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Free Jazz Guitar Lessons online
How to play jazz guitar is a study of the techniques and methods used for improvisation and soloing with instruction and tuition in the form of free lessons covering scales, modes, chords, chord progressions and melody as we explore the world of "how to improvise and play a jazz solo with confidence". This jazz guitar page is aimed primarily at intermediate level players but I hope it will be of benefit to beginner guitarists learning to play but wanting to move on and up the ladder of knowledge. I will have a page of practical examples in tab or notation with transcriptions of jazz standards showing licks and riffs used by top session musicians. How to play jazz guitar is divided into 3 sections namely:-Simply jazz, chords and improvising and a page of practical examples and analysis.
Part 2:-Chords and Improvising. At the risk of making a statement that makes things sound just too simple, I will make it anyway. If you can play chords you can improvise! Improvising a jazz solo is basically about playing a melody over chords. So therefore one has to know chords. If you play on the notes (chord tones) of the relevant basic or "vanilla" chord in a given situation, you are using the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes, so you already have 4 notes to use out of the 7 notes in a scale. Then you connect those chord tones using whichever notes (passing tones) sound right to you. They will be probably the 2nd,4th and 6th notes of the scale, (more commonly thought of as the 9th,11th,13th) plus perhaps some chromatics, use the phrasing that sounds right to you and you're well on the way. Putting it another way and perhaps more accurately, to improvise a jazz solo you play the basic arpeggio of the relative chord and connect the notes using passing notes (a combination of scale tones and chromatics). Taking that thought to the extreme, you don't even have to know any scales at all in order to play a solo really! I am not however saying that is the way to go, I am merely making the point that you would be able to play any solo based on connecting the notes of the arpeggios. |
As I said earlier, your choice of passing tones and the timing you employ is what makes the difference. Just to push home the point a bit more, I remember once I was studying the transcription of a Tal Farlow solo, and the transcriber detailed his idea of the scales that Tal would have used.
It was a tune in 'F' and he put down the notes of a scale which he then called 'Bb Lydian Dominant'. What it was in fact, and I'm sure it's the way Tal would have thought of it, was simply the dominant chord 'Bb7' or 'Fm7', which you will see later on is a possible substitute chord for 'Bb7'. He used the 'b5' note (E) as a passing note which is why the transcriber came up with a fancy scale name! I mean can you imagine Tal or any of the others thinking to themselves in the middle of a solo, "I think I'll play a lydian dominant here". What nonsense!
Another very important thing is, always think only about the most basic form of the chord, the 'vanilla chord' as it's often called, when soloing. In other words, simply the major, minor or seventh forms of the chord, accentuating or 'targeting' where possible the third and seventh notes of the chord, as the 3rd and 7th give a chord it's character. Don't ever try to think of the altered and extended form of the chords when you're playing a solo. You don't have the time to think about that and in any case the instrument or instruments playing the harmonic background will be playing all the necessary alterations and extensions to the chords.
When you are practising the arpeggios and passing tones, always make sure you are aware of the appropriate chord by playing it and then the arpeggio and passing notes so that you are always aware of the relationship and have the sound of the chord in your mind. In fact try to develop the habit of singing along as you solo, either the phrase you hear in your mind or at least the timing. It is a huge help with the whole feel of what you're doing.
The other thing is, when playing a solo, its all about tension and resolution. You can think of it as creating contrast or light and shade. I am sure you have all heard about or read about the 2-5-1 progression and playing over a 2-5-1. Some teachers as well as countless instruction books teach you various runs or licks to play over a 2-5-1. I urge you, use those lessons only as a guide and do not learn runs or licks off parrot fashion (not that I'm implying that a parrot could play the guitar). Otherwise you might fall into the trap of trying to fit the lick in somewhere and then find it does not fit or you forget it and then find you cannot play anything of you own as you have tended to rely on the licks. Panic stations! In fact firstly with a 2-5-1, forget the 2! The 5-1 cadence is the most important thing as it symbolizes tension and resolution and is an integral part of all music. So you can actually reduce all chords into just two categories i.e tension or resolution. The tension chords want to go somewhere, in other words to the resolution chord associated with it. By doing this you simplify the whole approach to constructing a solo.
Chord and scale Substitution......
With any jazz improvisation, whether it be playing a solo or playing accompaniment (comping), you are faced with the task of deciding what chord, scale or arpeggio to use. You can of course use the sheet music chords, and add colour to the chords to suit yourself. That is the safest option really I suppose. However substitution (the art of replacing a chord, scale or arpeggio with another), is an essential part of jazz. Substitution will allow you to enhance your solo possibilities and also, very importantly, to play in different keys more easily. Chord substitution methods are a study by themselves and I have now added this section to the page which will give students a fair basic knowledge of the subject. I will guide you towards being able to think further on the art of substitution for yourselves and to experiment.
'Chord substitution' or should I say the art of chord substitution. I call it an art as it very definitely is an art if it is to be done selectively and tastefully as with players like Lenny Breau, Tal Farlow and the pianist Bill Evans. It is used to enhance music both harmonically and melodically. So chord melody players might use it extensively as would players who like to use interesting chord fragments interspersed within their solo improvisations or indeed soloists generally, as when they improvise it allows for more movement particularly over static passages where the chord stays the same. Also understand that if you can substitute a chord then you can substitute an arpeggio and therefore a scale as well.
There is a set of rules (although I hate the word in jazz terms) which will lay down a method for substitution based on fundamental music theory. You could of course really just play any chord at random that sounds o.k. as a substitution, but that could end up sounding a complete mess. While I'm on that subject I must say what the art of chord substitution is not! And that is trying to play 4 chords in every bar by using every substitution you can think of in all situations like some sort of madman on the loose!
