jazz and blues in ormation
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Blues To JazzFrom very simple to more complex this is a look at the harmonic structure of the blues Only a few easy chord
forms are used so you can focus on the basic concepts I encourage you to explore your instrument furtherIncluded are Standard MIDI Files so you can hear and play along with the examples Grab your guitar and
dive in These tracks were generated with the Band In A Box program from PG Music
The Basic BluesBasic blues consists of 3 chord changes In the key of C the chords would be C7 F7 and G7 The chords are
derived from the scale C is the I chord F is the IV chord and G is the V chord Using the familiar 12 bar pattern the basic blues in C would look like this
Blues 1
Adding ExtensionsBy adding some extensions to the basic 7th chords you can make your rhythm playing sound more interesting
Adding 9ths 13ths and sharp 9ths is common in blues and jazz
Blues 1 (variation)
The Turnaround
The last two measures of the blues is considered the turnaround The basic turnaround weve seen so far is
To add harmonic interest to this basic turnaround precede the G7 with a D7
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To add more harmonic interest A7 will precede D7 This creates the standard I VI II V turnaround
Now add some extensions to the basic 7th chords
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Now you see how the standard I VI II V chords can be substituted for the I V turnaround The same thing
can be done in bars 7 thru 10
Diminished And Half-Step SubstitutionsThe Fdim (diminished) chord can be used to connect the IV chord to the I chord Another good way to connect
chords is the half-step substitution You precede a new measure by starting a half-step above or below the chordin the next measure The fingerings are the same just move the chord shape up or down the fretboard For B13
just play C13 down 1 fret F9 is F9 up 1 fret Bb13 is C13 down 2 frets Anyway you get the idea
Blues 3
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blues3mid 8k
Half-step substitutions can also be used to add more interest to the turnaround also creating a walking bass
line sound
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions
The IImin7 and V7 chords are derived from the degrees of the major scale That means G7 is the V chord andDmin7 is the II chord in the C scale This is usually called a II V progression This is a common use of the II Vsubstitutions in a blues progression
Blues 4
The Flat-Five Substitution
A substitution often used by jazz musicians is replacing a chord with one a flat fifth away That is Eb is the b5of A and Db is the b5 of G etc Here are three examples of how the turnaround can be played
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Putting It All Together
The Basic Blues and Adding Extensions The Turnaround
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Diminished And Half-Step Substitutions
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions The Flat-Five Substitution
This last progression demonstrates most of the concepts weve covered so far
Blues 5
blues5mid 8k
Get Out And Play
Of course you need to be able to play in all 12 keys (easier said than done) After youve learned how to alterthe blues let your ears guide you as to which of the substitutions to use More often than not its best to play
the most basic approach (You mean I learned all this for nothing) It all depends on the situation Get out and
play because there is no substitute for experience it is the best teacher
Swing Chords
My friend Queenie calls these simple chord forms swing chords and after thinking about it for a moment Idecided that was a pretty good name for them The first time I remember hearing this type of rhythm guitar
playing was on Django Reinhardt records Djangos band used several guitarist to churn out those driving four-to-the-bar rhythms Later I discoverd Freddie Green groovin hard in Count Basies big band using some of
the same types of chords One of the great things about this type of chord form is its harmonic simplicityWhen youre playing with other chordal instruments or in a big band these voicings are good for staying out of
trouble Another wonderful feature is that swing chords are really easy to play
Lets Get Started
The first thing to know about this type of chord is that the 3rd and the 7th are the most important chord tonesIn a C major 7th chord (CEGB) the 3rd would be E and the 7th would be B Im not going to dictate the exact
fingerings to use because you should find what works best for you Whatever fingerings you choose make surethat the strings not being used are muted when you strum the chords
Example 1The first chord form has the Root note on the sixth (E) string the 7th of the chord is located on the fourth (D)
string and the 3rd is on the third (G) string Just like your basic bar chords these are movable chord fingeringsIn other words if you move the Gmi7 chord up two frets it is Ami7 Using just the fingerings shown here play
the following chord progression
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Swing 1
Example 2The following chord form has the Root note on the fifth (A) string the 3rd on the fourth (D) string and the 7th
on the third (G) string Use these fingerings to play the chord progression
Swing 2
Example 3 Now well use the same chord voicings except instead of playing the Root note on the fifth (A) string play the
5th of the chord (right next to the Root) on the sixth (E) string The circle in the diagrams indicate where the
Root note is but you dont play it
Swing 3
Combining VoicingsThe chord progressions weve looked at so far have all moved in a scale or chromatic fashion but it is common
to see chords move in cycles like fourths When this occurs as in a IImi7 V7 progression it sounds better (andis easier to play) if you keep the voicings close to each other Here are three examples of combining the
different chord forms for a smoother sound Try them out with these standard progressions
Swing 4
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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To add more harmonic interest A7 will precede D7 This creates the standard I VI II V turnaround
Now add some extensions to the basic 7th chords
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Now you see how the standard I VI II V chords can be substituted for the I V turnaround The same thing
can be done in bars 7 thru 10
Diminished And Half-Step SubstitutionsThe Fdim (diminished) chord can be used to connect the IV chord to the I chord Another good way to connect
chords is the half-step substitution You precede a new measure by starting a half-step above or below the chordin the next measure The fingerings are the same just move the chord shape up or down the fretboard For B13
just play C13 down 1 fret F9 is F9 up 1 fret Bb13 is C13 down 2 frets Anyway you get the idea
Blues 3
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blues3mid 8k
Half-step substitutions can also be used to add more interest to the turnaround also creating a walking bass
line sound
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions
The IImin7 and V7 chords are derived from the degrees of the major scale That means G7 is the V chord andDmin7 is the II chord in the C scale This is usually called a II V progression This is a common use of the II Vsubstitutions in a blues progression
Blues 4
The Flat-Five Substitution
A substitution often used by jazz musicians is replacing a chord with one a flat fifth away That is Eb is the b5of A and Db is the b5 of G etc Here are three examples of how the turnaround can be played
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Putting It All Together
The Basic Blues and Adding Extensions The Turnaround
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Diminished And Half-Step Substitutions
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions The Flat-Five Substitution
This last progression demonstrates most of the concepts weve covered so far
Blues 5
blues5mid 8k
Get Out And Play
Of course you need to be able to play in all 12 keys (easier said than done) After youve learned how to alterthe blues let your ears guide you as to which of the substitutions to use More often than not its best to play
the most basic approach (You mean I learned all this for nothing) It all depends on the situation Get out and
play because there is no substitute for experience it is the best teacher
Swing Chords
My friend Queenie calls these simple chord forms swing chords and after thinking about it for a moment Idecided that was a pretty good name for them The first time I remember hearing this type of rhythm guitar
playing was on Django Reinhardt records Djangos band used several guitarist to churn out those driving four-to-the-bar rhythms Later I discoverd Freddie Green groovin hard in Count Basies big band using some of
the same types of chords One of the great things about this type of chord form is its harmonic simplicityWhen youre playing with other chordal instruments or in a big band these voicings are good for staying out of
trouble Another wonderful feature is that swing chords are really easy to play
Lets Get Started
