Author: Gianni C.

Posted in The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)

Tips: play Giant Steps on guitar

by Gianni C. on August 14, 2010

Giant Steps has always been a challenging standard to play, in this video I give a few tips on how to approach this famous tune.

The Chords (from the fake book-as far as I know it is not copyrighted material so I am posting the original):

One good ‘pattern’ to start familiarising with the progression in playing 1235 for every chord (meaning the 1st,2nd,3nd and 5th of every chord). For the original key it would be B,C#,D#,F#(Bmaj7) then D,E,F#,A (D7), G,A,B,D (G)and so on…

It’s all about getting used to keep your brain engaged at any time. A great exercise!

Posted in Tips and Online finds

Allan Holdsworth and Gordon Beck – The Things You See.

by Gianni C. on August 12, 2010

I wanted to share a couple of tracks from a hard to find record By Allan Holdsworth and Gordon Beck. The Things You See . This album is absolutely a must for Allan’s fans. He plays mostly acoustic on this album and the musical level is second to none. Just listen to the first couple of seconds of ‘Diminished Responsibility’ and you’ll know what I mean.

Posted in The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)

Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt2

by Gianni C. on August 9, 2010

In this video I show how to use the Superlocrian mode (nothing more than the 7th mode of a minor melodic scale) to improvise over altered chords. On C7 the choice would be C Superlocrian C, Db,Eb,E, F#,G#,Bb (also known as Db melodic minor starting from C). Listen to a few examples of resolution from C7(alt) to F major and to F minor in the second part of the video.

Posted in The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)

Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt1

by Gianni C. on August 9, 2010

Altered chords are a flavour of dominant chords, where we add certain extensions: #9,b9,#5,b5. In the example on the video I use C7 as basic chord and add the extension D#,Db,G#,Gb also as combinations.

Posted in Tips and Online finds

Larry Carlton lesson on Diminished scale

by Gianni C. on August 1, 2010

The last lesson I posted was about the Diminished scale…I stumbled onto this great video where guitar player guru Larry Carlton Talk about the diminished scale. He is one of my favourite guitarists of all times …if had to suggest any records, just check out ‘Sleepwalk’ or ‘Strike twice’ or any of his work with Steely Dan. Notice not only the notes he plays, but HOW he plays them…notice how sometimes he put a much more dramatic accent on notes that might sound ‘out’, like a b9, to make them stand out. Just listen to how he plays in the next video and notice the dynamic (soft/loud) and the way he attacks each note.