Just to get very basic, it is common in jazz to substitute one chord for another. So for example Am7 chord is often substituted for C and C might be substituted for Am7. This concept can be applied to arpeggio's and scales using the same techniques and methods. If you were improvising over a C chord you could play an Am7 arpeggio or if you were improvising over Am7 chord you could play C arpeggio. As I said earlier, substitution can add interest and the element of surprise to a solo.
The major scale harmonized using C major as an example would be:-
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I spoke earlier in the text about tension and resolution. As you can see I have layed it out clearly above.
Now the above substitutions are Diatonic (as per the example: Am7 subbed for C). Diatonic means of the key which means your substitution chords are from the same key. These substitutions can be considered as closely related and therefore 'safe'. In playing accompaniment the tension chords can be extended and altered according to taste e.g. G7b9 or G7b9#5 etc. When looking to do this you need always only consider the 5th and 9th notes. You can sharp or flat the 5th and 9th notes/intervals (i.e. b5, #5, b9, #9). Please keep remembering however that this is not what you would be thinking if you were playing single note solo's. You would be thinking 'C' or you would be thinking 'Am' remember?!
Sticking with the diatonic, whenever we have a 7th chord thus:- |G7 | G7 | over 2 bars we can use the 2m7 chord thus:- |Dmi7 | G7 |. A lot of players like to play 7ths as they like to play over tension so one could replace the Dm7 with D7. So then we would have |D7 | G7 |. Now if we add the 2 chord in front of these dominants we have: Ami7 D7 | Dmi7 G7 |.
Another very common substitution is the flat 5. What that is, is playing a 7th chord with it's root on the flat 5 note of a dominant chord i.e. with the G7 example the flat 5 is Db. (D note is the 5th). So the chord would be Db7. As we have established for every 7th chord you can substitute the 2m7. For Db7 that would be Abm7. Starting to see how it is going? Remember what I'm attempting to do here is feed you some of the basics, just enough to get you thinking on these concepts and start experimenting for yourselves.
Now another important aspect is the diminished chord. The Dim7 chord is built of minor thirds ( notes an equal distance apart). Because each note is all minor third intervals, the diminished 7th chord inverts or repeats every 3 frets. In other the words, the notes of the chord are the same only in a different order. Each inversion sounds somewhat different and therefore adds interest as in fact is the case with inversions of all chords. Take note of the fact that a diminished chord can be thought of as a dom7b9. So the 2m7 chord could work in with them! So you can substitute a diminished seventh chord or arpeggio (ex. Ebdim7), one half step (1 fret) above a dominant seventh chord (ex. D7), creating a dominant 7th flat nine chord (D7b9).
To bring in another factor, for every major chord you can sub. the relative minor chord. In other words the 6m7 chord for the 1maj. So for 'C' you could sub. the Am7. Using the above rule for diminished chords then, for a G7 chord you could play a Abdim7 which is also a Bb7b9 chord. The 2m7 chord that goes with that is Fm7. The relative major chord of Fm7 is Abmaj7. The possibilities are almost endless. Let me put a small chart down for you now.
Diatonic resolution:-
Original Chord | C | C |
Substitution | Am7 | Em7 |
Diatonic tension:-
Original Chord | G7 | G7 | G7 |
Substitution | Dm7 | Fmaj7 | Bm7b5 |
non-diatonic tension:-
Original Chord | G7 | G7 | G7 |
Substitution | Db7/Abm7 | Abdim7/Bdim7/Ddim7/Fdim7 | Fm7/Abmaj7 |
In case you're wondering about the augmented chord, just think of that as dominant 7th with a sharp 5 added. So G aug7 is G7#5.
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The CAGED system:- I have been asked in the past about the 'CAGED system'. This is something I came across on a Joe Pass video at some stage, but it is as relevant today as it was then. It is absolutely simplistic and it is something you all know already even if you have not thought about it in this context. Basically what it is, are 5 movable barre chord shapes. Shown as they are below in the open string position, the barre would be above the nut. These shapes are named: C, A, G, E, D.
Those are of course the names of the chords, but think rather in terms of shapes. So the 1st shape is the 'C' shape, the 2nd shape is the 'A' shape and so on. These shapes can be moved up the fretboard. |
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Below are these 5 shapes moved up the fretboard to play a C chord. So the 1st one is the 'C' shape of C in the open position, the 2nd one is the 'A' shape of C at the 3rd fret, the 3rd one is the 'G' shape of C at the 5th fret, the 4th one is the 'E' shape of C at the 8th fret and the 5th one is the 'D' shape of C at the 10th fret.
Now what these shapes do is they anchor you, they give you a picture of the fretboard in fact! So if you are playing in the key of C, then you can play in one of these 5 positions and move between them easily. And for all the scale tone chords of the key of C (Dm-Em-F-G7-Am-Bm7b5), you could play over one of these shapes, whether you like to use scales, modes or arpeggio's with passing notes. As I have said earlier in the lessons, it is preferable that all of you know the Major and Minor scales. If there is a key change in a song it is not a problem as you will never be further than a semi-tone (1 fret) away from a scale position using the relevant shape. For example, if you were playing in the key of C using the 'E' shape of C at the 8th fret and the key changed to Eb, you would use the 'G' shape of Eb at the 8th fret. If the key changed to G, you go down 1 fret and play the 'C' shape of G at the 7th fret. It is that simple. You will be able to solo in any key easily and will never be more than 1 fret, up or down, from a playing position using one of the 5 shapes. You can play in every key, within 1 fret, in every position on the fretboard. So study this simple concept, up and down the fretboard and play the 5 shapes in every different position. It is worth it's weight in gold!! I think that is about it for now. As with everything be selective in your application of substitution and use it where it sounds good to you and not for the sake of it. Equally, when soloing, I say once again, think only of the basic form of the chords.
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