The first thing to know about this type of chord is that the 3rd and the 7th are the most important chord tonesIn a C major 7th chord (CEGB) the 3rd would be E and the 7th would be B Im not going to dictate the exact
fingerings to use because you should find what works best for you Whatever fingerings you choose make surethat the strings not being used are muted when you strum the chords
Example 1The first chord form has the Root note on the sixth (E) string the 7th of the chord is located on the fourth (D)
string and the 3rd is on the third (G) string Just like your basic bar chords these are movable chord fingeringsIn other words if you move the Gmi7 chord up two frets it is Ami7 Using just the fingerings shown here play
the following chord progression
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Swing 1
Example 2The following chord form has the Root note on the fifth (A) string the 3rd on the fourth (D) string and the 7th
on the third (G) string Use these fingerings to play the chord progression
Swing 2
Example 3 Now well use the same chord voicings except instead of playing the Root note on the fifth (A) string play the
5th of the chord (right next to the Root) on the sixth (E) string The circle in the diagrams indicate where the
Root note is but you dont play it
Swing 3
Combining VoicingsThe chord progressions weve looked at so far have all moved in a scale or chromatic fashion but it is common
to see chords move in cycles like fourths When this occurs as in a IImi7 V7 progression it sounds better (andis easier to play) if you keep the voicings close to each other Here are three examples of combining the
different chord forms for a smoother sound Try them out with these standard progressions
Swing 4
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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blues3mid 8k
Half-step substitutions can also be used to add more interest to the turnaround also creating a walking bass
line sound
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions
The IImin7 and V7 chords are derived from the degrees of the major scale That means G7 is the V chord andDmin7 is the II chord in the C scale This is usually called a II V progression This is a common use of the II Vsubstitutions in a blues progression
Blues 4
The Flat-Five Substitution
A substitution often used by jazz musicians is replacing a chord with one a flat fifth away That is Eb is the b5of A and Db is the b5 of G etc Here are three examples of how the turnaround can be played
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Putting It All Together
The Basic Blues and Adding Extensions The Turnaround
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Diminished And Half-Step Substitutions
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions The Flat-Five Substitution
This last progression demonstrates most of the concepts weve covered so far
Blues 5
blues5mid 8k
Get Out And Play
Of course you need to be able to play in all 12 keys (easier said than done) After youve learned how to alterthe blues let your ears guide you as to which of the substitutions to use More often than not its best to play
the most basic approach (You mean I learned all this for nothing) It all depends on the situation Get out and
play because there is no substitute for experience it is the best teacher
Swing Chords
My friend Queenie calls these simple chord forms swing chords and after thinking about it for a moment Idecided that was a pretty good name for them The first time I remember hearing this type of rhythm guitar
playing was on Django Reinhardt records Djangos band used several guitarist to churn out those driving four-to-the-bar rhythms Later I discoverd Freddie Green groovin hard in Count Basies big band using some of
the same types of chords One of the great things about this type of chord form is its harmonic simplicityWhen youre playing with other chordal instruments or in a big band these voicings are good for staying out of
trouble Another wonderful feature is that swing chords are really easy to play
Lets Get Started
The first thing to know about this type of chord is that the 3rd and the 7th are the most important chord tonesIn a C major 7th chord (CEGB) the 3rd would be E and the 7th would be B Im not going to dictate the exact
fingerings to use because you should find what works best for you Whatever fingerings you choose make surethat the strings not being used are muted when you strum the chords
Example 1The first chord form has the Root note on the sixth (E) string the 7th of the chord is located on the fourth (D)
string and the 3rd is on the third (G) string Just like your basic bar chords these are movable chord fingeringsIn other words if you move the Gmi7 chord up two frets it is Ami7 Using just the fingerings shown here play
the following chord progression
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Swing 1
Example 2The following chord form has the Root note on the fifth (A) string the 3rd on the fourth (D) string and the 7th
on the third (G) string Use these fingerings to play the chord progression
Swing 2
Example 3 Now well use the same chord voicings except instead of playing the Root note on the fifth (A) string play the
5th of the chord (right next to the Root) on the sixth (E) string The circle in the diagrams indicate where the
Root note is but you dont play it
Swing 3
Combining VoicingsThe chord progressions weve looked at so far have all moved in a scale or chromatic fashion but it is common
to see chords move in cycles like fourths When this occurs as in a IImi7 V7 progression it sounds better (andis easier to play) if you keep the voicings close to each other Here are three examples of combining the
different chord forms for a smoother sound Try them out with these standard progressions
Swing 4
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Putting It All Together
The Basic Blues and Adding Extensions The Turnaround
The Standard I VI II V Chord Substitution Diminished And Half-Step Substitutions
The IImin7 V7 Substitutions The Flat-Five Substitution
This last progression demonstrates most of the concepts weve covered so far
Blues 5
blues5mid 8k
Get Out And Play
Of course you need to be able to play in all 12 keys (easier said than done) After youve learned how to alterthe blues let your ears guide you as to which of the substitutions to use More often than not its best to play
the most basic approach (You mean I learned all this for nothing) It all depends on the situation Get out and
play because there is no substitute for experience it is the best teacher
Swing Chords
My friend Queenie calls these simple chord forms swing chords and after thinking about it for a moment Idecided that was a pretty good name for them The first time I remember hearing this type of rhythm guitar
playing was on Django Reinhardt records Djangos band used several guitarist to churn out those driving four-to-the-bar rhythms Later I discoverd Freddie Green groovin hard in Count Basies big band using some of
the same types of chords One of the great things about this type of chord form is its harmonic simplicityWhen youre playing with other chordal instruments or in a big band these voicings are good for staying out of
trouble Another wonderful feature is that swing chords are really easy to play
Lets Get Started
The first thing to know about this type of chord is that the 3rd and the 7th are the most important chord tonesIn a C major 7th chord (CEGB) the 3rd would be E and the 7th would be B Im not going to dictate the exact
fingerings to use because you should find what works best for you Whatever fingerings you choose make surethat the strings not being used are muted when you strum the chords
Example 1The first chord form has the Root note on the sixth (E) string the 7th of the chord is located on the fourth (D)
string and the 3rd is on the third (G) string Just like your basic bar chords these are movable chord fingeringsIn other words if you move the Gmi7 chord up two frets it is Ami7 Using just the fingerings shown here play
the following chord progression
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Swing 1
Example 2The following chord form has the Root note on the fifth (A) string the 3rd on the fourth (D) string and the 7th
on the third (G) string Use these fingerings to play the chord progression
Swing 2
Example 3 Now well use the same chord voicings except instead of playing the Root note on the fifth (A) string play the
5th of the chord (right next to the Root) on the sixth (E) string The circle in the diagrams indicate where the
Root note is but you dont play it
Swing 3
Combining VoicingsThe chord progressions weve looked at so far have all moved in a scale or chromatic fashion but it is common
to see chords move in cycles like fourths When this occurs as in a IImi7 V7 progression it sounds better (andis easier to play) if you keep the voicings close to each other Here are three examples of combining the
different chord forms for a smoother sound Try them out with these standard progressions
Swing 4
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Swing 1
Example 2The following chord form has the Root note on the fifth (A) string the 3rd on the fourth (D) string and the 7th
