(guitar music)
- Hi everybody.
My name is Jens Larsen.
There are two progressions that are essential
if you're trying to learn
to play jazz and especially bebop.
Those two progressions are the 12 bar blues
and the rhythm changes.
In this video, I'm going to go
over three different approaches
to soloing over rhythm changes
that you can add to to your vocabulary.
If you want to learn more about jazz guitars
or get better at improvising over chords,
so check out some interesting scales and arpeggios,
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When you are playing a solo
over the rhythm changes form,
then you're spending most of your time
improvising over this progression.
The I VI II V in this case in Bb.
So, (guitar) Bbmaj7.
(guitar) G seven.
(guitar) C minor.
(guitar) And then F7.
Of course there are many variations
of this turnaround, and you can check those out.
But essentially, it's gonna be a turnaround that's making up
most of the rhythm change progression.
And that's what you're gonna be soloing on.
And you want to approach this
in a few different ways.
In fact, I think that the three approaches
that I'm covering in this video are really gonna
be there in all good rhythm changes solos
because you don't only use
one of these approaches.
That's not gonna work, but if you leave one
of them out you might not also sound really as if
you know what it is to play over rhythm changes.
(Rhythm Changes - jazz guitar)
In this first approach, we're reducing the amount
of chords that we're soloing on.
So of course, we are starting
with this progression.
(guitar)
And we then, when we're soloing we're using it
down to two chords so a bar of (guitar)
Bbmaj7 and a bar of (guitar) F7.
Those are sort of the core components
of our turnaround anyway.
And the scale you need to improvise
over this would be a Bb major scale
so that would be this scale (guitar).
And of course, there's still a ways
that you could start working towards
being able to improvise like this.
So one bar of Bb, one bar of F,
and then alternating that all the time.
One good exercise is from Barry Harris,
which is this scale exercise.
(guitar)
And of course, you could also work
with just playing the arpeggios.
So if you play first Bb major arpeggio
and then F7 arpeggio in time through the progression
that would be this.
(guitar arpeggios)
Really you just want to combine this information
so one thing is to the scale
and also the arpeggio
and the sound of that into your lines.
In the example that I played, I start off
with the line that's coming straight out
of Bbmaj7 arpeggio.
So I'm starting on the third (guitar)
and then basically up the triad,
so up to the root (guitar)
and then off to the seventh (guitar)
and then down to the fifth (guitar).
And then on the F7 (guitar)
where the scale run from Eb
so that's just really the seventh of F7.
So you can really hear that note is
not really present on the Bb.
And when I have that on the one here,
then you can really hear
that the chord is changing (guitar)
and on the scale of emphasizing the fifth
of the F7 (guitar)
and then using the seventh again
to lead us down to the third of the Bb
in the third bar. (guitar)
And here the line is just using the triad
and a little bit of scale.
(guitar)
Which is still of course third, fifth,
and then sixth. (guitar)
Skipping down to the lower fifth (guitar)
and then on the next F7,
I have an anticipated Eb,
and then the arpeggio I'm using on this F7
of course there are a lot
of arpeggios you could use on a dominant chord.
One of them is also the one that's found
on the seventh degree so that's
an Ebmaj7 arpeggio in this example.
(guitar)
So that's an Eb triad then up
to the seventh so that's D.
And then the leading note
down to the fifth of F7.
(Bebop Jazz Guitar)
But of course,
part of playing over rhythm changes
is also really nailing the changes.
And if you check out part of solos,
you'll see that very often
when he's playing the first two bars in an A-part,
then he won't really be spelling out the changes.
But in the second two bars,
he will really nail the changes and really spell out
maybe have tried to a substitution
or another sorta interesting change in there.
In the example I just played,
I'm doing exactly that.
So really what we need here is, of course,
we already a Bb major scale that we can use
on the Bb chord and we can use the same scale
on the C minor and then on the G seven.
(guitar)
So since G7 is dominant,
it resolves to C minor.
It makes the most sense
to use C minor harmonic scale,
and that would be this scale.
(guitar)
And we do something similar with the Fseven
so use a F7 with a b13 and a b9.
And that would be this scale.
So Bb harmonic minor.
(guitar)
So the idea now becomes to really spell
out the different changes and make clear
each of the chords that are in there.
And the way you do that is usually just
by really pointing towards and playing
towards the important notes in the next chord.
So that's what's called target notes.
I have a web store lesson that's really about this
where I'm giving you a lot of exercises
and a lot examples.
You can check that out.
I'll link to that later in this video.
If we look at the example that I played,
the first lines of the Bbmaj7 is just
(guitar) this Coltrane pattern.
