAT Bold 10, C/9 Bol} Abs? G7/6—-try 1369 arpeggios and Type | alt, dom. sounds here 11 G29 Am? Dm7/11 G1369--you may find yourself wanting to hear an F note instead of an Fé note in the Am? scale here. This is natural, and will be discussed later. 12, Ca9 A7#9* DI (or Dmi/11} GTHO+ 13, C89 AQ Dm9 GI308 14, C9 PO Abls GI/6 13, C/9 Esm?/11 Dm? G13e9 16, C89 F89 Fim! B7/6 E69 A&9 Bom? Es13 As89 DsS9 Gm9 C139 Fao Bal3 Bm7/t1 E7/6 AS9 17, CAT FO E7#9 AT D9 AbI3 Dm? G7b9+ 18, Dm7 G1349 C89 A1389 CHROMATIC TONES Up till now, virtually our entire focus has been on chord tones and scale tones, But there are other notes, known as CHROMATIC TONES, which are often used by jazz players in creating ultra-smooth lines, Chromatic tones are simply those tones which are mof part of a given scale. EXAMPLE: C DOMINANT 7th SCALE CHROMATIC TONES for this scale —— ¢ DEF G A BC cH DE FH GH a or or or or oF Ds Eb Go Ab Cb What would be the chromatic tones for the C Minor 7th scale? Answer: C#, E, F#, G#, and B, right? Chromatic tones usually lead to another note a half step higher or lower. Fot instance, in the above group of tones,C# would normally proceed up a half step to D ot down a half step to C. These two melodie ‘tendencies will be discussed in more detail on the following pages. 19LOWER NEIGHBOR TONES Every scale or chord tone has a note a half step below it, which is known as its lower neighbor tone. ‘Many of these are chromatic tones but some are just other notes in the same scale, Example: © DOMINANT 7th SCALE——- C _D E F G A BBC fhidads LOWER NEIGHBOR TONES—~B Cy D¥E Fi GHA B or or or or of of of oF APPLICATION: Ch Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bob Ch One of the most common uses of lower neighbor tones is that of 1 them to precede the scale or chord tones to which they are related. Anothet common use involves first playing a scale or chord tone, then its lower neighbor tone, and then the scale or chord tone again (in this uscage, the neighbor tone is often referred to as a returning tone). Both of these concepts will be illustrated in the musical examples to follow, EXAMPLES USING LOWER NEIGHBOR TONES aaa 4 a Mainly in 2nd position 3rd Position. aig 42 1 2,t @ aa? ~ 1 ara art a THE CIRCLED NOTES ARE THE NEIGHBOR TONES GB T TRY BOTH SETS OF FINGERINGS HERE ‘TO SEE WHICH YOU PREFER. G Ast & 2nd PositionIf you were to slide any lower neighbor into the note that follows it, the result would be the same as we got from the half-step slide principle, right? In such a case, calll it either a neighbor ot a slide, it doesn’t matter. See if you can spot the neighbor tones in the next few examples. If you can't, then you better review the prior material in this chapter. Gea) 3 7m 5th Position a9 3Play this scale and then play an E9 or E13 chord before you play the runs below (this will help you to hear the tonality of the E7 scale, which is pretty much obscured by all the chromatic tones used in the first couple of runs here). & Dal 7 seme é Most jazz players seem to use lower neighbor tones on the weak part of the beat more than on the strong; some notable exceptions to this are the #3rd and 45th tones which, when used as lower neighbors, appear as often on the strong part of the beat as the weak (see the 7th and 8th examples in this chapter.) K Jom. 7 Spe SUGGESTED EXERCISES ‘Try applying some lower neighbors to your favorite scales and arpeggios. Natura this in quite a few positions, and in quite a few (different) keys. Experiment with the different effect of having the neighbor on the weak beat vs. having it on the strong. Don't be discouraged if the first-few runs you make up here don’t sound good — keep experimenting . . . patience and determination will yield positive you should do results. 22)UPPER NEIGHBOR TONES ‘There are two upper neighbor tones in jazz: 1) The tones which lies a half-step above a given note and 2) The tone which lics one scale-step above the given note For example, ie the E*9 chord tones and preceding each one with its upper cE neighbor tone, you would get the following sounds: a piaa ‘Ve atep approach ‘Scale - step approach ‘As you may have noticed, the half-step upper neighbor is more unusual sounding (almost an Oriental ‘or Spanish sound in the above example) than the scale-step type, and for whatever reasons, most jazz. players seem to have favored the latter, except for in one particular use of the half-step type that we will cover