on the third (G) string Use these fingerings to play the chord progression
Swing 2
Example 3 Now well use the same chord voicings except instead of playing the Root note on the fifth (A) string play the
5th of the chord (right next to the Root) on the sixth (E) string The circle in the diagrams indicate where the
Root note is but you dont play it
Swing 3
Combining VoicingsThe chord progressions weve looked at so far have all moved in a scale or chromatic fashion but it is common
to see chords move in cycles like fourths When this occurs as in a IImi7 V7 progression it sounds better (andis easier to play) if you keep the voicings close to each other Here are three examples of combining the
different chord forms for a smoother sound Try them out with these standard progressions
Swing 4
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Swing 5
A Little History
The modes were used by the early church to form Gregorian chant Anglican chant and Plainsong Givennames borrowed from ancient Greek Theory there were originally only four Dorian Phrygian Lydian and
Mixolydian They were extended to twelve and in todays modern music reduced to seven
Still borrowing from the Greek tradition they are as follows
Ionian the Major scale we know today and what all western music is based
Dorian a minor sounding scalePhrygian a minor scale form with a gypsy or oriental sound
Lydian a major sounding scaleMixolydian a major or dominant scale form
Aeolian the Natural Minor scaleLocrian a minor sounding scale with a gypsy or flamencospanishlatin sound
Simply put each mode is a scale built on a different degree of the major scale In other words if you took a CMajor scale (all white notes on piano) and played D to D that would be Dorian If you played E to E that would
be Phrygian If you played F to F that would be Lydian By playing G to G you form Mixolydian NaturalMinor a commonly used scale is A to A known as Aeolian Locrian the last mode would go B to B Seems
simple enough but lets look into this a little deeper
IonianOK so what is Ionian or the Major scale It is a series of tones based on intervals To construct a C Major
scale or the Ionian mode first play a C Go up a whole step to D a whole step to E a half step to F a whole stepto G a whole step to A a whole step to B and finally a half step to C So it follows that Ionian is (whole step =
1 half step = 12) 1 1 12 1 1 1 12 This intervallic relationship of whole tones and semi tones is what allwestern music is based Try playing this scale over the Midi Sequence supplied Sound familar It should even
the Allman Brothers like it
Dorian
Dorian is probably the most used of the minor modes for JAZZ Made popular by the likes of Miles So Whatand Coltrane Impressions the Dorian mode can be played over any Minor Seventh chord Now let us
construct the scale As stated earlier Dorian would be like taking a C Major scale but playing from D to DThose intervals would be 1 12 1 1 1 12 1 However for this exercise we want our Root note or Tonic to be
C By doing so it follows that C Dorian would be C D Eb F G A Bb See the relationship here C Dorian has theKey signature of Bb Dorian is built on the second degree (of a Major Scale) and C is the second degree of Bb
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Compared to a C Major scale though both the third and seventh degree have been lowered or flatted Play thisscale over the exercise See how Kool that is Miles would be proud (check out what Pat Martino does with that
scale)
Phrygian
Not as popular with mainstreamers Fusion artists such as John Mclaughlin used to jam with it like a Matra Istill listen to Inner Mounting Flame and get those warm Fuzzies Geezlets build the scale If Phrygian was
like playing E to E in a C major scale the following relationship develops 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 Now lets builda C Phrygian scale It should be C Db Eb F G Ab Bb Thats the key signature of Ab Major and C would have
been the third degree Starting to see it Phrygian the third mode built from the third degree of a Major scalewill have the same key signature as a major scale two whole steps down Compared to a C Major scale the
second third sixth and seventh degrees have been flatted Enough saidgo play that thing
LydianLydian has got that bright Major sound Used over Major seventh chords (ma711) Pat Matheny makes greatuse of it on Phase Dance By now you should be getting the feel for this Lets construct a C Lydian scale
The intervals are 1 1 1 12 1 1 12 The notes are C D E F G A B So C Lydian has the same key signatureas G Major C being a fourth in the G Scale Get it I thought so Have fun with the Seq
Mixolydian
If you like that Wes Montgomery - George Benson school of playing then you have heard plenty of Mixolydian being played Sometimes called the Dominant scale it is what you play over dominant seventh and suspended
chords Its kinda like a Blues scale with a raised third Compared to a Major scale it has a flatted seventh Theintervals are 1 1 12 1 1 12 1 The notes for C Mixolydian are C D E F G A Bb But you knew that If you
get a chance see how Monk uses it in Well you Neednt Happiness is but a half step away
Aeolian
Pure minor Relative minor Natural minormany names all for the Aeolian mode Used for about every Soul ballad ever written its where the minor pentatonic scale comes from Besides Ionian it is the second most
popular mode for classical writers to compose in Can you build one The intervals are 1 12 1 1 12 1 1 Its
a major scale with the third sixth and seventh flatted C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
LocrianAhLocrian Chicks Electric Band Two (Paint the World) uses this mode in a tune called Spanish Sketch
Also listen to an older album called MY SPANISH HEART Locrian Locrian Locrian everywhere JohnMclaughlin also employs it on Inner Mounting Flame Hows it spelled Well it should be a peice of cake by
now but here it is anyway 12 1 1 12 1 1 1 C Locrian would be then C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb CSometimes called the Half-diminished scale you can use it over minor-seven flat five chords (Cm7b5) Play it
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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over the Sequence Ahto be in Spain when it rains on the plain
Ad Finitum
In conclusion I would like to mention the Melodic Minor Scale This scale is a major scale with the thirdlowered To spell a Melodic Minor scale play as follows 1 12 1 1 1 1 12 I want to encourage you to build
chords and modes from this scale just as we did with the Major scale Youll find it is the answer to improvisingover altered dominant chords (79 911 13b5 etc) as well as many other chords commonly found in Jazz
Lesson 1Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords
This first lesson is aimed at those of you who can play maybe a handful of basic chords on the guitar but wantto start creating some more jazzy chordal sounds
One of the things that distinguishes jazz guitarists from most pop rock blues or folk players is the chord
vocabulary they use What Ill be doing in this lesson is taking a set of basic chords that appear in lots ofdifferent songs and showing you some of the ways jazz guitarists alter those chords to make them sound more
jazzy This is known as chord substitution
Altering a Common Chord Sequence
Lets start by looking at a very common basic chord sequence
C - Am - Dm - G7
Youll find this chord pattern in hundreds of different tunes eg Blue Moon Swing 42 My Baby Just Cares for Me and many more (If you cant play these basic chords then this lesson may not be for you)
Chord Families
What we have in this sequence are chords from three different chord families
Major family - the C major chordMinor family - the Am and Dm chords
Dominant 7th family - the G7 chordThis is important because chords from different families tend to get handled in different ways when doing
chord substitution
Changing Minor Chords for Dominant 7ths
Lets look at the two minor chords first Am and Dm A trick some jazz guitarists use is to take minor chordsand change them for corresponding dominant 7th chords (substitution) So instead of Am we use A7 and instead
of Dm we use D7 The original chord progression now looks like this
C - A7 - D7 - G7
Already it sounds a tiny bit more jazzy but this is only the beginning
Youll see that three out of the four chords are now from the dominant 7th family This is helpful to jazz players
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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as there are many ways that dominant 7th chords in particular can be embellished to create more jazzy sounds
Altered Dominant Chords
Here is a list of chord diagrams for what are called altered dominant chords Dont be put off by the complexnames and terms - all you need to remember is that rather than playing a basic G7 chord you can simply play
any one of these G altered dominant chords in its place
Click on each chord shape to hear how it sounds
G ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
Lets try an example
Instead of playing G7 Ill use say the G13b9 chord as a substitute
The progression now looks like this
Heres another example Instead of playing G7 this time Ill substitute in a G95
