Category: The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)
How to add Chord Extensions PT1
First video in a series about chord extensions. More to come!
Melodic Development – How to make your solos more interesting
In this video I quickly explain how to take a basic idea and try to develop it to make your solos more interesting and memorable. Remember to leave lots of space!!
Recommended reading:
Playing in Fourths
I really like this style of phrasing, take some great examples like McCoy Tyner, and a lot of the ‘hard bop’ jazz cats. The basic idea is this: take a scale, in this example I will use a C major scale.
Now play all the diatonic fourths contained in C major:
In the video I am playing on a Dm (Dorian) vamp, but you can use this phrasing technique on any scale, mode…have fun.
Tips: play Giant Steps on guitar
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!