As a guitar player who focuses a good deal of his attention on Jazz there have been things I have noticed along the journey to becoming a better musician. The understanding of Harmony is basically the most essential element in becoming a proficient jazz musician. Besides applying this knowledge to your comping it can be directly applied to your soloing and quickly put you on your way to sounding more melodic.
If we look at a simple Diatonic progression, meaning all in one key, consisting of a I, VI, II, V chord movement we can then begin to apply some of these concepts. In this case we will be working with a BbMaj 7, G-7, C-7 and an F7. By now you should know these chords are all Diatonic to BbMaj. Knowing this we lend ourselves the opportunity to use the Bb Maj. scale and any of its corresponding modes to improvise over these changes.
If we take this a step further we can try to understand how Triads can function as a very melodic form of movement within our solos.
Over the I chord, BbMaj 7 we can essentially use any Triad Diatonic to the key we are working in. Over that chord we can superimpose a BbMaj, C-, D-, EbMaj, FMaj, G- or an A diminished, of course these all being triads. Because this progression stays in Bb, this rule can be directly applied to the whole sequence using the same triads.
These shapes can be played in various positions on the neck leaving the musician countless avenues of improvisation. Remember, these chords can then be inverted and altered lending themselves to other changes or simply enhancing the changes we have shown here.
In this next musical phrase, I am going to demonstrate an example of how these chords can be linked or connected to form a full line that really evokes a jazz sound, especially while being applied to the popular Jazz standard, “I Got Rhythm” changes we have been working with.
In this example I will substitute some passing tone, simply labeled as P.T. to keep continuity in the movement of the line from one chord to the next.
After examining the previous line, you can see that it consists of the various chords already mentioned. I did not include every Triad that we have discussed, but the line has a steady flow incorporating four of the shapes we talked about. In using this concept of playing chord and chord tones in your solos you don’t only guarantee everything you play is going to be in the correct key, (a main component to playing Jazz or any style of music), but you are using chord tones to dictate your melodic ideas. This gives your solos a real “musical” sound. The chords played over this passage include the I chord, or B Major Triad, the IV or the Eb Major Triad, the iii or the D- chord, and the ii or the C- triad. These Triads are all Diatonic, or in the same key as the chord sequence itself, which is in the home key of Bb. As demonstrated here the included passing tones work wonderfully due to the fact that they connect one chord to another. The first passing tone we have is really just the Major seventh of the chord, but because I am demonstrating this concept using Triads I listed it as a passing tone to make the concept more easily understood. Next, if we are now playing over the G-7 chord the passing tone in the last beat of the first measure is an 11 over the chord. Over the following chord we see a C# which becomes the b9 over the II chord or C-7, a very common tone in the Jazz idiom. Finally, we see an Ab presented, which becomes the #9 over the V chord, or the F7.
When using this concept of employing triads and chord tones in your solos one must remember that it is important to be conscious of what shapes and chords you are using, as well as what chords you are playing over. In being aware of this you will have much more control, thus leading to much more freedom in your musical statements. Next time I will talk more specifically about how to determine what chords to use in various musical situations and how alterations to these chords can really begin to develop a more sophisticated sound in your playing.
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