soon. First, here is the above “scale-step approach” example with the neighbor tones on the strong part of ‘the beats now: 7th Position 1 4 This type of sound is just as common to jazz as that of having the upper neighbors on the weak part of the beat. Following are more examples using uppet neighbors both on the weak and strong parts of the beat. You will probably notice that quite a few of the sounds will be like some you have already covered; but we're looking at them from a different point of view here, with the hope of helping you when you are making up your own runs, In other words, being able to see some things from a few different angles may stimulate more of the creative juices — it’s worth a try anyway. Personally, the seale-step upper neighbor viewpoint of creating runs doesn’t seem like an efficient way for me (except in a few cases), but We're all different 0... EXAMPLES USING UPPER NEIGHBOR TONES E (SCALE STEP TYPE) 4th Position oeDelayed association between the neighbors and their related chord tones. 4 pieibie ie Extra seale tone Mainly 4th Position a er ae By the way, did you notice that the key signature here was not two#’sas you are more accustomed to seeing for a D type sound? If you don't know about this type of thing, be patient, it will become clear ina later chapter — don’t even bother about it for now. 4CHROMATIC PASSING TONES (UPPER NEIGHBOR: '/2 STEP TYPE) As mentioned a little earlier, there is a special type of use of the half step upper neighbor that is found in jazz (and found pretty commonly at that) It goes simply like this ‘The half step upper neighbor can be used before any scale tone (or chord tone) when the note that precedes the half step upper neighbor is a half step above i (if you just said "huh?”, please reread the sentence again slowly and carefully). DORMS Cosme Te A Dertuiyer Ph Shue) 2nd Position wi 4th Position 2344 4a24 143 Placa 4 aot As you may have noticed, the haif step upper neighbor acts asa sort of “chromatic fill-in’ or chromatic passing tone between the scale or chord tones (as the lower neighbors occasionally did too), and the reason. this is mentioned is that this type of thinking may prove casier in certain cases for you — it has for me. In other words, another angle on this neighbor tone business is to just look for an “opening” between any: two adjacent scale tones or chord tones, and fill it in. This “passing-tone” view needn't be used aif the time instead of the neighbor tone view, but it definitely is an easy way to think when you are connecting any two tones that are a whole step apart — you simply ‘put the passing tone in between the two, Note that when you douse the passing tone concept, it applies in both melodie directions: SSS + Chromatic passing tone Chromatic passing tone Lower neighbgr to D, " (Upper neighbor to C, lower (Towgpmeightey to D. uppe neighbor to D) But, if you review all the pages in this chapter, you will sce that the neighbor tone vicw of things often gave us different results than we could have achieved with the passing tone point of view, So they both have their plusses and you will probably want to use them both. Here are some more examples using the half step upper neighbor; EXAMPLES USING UPPER NEIGHBOR TONES (/2 STEP TYPE) Br BYT scale sounds mo 4 4 2a 4 a aad 25‘7th (6th) Positions C overtone Dom, scale sounds" 1 tied a 2 be — 7 3T The weak part of the beat seems to be the preference in jazz for the half step-upper neighbor too. 3 43 1 4 th Position ‘overtone seale sounds. a 1 4th Position 4 step slide E7 scale sounds 2 + zig wha Em? wea ca aa a Ts o EXAMPLES USING BOTH UPPER AND LOWER NEIGHBOR TONES 4th Position E Dom. 7th scale ai 4 8 2 Soen : ee af a a 4 4 #3 oe a 4 é 23 1 mM 4 a te ee FF ; 2 = 4 SSS eaDelayed aoglae « ava : z a tag 4 a9 2g I want to hear F# instead of G here - I guess the lower neighbor can be of the scale-step variety toa, sometimes, ‘a a aoe 4 4h 4 454 a2 a Much more on this a little later ‘Shifting Positions “ aft ervey or E,Gh 6th Pos. Sth Pos. 4th Pos. ard Pes, 4th Pos. Consecutive pull-olfs SUGGESTED EXERCISES FOR APPLYING Ya STEP UPPER NEIGHBORS: Same routine as given for the lower neighbors, Also try some runs that use both upper and lower neighbors. ‘Then go back to the progressions from the previous chapter and try making up runs based on them, as you did before, but this time include some neighbor tones (or chromatic passing tones, if you are using