Does that make sense Instead of playing G7 just choose any one of the G altered dominant chords from the listand use that instead
Now try experimenting with some of the other G altered dominant chord shapes in place of the standard G7
Youll hear that each has its own unique spicy sound
So which are the best substitute chords to use Well this depends on the melody you are accompanying andalso on your own personal taste Let your musical ear be the judge - if it sounds good use it
Lesson 2Introducing Some Jazz Guitar Chords - Part 2
In the previous lesson we started off with a simple C - Am - Dm - G7 chord sequence and changed all the minor
chords into dominant 7th chords to arrive at this progression
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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We then saw how to take a dominant 7th chord - the G7 - and simply substitute in any one of a number of G
altered dominant chords in its place
More Altered Dominant Substitutes
The next step is to do exactly the same kind of thing with the other two dominant 7th chords in the progressionie substitute some D altered dominant shapes for the D7 chord and some A altered dominant shapes for the A7
chord
So where do we find the chord shapes for the A and D altered dominants
Movable Chord Shapes
Well the A altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as the ones for G given in lesson 1 exceptthat each chord is just played two frets higher up on the guitar
For example if you play the G75 from the G altered dominant chord diagrams all you need to do is move the
whole shape up two frets and it turns into A75 Similarly G13b9 played 2 frets higher gives A13b9 G7b5
moved up 2 frets gives A7b5 and so on
Dont Play the Open Strings
Its important that you dont play any open strings on these movable shapes These strings are marked with an x
in the chord diagrams and need to be missed out or deadened by lightly muffling them with your left handfingers
Heres a reminder of the G Altered Dominant Chord Shapes f rom lesson 1 which will open in a new window
Play any one of these G altered dominant chords 2 frets higher to get the equivalent altered dominant on A
Similarly the D altered dominant chord diagrams are exactly the same as those for G but this time each chordshape needs to be moved seven frets higher up on the guitar To save you lots of fret counting the D altered
dominant shapes are given below Where the chords end up very high on the guitar neck (past the 12th fret) Ive just dropped them down an octave
Click on any chord shape to hear how it sounds
D ALTERED DOMINANT CHORDS
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Lets try an example that uses altered dominant substitutes for all three of the dominant 7th chords in the progression (G7 A7 and D7)
The progression could now look like this
All Ive done is substituted A759 instead of A7 D7b9 instead of D7 and G759 instead of G7 - in each case
an altered dominant for an ordinary dominant 7th
Heres another example
Weve come a long way from our original C - Am - Dm - G7 but the new substitute chords should still fit
against the melody from which the basic chords were first taken
Lesson 3Tritone Substitutes - Part 1
In this lesson Im going to talk about tritone substitutes Ill explain what tritones are and then say how
they can be used to enhance your jazz chord playing This is not beginners stuff but Ill try and explainthings in a way that involves as little background knowledge of music theory as possible Ill assume that
you can already play a few basic chords on the guitar and that given enough time (or a chart to look at)you can work out the names of the notes on the guitar fingerboard
So hang on to your trousers here we go
Working out Tritones
Lets begin by explaining what a tritone is Pick up your guitar and play one of the open strings - any one
you like Now play the note on the 6th fret of the same string This 6 fret distance is a tritone Simpleenough dont you think
If you now play a note on the first fret its tritone will be on the 7th fret of the same string as everything
has moved up one fret
Tritone Equals Three Tones
If you know anything about tones and semitones youll be aware that to go up a tone on the guitar you play 2 frets higher A tritone is literally three tones or three times two frets so this is where the 6 frets
comes from
Youre not obliged to play the two notes of the tritone on the same string - this is just the easiest way ofworking things out on the guitar
Notes and their Matching Tritones
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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To save you working things out heres a list of notes (left column) and their matching tritones (right
column) Im assuming that you know about C and Db being different names for the same note and soon
Starting note
CC (Db)D
D (Eb)E
FF (Gb)
GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
B
Tritone
F (Gb)GG (Ab)
AA (Bb)
BC
C (Db)D
D (Eb)E
F
So by now you should know that if you play one note then play another note 6 frets higher on the same
string youve gone up a distance of three tones or a tritone The chart above gives you the correspondingtritone for every note Well now see how this works for chords as well as for single notes
Using Tritones for Chord Substitution
This is where it gets more interesting Ill now explain how we can use this knowledge of tritones to add
extra chords to a basic chord progression in order to create some very jazzy sounds
Lets start with a simple two chord progression
G7 | C |
So four strums on a G7 chord and 4 strums on a C chord - about as simple as we can get Heres how wemake it more jazzy and interesting First we take the dominant 7th chord G7 We look at the root note of
the chord - G - and then look up the matching tritone for G in the table above This gives us Db (or C ifyou prefer)
Adding in the Tritone Substitute Chord
So the tritone of G is Db (C) Now watch closely - heres where the substitution bit comes in Instead of
having 4 strums on G7 Im now going to play the sequence like this
G7 Db7 | C |
This time I played only 2 strums on the G7 For the second two strums I substituted in a Db7 chord Theroot of the Db7 chord Db is a tritone from G What youve just witnessed is a tritone substitution The
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Db7 chord is a tritone substitute for G7
Ill take you through another example to make sure you understand the basic idea as well be using it
quite a lot in future lessons
Second Example of Tritone Substitution
Heres another basic chord sequence
E7 | Am |
1) Get the root of the dominant 7th chord E7 which is E2) Look up the tritone for E in the chart which is Bb
3) Keep the first two strums on E7 unchanged4) For the second two strums add a tritone substitute chord Bb7
The progression now looks like this
E7 Bb7 | Am |
Already its starting to sound a little bit more jazzy but this is only the start of what can be done withtritone substitution
Lesson 4Tritones Part 2 - Jazzing Up a Blues Progression
This lesson is for those of you who can already manage a simple 3 chord blues pattern and want to add somemore interesting chords to it
Im going to start off with a simple 12 bar blues progression and then show you how to substitute in some extra
chords to make the progression sound more jazzy Ill be referring back to the ideas on tritone substitutioncovered in Lesson 3 and showing you how to put them to practical use in a blues
So lets start with a simple 3 chord version of the 12 bar blues in the key of C
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Three String Chord Shapes
First Ill give you some easy 7th chord shapes that are a bit more suitable for playing a jazz flavoured blues Onething youll notice straightaway is that they only use three strings on the guitar rather than the usual five or six
strings Why is this
Well were going to be adding a lot more chords to the blues progression so we want some light agile chordshapes that will be easier to move about than the clumpy five and six string shapes you may be familiar with
Dominant 7th Shapes
Try playing the blues progression with these new shapes It may take some practice to get used to the unusualfingerings and also to get used to the different sounds When youre reasonably comfortable with these shapes
well move on and start adding in some substitutions to the blues pattern
Adding Tritone Substitutes
You may find it helpful to re-read Lesson 3 before working through this section as it explains tritonesubstitutes in detail Heres a brief summary of what was covered
Recap on Tritone Substitutes
The main things you need to remember
For every note on the guitar there is another note three tones (6 frets) away that makes a distance orinterval called a tritoneltSPANlt ligt
If we have a dominant 7th chord we look at its root note and then work out its tritoneWe can then use a new dominant 7th chord on the tritone as a substitute for the first chord
Tritones for the Blues Sequence
Our basic blues progression (above) uses three dominant 7th chords C7 F7 and G7 Here are the roots of these
chords and their matching tritones
C - its tritone is F (or Gb)F - its tritone is B
G - its tritone is Db (or C)
Now look at the revised blues chord pattern below Youll see where Ive added tritone substitutes - these are the
