Some basic skills in arranging jazz standards for solo playing are a great addition to a jazz guitarist’s abilities for several reasons:
1. With a large enough rep or enough skill to arrange tunes on the fly you can stop splitting up the money from all those “music to be ignored by gigs” that we all love so much.
2. This is a great way to deepen your understanding and performance of jazz harmonies, and is great ear training.
3. Most importantly, with true mastery of this skill you can open up whole worlds of expression.
It’s always a good idea to start discussing anything about solo jazz guitar by mentioning Joe Pass. In the book Joe Pass on Guitar Joe says, “1. Generally, it is best to keep the melody on the top three strings. This way, your harmonization beneath allows access in an appropriate range of the instrument. Voicing the melody of a song lower than the G string will force you to place chord tones above the melody – which tends to obscure and lessen it’s strength and importance… 2. Because melody alone very often implies chords, it is not necessary to go to great pains and work very hard to accompany every melody note with a chord. There is no sense in killing yourself for no reason…3. The object of chord-melody is to make music, not hard work; you play the guitar, not the other way around. (Pg. 52, my numbering) If you’re up to the challenge I highly recommend transcribing anything off of one of Joe’s Virtuoso albums. This will give you a much better idea of what’s going than anything I’ll have to say.
I will reiterate one of Joe’s points Keep It Simple. Playing something simple well will almost always be more effective than playing something complex poorly. This is especially true as we start to learn this particular skill. If you find yourself running out of fingers, then play fewer notes! In the beginning, we have to keep only what we really need in order to be effective. Many of the common guitar voicings for chords use four to six notes when we only really need three, and sometimes as few as two.
In a given chord we know the following things: the root gives a chord its name and establishes its harmonic function, the third gives a chord its quality, the fifth can make a chord diminished or augmented, in the case of a dominant, major, or minor seventh chord the fifth can be omitted, in the case of a chord that is extended beyond the seventh i.e. a 13th then both the fifth and the seventh can be omitted as they are implied. It is also true that if the third and fifth are present or if the chord is considerably extended then the root can be often be omitted, especially in a familiar progression, again, because it is implied. In the case of an intimately familiar progression like a 12 bar blues or a rhythm changes the listener will often fill in this information on their own. All of these omissions should be made on a case-by-case basis, but this is basically what can be disposed of if you find it necessary. Common guitar voicings almost always contained doubled notes; one of these can always be dispensed with with impunity.
Further, it is unnecessary to maintain a chord for a great deal of time. Joe again, “Even a very rhythmically short chord can stay in the listener’s ear until the next harmonic change arises.” (Pg. 52) This is especially true in tunes where a harmonic change occurs every measure, or more frequently. When beginning, play enough to make the harmony crystal clear, but no more. Make the melody and its clear expression your first priority.
Exploit the range of your instrument, both along the length of the neck, and across it’s width. Often I find that a passage that is proving tricky to harmonize for various reasons falls into place when revoiced in a higher or lower position, or when I extend the chord down onto the fifth or sixth strings by leaving out notes on the middle strings. In addition this can help with “sweetening” dissonances. Try playing an Fmaj7 by playing the chord in first position and adding the maj7th E on the open first string, then play the same chord voiced in an Amaj7 form and the eighth fret, you’ll see what I mean.
Keeping the melody on the top three strings will often necessitate transposing the melody up an octave from where you would usually read it. Remember on the guitar everything sounds down an octave from the written pitch, much like the tenor sax. C on the 3rd fret 5th string is written as middle C but it sounds an octave lower. So by transposing up an octave we put the melody in a register that allows us access to the bottom half of the guitars register in which to play our harmony. Also, many archtop owners like me notice that their guitars have a sweet spot, and generally its not first position. Mine extends from the fifth fret up to the twelfth, and so I’ll often play the melody up an octave from “standard” guitar position in combo settings in order to be in that part of the instrument, and so that I’ll be well out of territory occupied by the bassist and pianist. So it behooves you to become familiar with this part of your guitar.
Look for places that the melody happens to fall on one of the top notes of a common jazz chord shape. By finding these “safe places” you can concentrate on the areas where you may have to stretch a bit to get what you need. For instance, anytime the melody note is the third of a given chord you can use an A form barre chord and the melody note will naturally be on the B string, simply omit the doubled octave on the E string and you’ve got it.
So now we’ve got some general information to go on. Transpose the melody to it’s true written register (up an octave), keep the melody on the top three strings, look for places that the melody and the chord being played are in a common chord shape, and play only what’s necessary to make the harmony clear.
In our next installment we’ll use these general hints to attack one of my favorite tunes, “All the Things You Are.” In the meantime, experiment with these hints and see if they help you. If you still don’t get it, then Part II should help you connect the dots. Untill then, happy practicing.
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