Author: Gianni C.

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

2-5-1 Pt1:Explanation

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The 2-5-1 Progression (or to be ‘proper’ I should write II-V-I) is quite a  popular progression of chords that you will find in abundance in jazz standards and all kind of tunes. You should have figured out by now that it is made up by the second, fifth, and first chord of the harmonized major scale. In C major it would be: Dm7 G7 Cmaj7.

A good way to underline the progression in a solo is to understand what are the important notes and how they move from a chord to the next one. So let’s see two important concepts:

1. Harmonic Rhythm

The harmonic rhythm is nothing but ‘when’ certain notes happen in the rhythmic flow. Let’s say as a generic rule that important notes (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th) will make your melody sound stronger if they fall on the strong beats of the bar (the 1st and 3rd beat in a 4/4 bar).

2. Voice Leading

Voice leading is nothing but ‘how’ notes move from a chord to the other. There are ‘more advisable’ ways to move these notes, and in the traditional theory rules can be quite strict. A good rule to keep in mind in the 2-5-1 progression is the 7th in the IIm7 chord resolving to the 3rd of the V chord. Also the 3rd of the IIm7 chord  stays and turns into the 7th of the V chord. Furthermore the 7th of the V chord resolves down to the major 3rd of the I chord. The 3rd of the V chord stays the same turning into the maj7th of the I chord. In C major this would look something like this:

Dm7        G7         Cmaj7
C ——–>B -stays- B
F -stays-  F———>E
D              G              C

Listen to some examples in the next video. You can download a chart of all 2-5-1 in all keys >here< print it, learn how to play all the chords, record a track for yourself to solo over, and good luck!!

Posted in Getting it all together

Play a pop solo

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Here I’ll show you how to put all the stuff you learnt so far, to create a simple solo on a backing track in G Major, with chords from the G major harmonized scale. This is the progression:

| G        | C maj7 | Em         | D         | Am         |

As you can see even if there are 5 chords, it’s all in the same key, and I would use phrases from these scales:

G major
G major pentatonic
G minor pentatonic/ blues scale (when you want to add that ‘bluesy’ sound)

Check out the solo at the end of the video for inspiration in case you are stuck for ideas, in this case I’d say just download the track and experiment.

Download MP3: >Backing track<

Posted in The Blues

More Advanced Blues stuff (the Miles/Robben thing)

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Advanced pentatonic stuff.

There are when times you can get bored of playing just the pentatonic on a blues, or maybe you’ve heard more contemporary blues players like Robben Ford, or blues influenced jazz guys like John Scofield and Scott Henderson. Well, here I come to help you out with a couple of tips: first I go over the ‘blues scale’, still quite a basic concept. Just add the b5 to a minor pentatonic and there you go, you have the ‘blues scale’.

A much more interesting thing happens when you start mixing up the H-W Diminished scale with a minor or major pentatonic scale. This will give you a few nice tensions:

Half step – Whole step Diminished scale in C:

C  Db  Eb  Fb  Gb  G  A   Bb
T  b2   b3  3    b5  5 13  b7

C minor pentatonic:

C  Eb  F  G  Bb
T  b3  4  5  b7

C major Pentatonic:

C  D  E  G  A
T  2   3  5  6

Well, mix and match tastefully and you’ll get some new flavors, guaranteed. Listen to some of the examples I play in the video. Good luck!

Posted in The Blues

Basic pentatonic major-minor

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Basic Pentatonic stuff

I will not get too much into pentatonics as you can find stuff all over the net. Too much has been said and done on the famous ‘pentatonic box’…As I say in the video, a major pentatonic is a major scale without the 4thand 7th degree. So C major pentatonic is: C D E G A These are the 5 positions for the major pentatonic, in the example in G major (but valid for all keys). Of course, remember that if you start from the 6th (the 5th note of the pentatonic – also ‘box’ N.5) you will have the relative minor. In the example in G the minor pentatonic will be E, just like E minor is the relative minor of a G major scale. The last box at the bottom right is the famous ‘blues scale’…a minor pentatonic with an added b5. Try and learn them just like we did for the major scale…all keys, down every single string, from lowest note to highest note on the fretboard and so on. Find the ‘5 boxes’ position fingerings below:

Printable PDF: Pentatonic Fingerings