ones marked in a different colour Notice how Ive used two beats on the original chord followed by two beatson the tritone substitute
Revised Blues Pattern Using Tritone Substitutes
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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C7 F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
F7 | F7 B7 | C7 | C7 F7 |
G7 Db7 | F7 B7 | C7 F7 | G7 Db7 |
Finding the Additional Chords
In order to play this revised version we need three new chords F7 B7 and Db7 We can easily play thesechords by simply moving the new shapes from earlier in this lesson
For F7 play the F7 chord one fret higher
For B7 play the C7 chord one fret lowerFor Db7 play the C7 chord one fret higher
Well thats the end of another lesson I hope youve managed to get something out of it
Disclaimer I accept no responsibility for any losses arising from the use of these lessons - they are taken
entirely at your own risk If you turn into a tritone bore and all your friends and loved ones desert you then Iwill not be held liable
Lesson 5Turnarounds
Heres a short lesson dealing with turnarounds A turnaround is a short chord sequence at the end of a song that
leads back to the beginning of the next chorus of the song Turnarounds are often 2 or 4 bars long
You can use this lesson in a couple of ways If youre not so interested in the theory you can just learn to playthe examples of turnarounds Ive given below If you want to know why they work Ive given a brief explanation
in terms of the things weve learnt in earlier lessons
The advantage of understanding the underlying theory is that you wont be limited to the examples Ive given but will be able to invent your own versions
Changing A Common Turnaround
Without doubt one of the most widely used turnarounds is this familiar sequence
C Am Dm G7
We can now use our knowledge of chord substitution from previous lessons to create lots of variants on this
sequence and then use them as alternative turnarounds
Swap Minor for Dominant Chords
First lets change the minor chords to dominant 7ths as we did in lesson 1 We end up with this altered versionof the original sequence
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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C A7 D7 G7
Tritone Substitutes
Now lets add some tritone substitutes for these dominant 7ths When we looked at tritone substitutes in lessons
2 and 3 we had 2 beats on the original dominant 7th followed by 2 beats on its tritone substitute This time wewill simply swap the whole dominant 7th chord for its tritone substitute Here are some of the variants
C Eb7 D7 G7
C A7 Ab7 Db7C Eb7 Ab7 G7
C Eb7 D7 Db7
This next one uses tritone substitutes for all the dominant 7th chords in the sequence
C Eb7 Ab7 Db7
We can keep some of the original minor chords and mix them with tritone substitutes
C Am Ab7 G7C Eb7 Dm Db7
Using Altered Dominant Chords
Another possibility is to change some or all of the dominant 7th chords into altered dominant chords as we did
in lesson 1 The altered dominants are shown in a different colour
C A759 Dm Db7C Am D9b5 G7
In this next example all the dominant chords are turned into altered dominants The third chord is taken through
two different steps First it is changed into a tritone substitute (D7 to Ab7) and then it is changed into an altereddominant (Ab7 to Ab13b9)
C A13b9 Ab13b9 G13b9
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes
You can can open a new window to see a reminder of the D Altered Dominant Chord Shapes and the G
Altered Dominant Chord Shapes Remember that the A altered dominant shapes are exactly the same as theones for G except every shape is moved up two frets higher The Ab altered dominant shapes will be just onefret higher than those for G
Lesson 6
Major Chord Substitutes
In the previous five lessons weve been concentrating on chord substitutes for dominant 7th chords iesubstitutes for chords such as G7 D7 and A7 Weve done this mainly by swapping the basic dominant 7ths for
altered dominant chords and by using tritone substitution
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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In this lesson were going to look at some of the chords that can be used in place of an ordinary major chordTheres no complex music theory involved all Ill do is show you a handful of chord shapes that you can play
instead of a plain C major chord in order to create more subtle jazzy sounds
Major Chord Extensions
An ordinary major chord can be made to sound more interesting simply by adding some extra notes to the basicchord Some of the commonest major chord types made this way are the 6th major 7th and major 9th chords
Theres also a very nice sounding chord called the 6th chord with an added 9th (written as 69)
Here are some chord shapes for you to try out Click on each chord shape to hear what the chord sounds like
MAJOR FAMILY CHORDS
All you have to do is play any one of these chords where youd normally play a basic C major chord - simple asthat As ever let your musical ear judge whether it sounds right
Movable Chord Shapes
Note that all of these chords are movable shapes because they dont use any open strings This means you can
for example play the C6 shapes two frets higher and they become D6 shapes Move them another two frets
higher and they become E6 shapes and so on Remember that you need to miss out or mute with your left handany strings that have an x above them in the chord diagrams
Well that brings us to the end of another lesson I hope youve enjoyed playing these new major family chordshapes and that theyve opened up a bit of fresh musical ground for you to explore
Jazz Soloing - Lesson 1Arpeggios
Most guitar players with some experience of soloing in blues rock or pop songs may be familiar with
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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something called the Pentatonic Scale or the Blues Scale This is a simple scale pattern that you can usethroughout a song for soloing
Jazz players also use scales but Im going to start this section on soloing by showing you how to use something
called an arpeggio If you want your soloing to start sounding more jazzy then arpeggios are a good way ofdoing this
Understanding Arpeggios
So what is an arpeggio Well if you take the different notes that make up a chord and then simply play the
notes one after another rather than all at the same time you have an arpeggio
Heres an example of a Bm7b5 chord and then a Bm7b5 arpeggio first played slow then a little faster Justclick on the chord shape on the left and then on the arpeggio diagram on the right to compare how they sound
Bm7b5 Chord and Arpeggio
Repeated Notes
You may be able to see from the two diagrams that the arpeggio contains all the notes of the chord shape plussome extra notes These extra notes are just repeated chord notes They were missed out of the chord because
its impossible to play them all at once
Arpeggios Played Over Chords
Because an arpeggio contains all the notes of its chord it therefore sounds good to solo over a chord using itsarpeggio So you can use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord Great - but the chances are you wont
come across Bm7b5 chords all that often However this arpeggio is a very versatile chap Ill now show you theinteresting things you can do with it
Using Substitution
Because of the marvels of chord substitution this Bm7b5 arpeggio can also be used for soloing on top of a G7chord By using a Bm7b5 over a G7 chord we end up with a very jazzy G9 sound The best way to think of it isas an alias Bm7b5 aka (also known as) G9 arpeggio
Counting 6 Steps
To work out these aliases we just count 6 steps through the musical alphabet Heres what I mean We started
with a Bm7b5 arpeggio so we take the root note B We now count up 6 inclusive from B
B - C - D - E - F - G
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Youll see G is 6 steps above B This means Bm7b5 is equal to G9
Listen to the following soundclips In the first one youll hear a G7 chord followed by the Bm7b5 (alias G9)arpeggio just to give you an idea of how the arpeggio and chord sounds work together
In the next one youll hear a very short improvised solo over a G7 chord It is based entirely on the Bm7b5 (aliasG9) arpeggio Notice how the notes of the arpeggio can be played in any order and with different timings to
create lots of different solo ideas
NB Ill shortly add the tab for this solo example
To recap weve looked at a Bm7b5 arpeggio and learnt that we can use it to solo over a Bm7b5 chord But wediscovered that the same arpeggio can also be called G9 and can be used for soloing over a G7 chord By
playing around with the order of the notes in the arpeggio it can be used to build many different solos and licks
Hope youve managed to follow this lesson and get some useful ideas from it In the next lesson Ill show you
how to use this arpeggio pattern to play a jazzy 12 bar blues solo
Jazz Soloing Lesson 2Using Arpeggios to Improvise in a Blues
In lesson 1 on jazz soloing we looked at arpeggios and saw that an arpeggio is just the notes of a chord playedone after the other rather than all at the same time More interestingly we also saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can