And on the D seven, this really neatly leads up
to the B so now we're on the D seven.
It's getting up to the flat nine.
And now I'm aiming for the fifth that I want
to resolve alongs the C minor.
So (guitar)...
again you can really hear (guitar)
that this is resolving.
Then we get another sorta cliche pattern
which is... (guitar)
five flat, three, two, and one.
And this is also gonna leading really nicely
to the b13 in the F7.
And then I'm just using this (guitar)
which is an F7, sharp 5 arpeggios.
(guitar)
This type of arpeggio,
and again this is also a line with a direction.
And the (guitar) leads us down to the
D on the second Bb major.
And here we have (guitar) and on a Coltrane pattern
but now from D minor.
(guitar)
And that takes us to the flat nine on the G7
(guitar) and here I'm using just the
diminished arpeggio which is (guitar)
of a structure of the G7.
(guitar)
And that resolves really nicely
to the third of C minor.
And on the C minor, I'm using Eb major arpeggio
and then down to the fifth arpeggio.
(guitar)
And that's just a F7 arpeggio,
and it resolves to the third of Bb major.
(Bluesy Jazz guitar)
The third approach that you want to use
if your improvising over rhythm changes is to
also have some phrases that are really,
basically just blues phrases.
Of course, blues is really a big part
of the roots of jazz.
And at the same time the definition
of what a blues phrase is is quite open.
So you can go anywhere from just using something
that sounds like a Bb7
when you're like (guitar)
Bb major type sounds.
Or you can also just use stuff that's
really like minor pentatonic.
(guitar)
I think you'll find that
in a rhythm change is very often,
we're not really using some (guitar)
of the standard guitar blues box stuff.
But you will find there's Pat Martino
that has like really long part in Oleo
where he goes (guitar) if I remember correctly.
So of course it does happen, and you can use it.
Now in the example that I'm using here,
I chose to sorta keep it more
in the mixolydian types sounds.
And just use different aspects of that
and use a a little blues phrasing in my lines.
And in that way, get the blues across.
And how you wanna approach this
is really open to you.
I have quite a few lessons
on making blues phrases in a jazz context.
I'll link to them
in the description of this video.
So if we look at the phrase, the first part of it
(guitar) is really just the open structure
of the Bb7 so that's
just a D diminisheded triad.
(guitar arpeggio)
Then we get on the turnaround
on the two five, so C minor F7.
(guitar)
We get something that can be a little bit ambiguous.
It could be considered
(guitar) just a bebop phrase,
but it could also just be considered
still like (guitar)
some sort of jazz blues phrase
which is coming down from G to F (guitar)
down to the fourth and then...
sorta resolving on the F and the D.
Then we get another phrase,
and this is clearly a blues phrase
in the sense that we have sorta one of the trademarks
of blues is of course that we get the minor third
on top of a major chord.
And in this case, I'm using it as a leading note.
I think you'll find that in sort
of more major type blues.
So both in jazz and country.
That's the way it's used most of the time.
And in this case, I'm playing the leading note up
to the third (guitar)
down to the root, sixth.
And then again using the sort of dominant sound
(guitar)
with this part which is really just a fragment
of a Bb7 arpeggio.
Then the last part just to sorta take it back to
because in the bars after we're gonna be going
to the fourth degree.
And there's a lot more happening with the changes
than to keep a little bit here
in this with a C minor phrase.
(guitar)
Of course, you can work on each
of these three approaches separately.
And probably if you're trying to get better
at them then yeah I would take one out and work on that.
But when you're a sorting over them changes,
you really wanna see if you can find
a good way to combine them.
As I already talked about,
how you will actually find,
and you can also start listening for it like that.
That for instance, Parker will use certain things
and in certain places,
play the changes in all places.
Maybe simplify them a little bit
or just play a blues phrase.
I think when it comes to playing blues if you listen
to people like Joe Pass
or George Benson or certainly also Parker
You'll here them play blues, and you can do that
in the context of a rhythm change.
But actually you will hear them do it just
on a normal standard and anything
that just has a tonic major chord, really.
If you want to dig a little bit deeper
into playing rhythm changes
where you're really nailing the changes,
and working with all things that are possible.
If you start working with target notes,
then I have a web store lesson that's exactly
on that topic, and you can check that out.
I'll link to it both as a cut here in the video
and also in the description.
In that there's a lot of examples.
There's a lot of exercises and allot of talk
about how you can make some good phrases
that are really spelling out the changes
in a nice, still musical way.
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That's about it for this week.
Thank you for watching and until next week.
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