IntellectualMusician.com

If you look at my last article, “superimposing arpeggios” you’ll read how it is possible to superimpose a different arpeggio of a chord from the same parent scale over the chord that you are improvising on. In this lesson I am going to take it one step further and combine it with another of my previous articles “Jazz Up Your Blues Progressions”, in which I describe how to add a jazz flavor to your blues progressions by adding different chord substitutions throughout the sequence. Continue reading »

When playing over a particular chord how many different arpeggios would you consider using? Over any chord you can superimpose a large number of different arpeggios which can give you greater harmonic choices. In this lesson I am going to look at one approach of doing this. By having a parent scale in mind (ie playing in a specific key) whether it’s for one chord, a chord sequence or for a whole piece of music, I’m going to show how to determine all the different arpeggios that are available to play over each chord in that key. Continue reading »

As a guitar player and guitar teacher I meet a lot of people who always wanted to play jazz but thought it was too difficult so they never give it a go. This lesson is kind of aimed at those players who want to jazz up their blues playing without too much stress. It’s not designed as quick-fix but will get you sounding much more jazzy in just a few simple steps. Continue reading »

The blues scale was the first thing they taught me when I got into jazz band in high school. It’s a simple scale to learn, and all the tones sound good over blues changes. The advantage of knowing it Continue reading »

The whole tone scale is one of the most underused scales in improvising, in my opinion. It has revolutionized my approach to improvising on a tune. People always talk about playing “out” and they will spend years and years working on all kinds of complicated ways of doing it, but the answer is right under our noses and its really not all that complicated. Whole steps. That’s it. Just play whole steps. I’m dramatizing a bit, but essentially that’s the idea I’m talking about. Continue reading »

Have you ever wanted to go to a music store and get a book that had the best information on how to play guitar, explained in ways that were easy to understand and made sense, and not know which book to buy? Ever go out and get that book, only to discover that it had a bunch of information that you didn’t need and didn’t make a good deal of sense after all? Ever wonder whether the “get chops quick” guitar methods so prevalent on the Internet today are really ripoffs? Well, no need for further frustration, help is here. Continue reading »

Using substitute chords is a common practice that spices up chord changes and often makes melodies sound more “modern.” The most common chord substitution you see is the tritone sub. Continue reading »

The first in a series of bass articles covering a wide array of topics. Email me if you have any suggestions. We’ll start with some common blues patterns.

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The minor7b5 chord is found diatonically across major and minor scales but is often misunderstood, or worse, poorly applied. Continue reading »

Whether you’re a classically trained player looking to branch out into jazz, a budding jazz player looking for more explanation on how to solo over changes, or a rhythm section player starting to approach jazz Continue reading »