be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
Were now going to look at a 3 chord blues progression and see how we can use different arpeggios to solo overeach of the three chords
The Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a simple 3 chord version of a 12 bar blues in the key of C We looked at this in an earlier lesson
C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 | G7 |
We can see there are three chords in the sequence above C7 F7 and G7
Now we already know that we can play a Bm7b5 arpeggio against the G7 chord to create a G9 sound But whatcan we play against the C7 and F7 chords
Arpeggios for All Three Chords
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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The answer is that if we use the same sort of substitution as with the Bm7b5 against the G7 chord it works outthat we can play an Em7b5 arpeggio against the C7 to create a C9 sound and an Am7b5 arpeggio against the F7
to create an F9 sound Heres how it all looks
Chord Arpeggio to playC7 Em7b5
F7 Am7b5G7 Bm7b5
You might remember from lesson 1 that we counted 6 steps through the musical alphabet to work out whichm7b5 arpeggio matches which 9th chord Em7b5 matches with C9 because E to C is 6 steps Similarly Am7b5
matches with F9 because A to F is 6 steps Bm7b5 matches with G9 because B to G is 6 steps
So the idea is that every time the chord changes we play a new arpeggio against it Here are the fingeringdiagrams for the three different arpeggios we need Notice that its exactly the same pattern every time only
starting in a different place on the guitar fingerboard (Note arp = arpeggio)
m7b5 Arpeggios
Advantage of Using Arpeggios
One of the best things about using arpeggios is that they are based on chords so you can use them to imply
harmonies What do I mean by that Well if you play a Blues solo using single note lines built on thesearpeggios you can actually hear the chord changes even if there is no-one playing the chord accompaniment
This is because you are outlining the chords as you play your solo
Listen to the example below and hopefully youll hear what I mean Here Im doing an unaccompanied solo
using the three arpeggios Em7b5 Am7b5 and Bm7b5 and using them to imply the chords C7 F7 and G7 fromthe Blues progression above Can you hear where the chords seems to change even though no-one is playingthem
Rearrange the Notes
Remember that the notes of an arpeggio can be played in any order and with different rhythms to createcountless soloing ideas Youll need to work hard to really break open these arpeggios and explore their many
possibilities
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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To recap weve looked at a simple Blues in C and seen that the chords it uses are C7 F7 and G7 Weve seenhow we can solo over each of these dominant 7th chords by using an arpeggio
We already knew that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a G7 chord By extending this idea weve
seen how we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio to solo over a C7 chord and an Am7b5 arpeggio over an F7 chordWe can get the Em7b5 and Am7b5 arpeggios simply by playing the Bm7b5 arpeggio pattern starting in
different places on the guitar fingerboard
Jazz Soloing Lesson 3Using Arpeggios Against Minor ChordsIn the previous two lessons we looked at using arpeggios in jazz soloing and saw how to use arpeggios over
their matching chord eg using a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord We also looked at substitutionand saw how a Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used to solo against a G7 chord to create a jazzy G9 sound
In this next lesson were going to look at a different arpeggio substitution This time well use the m7b5
arpeggio to play over an ordinary minor chord and produce a slightly more colourful sound - a minor 6th
Listen to the soundclip below to hear the kind of sound well be learning
So when youre ready Ill explain how you can create this type of sound using the arpeggio fingering you
already know from earlier lessons
New Arpeggio Substitution
In order to get this sound we need to learn a third use of the m7b5 arpeggio We substitute in the arpeggio overa minor chord like this
Dm chord + Bm7b5 arpeggio = Dm6 sound
Count up Six Steps
Notice that to work out the right m7b5 arpeggio to play against a given minor chord we must count six stepsthrough the musical alphabet like this
D - E - F - G - A - B
We start with D the note of the minor chord and end up with B the note of the m7b5 arpeggio to play against
it
Note this is a different 6 step count from the one we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 This time were countingfrom a minor chord to its matching m7b5 arpeggio Last time we counted from a m7b5 arpeggio to its matching
9th chord
Heres a reminder of the fingering diagram for the Bm7b5 arpeggio Click on the diagram to hear how thearpeggio sounds on its own
Bm7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Along with the two uses for m7b5 arpeggios learnt in earlier lessons this new substitution now gives us threedifferent jobs we can do with the one arpeggio Heres a summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Bm7b5 Bm7b5 Bm7b5
G7 Bm7b5 G9
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Arpeggio Substitutes Over Other Minor Chords
Lets try exactly the same thing with a different minor chord now Well choose a Gm chord this time
To work out which m7b5 arpeggio to use against Gm we start on the G and count six steps through the musicalalphabet
G - A - B - C - D - E
Youll see that we end up with the note E This means we can use an Em7b5 arpeggio against Gm and this will
make a Gm6 sound
Heres a reminder of the Em7b5 arpeggio Click on the fingering diagram to hear how the arpeggio sounds onits own
Em7b5 Arpeggio - click below to listen
So we can play a Bm7b5 against a Dm chord and an Em7b5 against a Gm chord and we end up creating someinteresting minor 6th sounds against those chords
Now listen again to the soundclip at the beginning of this lesson to hear how these Bm7b5 and Em7b5
arpeggios sound over the Dm and Gm chords Youll probably agree that it gives a classic gypsy jazz guitarsound characteristic of Django Reinhardt and the hundreds of gypsy jazz guitarists that have followed in his
footsteps
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Summary
In earlier lessons we saw that we could use a Bm7b5 arpeggio to solo over a Bm7b5 chord or over a G7 chordIn this lesson weve seen how we can use the arpeggio to do a third job soloing over a minor chord
A Bm7b5 arpeggio can be used over a Dm chord to give a Dm6 sound Similarly we can use an Em7b5
arpeggio to solo over a Gm chord and get a Gm6 sound
Hope you like the minor 6th sounds covered in this lesson and that theyve given you some new musicalavenues to explore In the next lesson Ill show you how to use diminished 7th arpeggios and then in lesson 5
well learn how to use them to solo over dominant 7th chords
Jazz Soloing Lesson 4Diminished 7th Arpeggios
The first three soloing lessons looked at using m7b5 arpeggios in jazz soloing We saw that we could use aBm7b5 arpeggio to do three different jobs
solo over a Bm7b5 chord to create a Bm7b5 soundsolo over a G7 chord to create a G9 sound
solo over a D minor chord to create a Dm6 soundWere now going to look at a new arpeggio the diminished 7th
Diminished 7th Arpeggio Fingering Pattern
Heres a common diminished 7th chord shape and then a fingering diagram for a matching diminished 7th
arpeggio Click on the diagrams below to hear how the chord (left) and the arpeggio (right) sound
E Diminished Chord and Arpeggio
Four Different Names
There are quite a few interesting things about this arpeggio First of all it can take its name from any one of thefour different notes that make up the arpeggio This means that the arpeggio above is called E diminished but
can also be called G Bb or C diminished - four arpeggios for the price of one
You may find this puzzling as the arpeggio seems to have six notes rather than four But if you work out all thenames of the notes youll see that two of them are repeated at a higher octave so it only has four different notes
Pattern Repeats Every Three Frets
The next interesting thing is that the fingering pattern produces the same arpeggio every time you go up three
frets on the guitar neck This means you can play an E diminished (alias G Bb or C diminished) starting oneither the 2nd fret or the 5th 8th 11th or 14th frets
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Listen to the example below
With one simple fingering pattern you end up with a movable pattern that covers the guitar fingerboard from top
to bottom
Soloing with the Diminished 7th Arpeggio
As with the m7b5 arpeggio we can use the diminished 7th arpeggio to solo over its matching chord one onone This means if someone plays an E diminished chord you can play an E diminished arpeggio over it
However this arpeggio can also be used in a more imaginative way as a substitute over dominant 7th chords
Well look at this use in the next lesson
Summary