this view). You don't have to use a lot of these new tones, an occasional one here or there could be just fine; or maybe you love these new sounds, and want to sprinkle tham throughout your playing. Great. Whatever you like. No rules here. Let your ears be your guide. SOLOING OVER ‘FAST’ CHANGES Many of you have probably been in playing situations where yau were trying to solo over chord changes that were coming by at a very fast pace, or at least faster than you would have found comfortable. “Fast changes’ can occur for various reasons such as the tempo being very fast, or each chord change only getting one or two beats, or (horror of horrors) both of these reasons combined. Now while the procedure for soloing over fast chord changes is essentially the same as when there is more time ta play over each chord, there are at least two areas here in which the normal problems of playing the guitar are heightened even more, namely the mentaf and physical areas. In other words, it is hander to think of what chord notes, scales. and runs you are going to play if the chord changes arc kind of whizzing by, and if is also harder to just play and make your soles flow, for various reasons which need not be gone into here. So what's the purpose of all these words? Just to let you know that you shouldn't expect miracles in this area — you're up against some formidable challenges. But, you wall see results if you are patient and ‘willing to work a it's just going to take a little longer than you'd like. You're still going to be dealing ‘with the same concepts (chord tones, scale tones, chromatic tones, striving for smooth transitions from chord to chord and so forth) whether the spced of the chord changes is slow, medium, fast or ridiculous. 27Near the end of this chapter are examples showing solos over fast-moving changes. Even though each example is written in only one position, it would be to your distinct advantage to try fingering them in others (and naturally, in a few other keys as well). Make sure nalyze which notes are used (and why) against the given chords — you'll get far more out of this section if you da. You will notice that often, the higher chord tones (9, 11 and 13) are used in the given solos. The reason is that I just like the sound of these tones very much, and since there wasn’t much time on each chord change to play a lot of tones, I would frequently try to make sure that at least one of these higher tones was used on quite a few of the chords. Many players use this approach. Another angle that many players use when dealing with fast changes (or any changes for that matter) is that of zeroing in on the essential notes) that establish each chord change. For instance, in soloing over a C7 Cm7 chord progression, the main difference in chord tones are the 3rd (E) and 7th (B) of the C47 progressing to the #3rd (Ea) and 67th (Bb) of the Cm7. Therefore, if your solo line contains a smooth transition from either E to Es or B to Bd as the chord changes, set up’ the sound of the progression in an effective way. Play and analyze these examples: ct om C47 Gm cat cml cal cml » ——St 1 cat cat 7 ‘Tm sure you noticed, in playing these examples, that this “essential note’ method really helps outline or define the chord changes. Therefore, this method is especially useful when little or no harmonic back- ground (chard changes) is being supplied while you are soloing. For instance, if you are soloing over a piano player's chords, and his or her style is to just give brief punctuations of chords now and then, the above method works beautifully to fill out the sound. But if the pianist likes to play very full, rich chords in a more sustained style, then you needn‘t worry so much about the essential chord tones because they are being heard in the piano chords anyway. In fact, in this type of situation, you needn't even play that many notes at all, let along the essential ones. This concept of “sparsity” will be illustrated in some of the examples to follow, and will be covered more in the chapter on rhythm. SUGGESTION: In the following examples, you may find it helpful to use some arpeggios to better see where the notes: are coming from (even though the runs usually don't use olf the notes of even a condensed arpeggio). EXAMPLES OF SOLOING OVER “FAST” CHORD CHANGES MAKE SURE YOU HEAR THESE RUNS OVER THE GIVEN CHORDS (Pur "zy on 7HA#) 3rd Position G 2nd Position Bass—>/ note? > 1 cal