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Brians 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 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 guitarists 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. (of course all of us should hopefully still be learning!).
My name is Brian Gough and I have been a musician since I was 18 years old (starting in the 60's) playing the guitar. As you can imagine, having started my playing career in that particular era, I became involved in rock music and played mostly in rock bands for 35 years. I also played in cabaret for a few years supporting a comedian as well as in a few dance bands. I have however always been interested in jazz and now that I have stopped playing rock music, I have become totally into the jazz side of things. It is such a massively satisfying style of playing and allows for absolute creativity.
Part 1:-Simply Jazz.
Below I have put down my impressions and feelings about playing jazz guitar based purely on my own opinions and experiences. I am sure that not everybody will agree with what I have to say, but it pays to say what you think as indeed you should play what you feel in jazz music. Music is your own experience and your thoughts.
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"Anyone can make the simple complicated- Creativity is making the complicated simple." -Charles Mingus. Take note of these words, they are very appropriate. |
I have often heard young musicians who enjoy jazz music saying that they wish they could play jazz but there just seems to be too much to learn what with all the theory and millions of scales and complicated chords. Don't you believe it! There are many very good educators available for students but unfortunately there are also many theorists and teachers out there who possibly try to impress by blinding students with their incredible knowledge and often only succeed in confusing them and scaring them off.
Now comes the big statement! The whole thing about jazz being highly complicated and some sort of mystery that can only be unravelled with deep knowledge of endless theory is just not true. Jazz is essentially, like all music, basically pretty simple and you should strive to keep it so. Of course you need to have some knowledge, learn to listen, play within your limits, and have confidence in yourself.
OK so how does one learn to play jazz, to improvise a solo over a chord progression? To play the various "standard chord progressions" and to learn to recognize them so that one can play all the jazz standards or perhaps something modern, maybe even your own compositions? I have read many books on the subject and have gone along to a series of lessons with a couple of guitar teachers and I have developed a few opinions of my own on the whole subject of playing jazz guitar.
First of all, I think all that stuff about modes and all the various fancy scales is overrated and a waste of time quite frankly. I have read many articles relating to or written by some of the guitar greats and they all kept things pretty simple and basically the technique they used was to just play over chords and follow the changes. Their choice of passing tones and the phrasing and timing they used is what made the difference. I watched an instructional video of Joe Pass playing a concert and then holding a clinic and he said on there "don't ask me anything about modes 'cos I know nothing about that stuff". And I think he did all right, don't you?
"It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play." -Dizzy Gillespie.
Now having said that, there is nothing wrong with having knowledge about things like the modal system or whatever, on the contrary one can only develop from a foundation of knowledge. I would have preferred it though if the teachers had rather explained the importance of how the modes related to the major scale, which I think is far more relevant than just learning the scales in isolation. I mean if you are playing the major scale of any key, you are then playing all the modes related to that key anyway! In 'C' for example, 'D dorian' is the 2 of 'C'. So as I say if you are playing over the C major scale you will be playing D dorian! To me there is nothing more damaging than learning scales in isolation and then playing up and down the scales as it could then become difficult to break the habit of just playing up and down endlessly without any phrasing (very often at breakneck speed with some players too!). The only plus factor with that is it will improve your left and right hand technique and your fluency.
So I think once you have learnt the modes and fancy scales, if you must, put them aside in your mind. Although, naturally one has to have total command of the major and minor scales as apart from anything else all chords are constructed on those scales as you will already know. Concentrate on learning songs rather, that's far more important and will benefit you in the long run. Build up a personal repertoire of the songs that you want to play, the ones you choose will reflect your musical character. Commit them to memory and make them your own. This will be of more value to you than spending time on the fancy scales as I will endeavour to show you....
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. 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.
Now "That's Jazz!"
I have another website called Gough Info, which goes into the subject of Jazz Guitar in greater depth, with a practical example of an improvisation with an in depth analysis of the solo shown. The Gough Info Pages also covers genealogy, recipes from the cape, horse racing with articles on how to find winners and tips for the placepot, our Gough family living here in England and info on how to get your own webpages. There are lots of pictures and interesting articles on people and history. Please visit our other site and hopefully enjoy what we have for you there! Click here to go there now.
I sincerely hope and trust you have enjoyed your visit to Brian's Jazz guitar lessons page and will return again often. The pages will never be static but indeed I will endeavour to add to and develop them all the time. Please have a look around and do call again. If you have any comments please contact me.
E-MAIL:-
jazz-guitar@goughinfo.co.uk
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Last update:-09/03/2004.