In this short lesson weve learnt a fingering pattern for a diminished 7th arpeggio Weve seen that everydiminished 7th arpeggio takes its name from any note in the arpeggio and it ends up having four possible
names
Jazz Soloing Lesson 5Diminished Arpeggios Over Dominant 7th Chords
In soloing lesson 4 we looked at using diminished 7th arpeggios to solo over their matching diminished chords
In this next lesson were going to look at a slightly more sophisticated use of diminished arpeggios assubstitutes to play against dominant 7th chords
Creating 7b9 Sounds with Diminished 7th Arpeggios
One very interesting feature about diminished 7ths is that they are almost identical to 7b9 chords a semitone
away This means we can play a diminished arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9 sound Hereare some examples to show how it works
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Eb7 E dim Eb7b9
E7 F dim E7b9
F7 F dim F7b9
F7 G dim F7b9
G7 G dim G7b9
Ab7 A dim Ab7b9
and so on
As you can see from the list above we can solo against any dominant 7th chord by using a diminished 7tharpeggio a semitone higher than the root note of the chord The sound created is a 7b9
Four Different Names
In the previous lesson we said that any diminished 7th chord or arpeggio takes its name from any of the four
different notes that make it up so it can have four different names
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Heres a reminder of the E dim7 arpeggio fingering pattern from the previous lesson This has six notes but two
of them are just the same note repeated at a higher octave
E Diminshed Arpeggio Click on the diagram below to listen
The arpeggio above is called E diminished but can also be called G Bb or C diminished This means thissame arpeggio can be played against either an Eb7 Gb7 A7 or C7 chord This will create either an Eb7b9
Gb7b9 A7b9 or C7b9 sound
Listen to the soundclips below In each case they start with a different dominant 7th chord immediatelyfollowed by exactly the same diminished arpeggio In each case the sound produced is a 7b9 on the dominant
7th chord
Sound produced is Eb7b9
Sound produced is Gb7b9
Sound produced is A7b9
Sound produced is C7b9
Summary
In this lesson weve learnt how to play a diminished 7th arpeggio over a dominant 7th chord and make a 7b9
sound
Because each diminished chord or arpeggio has four different names it means that we can play the samediminished arpeggio against four different dominant 7th chords In each case we create a 7b9 sound when we
play it against the chord
Jazz Soloing Lesson 6Arpeggios Over a Minor BluesIn previous soloing lessons we looked at using m7b5 arpeggios to solo over minor chords and diminished 7th
arpeggios to solo over dominant 7th chords
Were now just going to pull some threads together and see how we can use both these arpeggio types to soloover a complete chord sequence
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3138
email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Minor Blues Chord Sequence
Heres a chord progression for a simple minor blues This is just one example of a sequence that uses a threechord trick in a minor key so the soloing ideas well discuss below will work just as well with the many other
tunes that use these same chords
Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Gm | Gm | Dm | Dm |
A7 | A7 | Dm | A7 |
Some very similar examples are the traditional Russian melody Dark Eyes frequently played by gypsy jazzguitarists and Django Reinhardts compositions Blues en Mineur and Minor Swing Each of these tunes uses
the same chords as the blues above only in a slightly different order so the arpeggios well now look at will
work just as well on all of them
Arpeggios over the Minor Blues Chords
Weve already discussed which arpeggios work over each of these chords individually in previous lessons
Heres a short summary
Chord Arpeggio to Play Sound Created
Dm Bm7b5 Dm6
Gm Em7b5 Gm6
A7 Adim (= Edim) A7b9
Remember that every diminished 7th has four possible names so Adim and Edim turn out to be just differentnames for exactly the same arpeggio
Arpeggio Fingering Diagrams
To refresh your memory here are the arpeggio diagrams that we also covered in previous lessons
Arpeggios for Minor Blues
Click on a diagram to listen
Putting it Together
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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You now know which arpeggio to play against each chord so all you need to do is practice
Feel free to download the Minor Blues MP3 soundclip above (open Media Player then click File - Save As) anduse it as a rhythm guitar part against which to practice your soloing
Soloing Tips
At first youll probably struggle a lot to keep up with the chord changes and will find that by the time youve
tried to play the notes of your arpeggio the music will have moved on to the next chord
My first tip is to just try and play one or maybe two notes from the arpeggio rather than all of them against eachchord Play solos with long sustained notes to give yourself time to think and to keep up with the changes You
can speed up later
Once you start getting familiar with the arpeggios and changing from one to the other youll probably play eacharpeggio in the same way every time you use it and your soloing will sound rather unimaginative But as you
get to know these arpeggios even better youll start getting more creative and realise that the notes can be playedin countless different combinations and with different phrasings and timings
My second tip is to try mixing up the order in which you play the notes in the arpeggio For example start onthe third note then drop down to the first then up to the fourth note and so on - Im sure you get the idea
Passing Notes
Another tip you can try is to use what are called passing notes If you have two arpeggio notes on the samestring then play any notes in between them when moving from one arpeggio note to the other
So using the Bm7b5 arpeggio as an example start by playing the first note on the 2nd fret of the 5th string then
play the 3rd and 4th frets before landing on the next arpeggio note on the 5th fret of the 5th string
When you can fluently play about with the order and timing of the arpeggio notes and add passing notes your playing will start to turn from an arpeggio exercise into real jazz soloing
Jazz Soloing Lesson 7Using Ornamented Arpeggios
In this lesson were going to learn a simple but highly effective trick to use for soloing with simple major
arpeggios
Its a device that the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt often used in his playing By the time youve got tothe end of this lesson and learnt how to do it yourself youll recognise it as a distinctive sound that appears in
many of Djangos recordings
Simple Major Arpeggios
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time This meansthat an arpeggio can be used for soloing against a chord with the same name
Were going to look at one fingering for a basic C major arpeggio As wed expect this C arpeggio can be used
to play over a C major chord
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
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Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
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seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
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Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
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example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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Click on the fingering diagram below to hear how the arpeggio sounds Its followed by an open C chord just so
you can tell how the arpeggio relates to the chord
C Major Arpeggio Click below to listen
So if you play this C major arpeggio over a C chord it will fit perfectly However you might be inclined to
agree that even though the arpeggio fits its not actually a very interesting sound - perhaps it fits too well and isa bit bland as a result
What we can do is ornament the arpeggio a little to make it sound a bit more exciting Heres where the trick
comes in
Lower Auxiliary Notes
The trick is really really simple All you have to do is this before playing each note of the arpeggio first playthe note one fret immediately below it This extra note is called a lower auxiliary note
Listen to the soundclip below to hear how this sounds first slowly then just slightly faster
However thats not quite all there is to the trick If you really want to sound like Django theres just one morething you need to do
Repeat YourselfYes Repeat Yourself
Heres what you do to play the complete pattern
First play the note a fret below the arpeggio note then play the arpeggio note Then play those two notes again
Now repeat this four note pattern for each arpeggio note in turn
Heres how it all sounds
Did you get that Now when youre ready heres what it sounds like when played up to speed
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Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3138
email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 2938
Minor Arpeggios
This lower auxiliary note trick will work with different arpeggios too Heres how you can adapt it to work as aminor arpeggio just play the 3rd (middle) note of the C major arpeggio and its auxiliary note one fret lower
than usual and this will turn it from a C major into a C minor pattern
You can also try using lower auxiliary notes with the m7b5 and diminished 7th arpeggios we looked at in earlierlessons Remember for any arpeggio note all you have to do is first play the note one fret below it
Jazz Soloing Lesson 8More on Ornamented Arpeggios
In lesson 7 we learnt how to play ornamented major arpeggios in the style of gypsy jazz guitarist DjangoReinhardt by using lower auxiliary notes
In this lesson were going to learn about upper auxiliary notes By combining upper and lower auxiliary notes
well create another ornamented arpeggio pattern that sounds even more like a classic Django lick
Have a listen to this soundclip to find out what I mean
If youre interested in figuring out how its done then read on
Lower Auxiliary Notes
To recap on the previous lesson we started by learning a simple C major arpeggio The notes in the arpeggiogoing from bottom to top were G C E G and C Notice that there are only three different notes - two of the
notes are repeated at a higher octave
We then played a note a semitone lower (a lower auxiliary) immediately before each arpeggio note like this
Lower Auxiliary Note
FB
DF
B
Arpeggio Note
GC
EG
C
Heres a reminder of how it sounded
We then went on to repeat each pair of notes but this time were going to do something different with the pattern
Upper Auxiliary Notes
As you may have guessed these are the same as lower auxiliary notes only played above the arpeggio notes
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3138
email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3538
D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3038
The only slightly complicated thing is that one of them is a semitone (1 fret) higher and the others are a tone(two frets) higher than the arpeggio note Heres the upper auxiliary note for each arpeggio note
Upper Auxiliary Note
AD
F
AD
Arpeggio Note
GC
E
GC
Combining Upper and Lower
The final pattern that were going to play is shown in the table below As you can see we first play an upper
auxiliary then the arpeggio note Then we play the lower auxiliary followed by the arpeggio note a second timeWe then repeat the whole 4 step process around each of the other arpeggio notes
Upper Auxiliary
ADF
AD
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Lower Auxiliary
FBD
FB
Arpeggio Note
GCE
GC
Heres what the finished item sounds like when played slowly
Well done if youve followed everything so far in this lesson All that remains is for you to speed up the patternHeres a reminder of what it sounds like up to speed
Q1 - Gypsy Jazz chords and arpeggios
Q2 - Using Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor scales
Q3 - Gypsy Jazz Guitar - unusual left hand technique
Q4 - Guitar Chord Voicings in Jazz Progressions
Question 1
Heres a Gypsy Jazz Guitar question to start off this new feature This was sent in by Fabian Wuumlnsch fromBavaria Germany Fabian writes
hello
irst i v got to say thankscouse yesyour lessons are very usefull i v been searching
a long time on the internet for such understandingly and cool lessons luckily i foundours ) especialy i try to learn to play the gypsy guitar and your arpeggio stuff was
really helpfully ) i m really looking forward for the next lessons maybe you can
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3138
email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3238
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
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Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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email me some more gypsy chords and witch substitute arps i can play over them
or maybe whats the meening with arpeggio with cromatic lines lots of questions iknow and i dont wanna steal your time but i really fall in love with gypsy jazz and
my fingers are burning for more )
thanks alot fabian
email Fabian
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for agreeing to let us use your questions to start off this new feature Fabian Thanks also for suchnice compliments on the free lessons
I think this is such a popular and interesting topic that its worth trying to write a Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash
Course This first question will therefore get an unusually long reply - I cant guarantee to answer futuresubmitted questions at such length
So here goes
GYPSY JAZZ CHORDS
This is a huge topic so rather than try and cover lots of theory in this short space Ive given some examples foryou to listen to and to try out yourself
One of the main features of the gypsy jazz style is the chord voicings Many of the shapes use only three notes
often played on the lower strings and you have to learn to miss out or deaden the strings marked with a x
One great thing is that you only need to know a small number of different shapes The trick is to learn how tocombine them as they can be used in a huge number of ways Here are some examples of different chord
patterns you can play just with a handful of shapes
Notice how many of the chords have more than one name depending on where you play them in a sequence
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 1
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 2
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Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3438
Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3238
Gypsy Jazz Chord Example 3
SUBSTITUTE ARPEGGIOS
Lets now look at some arpeggios that can be played over these chords Ive already dealt with quite a few ofthese in the lessons so where appropriate Ill point you to the relevant page in this website Ill also give you
some new arpeggios to try
Click on an arpeggio diagram to listen
Here are some guidelines for using the arpeggios against the chords in the examples
Chord Example 1
Over the A9 chord use a Cm7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2 Cm6 chord use an Am7b5 arpeggio Explained in soloing lesson 3
For the GB try using this new substitution - a Bm7 arpeggioFor Bbdim7 use a Bbdim7 arpeggio See soloing lesson 4
Am7 use a Cmajor7 arpeggio
D7 use a D13b9 arpeggioG6 use a G69 arpeggio
Chord Example 2
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
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Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3438
Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3538
D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3338
Id treat the first eight chords (Gm6-D7A-GmBb etc up to the GB) as basically all on a Gm chord The D7A
and GB are what is called passing chords just ornaments in between the main harmony of Gm Against thisGm section Id use an Em7b5 arpeggio (to get a Gm6 sound) See soloing lesson 3
Cm6 chord - use an Am7b5 arpeggio Also in soloing lesson 3
Id treat the D7-Eb7-D7-D7A as all on a D7 chord (the Eb7 is another passing chord) Id use a D diminishedarpeggio for this block of D7 harmony The use of a diminished arpeggio over a dominant chord is explained in
soloing lesson 5
Chord Example 3
G6 use a G69 arpeggioC7 use an Em7b5 arpeggio See soloing lesson 2
Here Id treat the G6-GB-Bbdim all as a G chord with passing chords and use the G69 arpeggio over all threechords
ARPEGGIOS AND CHROMATIC LINES
An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one after another rather than all at the same time I explain thisin more detail in soloing lesson 1
A chromatic line is one that uses something called the chromatic scale A chromatic scale is one that uses ALL
the semitones in an octave Heres an example of a chromatic scale on AA Bb B C C D Eb E F F G Ab A
One way to play this scale is by starting on your open A (5th) string and then playing every fret on this stringfrom 1 to 12
Chromatic Scale on A
A chromatic line doesnt need to use all the chromatic scale The best way of thinking of it is that if you aregoing up or down one fret (or semitone) at a time then you will be playing a chromatic line
As you may know Django Reinhardt basically invented gypsy jazz Django often used long chromatic runs in
his soloing He would start on a note of an arpeggio and then play a chromatic scale (or part of a chromaticscale) before finally landing on another note of the arpeggio
Heres a short chromatic run Django sometimes used at the end of minor key tunes
E7 chord - chromatic run E Eb E F F G Ab A - Am6 chord
Chromatic Line Between Arpeggio Notes
Here we have a chromatic line linking two arpeggio notes - the note E in the E7 and the note A in the Am6
chord Get the idea
Phew That ends the Gypsy Jazz Guitar Crash Course - hope you got something from all this
Tony Oreshko
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3438
Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3538
D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3438
Back to Top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 2
James Hunter from Arkansas USA wrote in to ask about using the Melodic Harmonic and Dorian minor
scales
I need some infformation on how to use these scales on chords I was very pleased with the appregios you didon your lessons and understood all the information very well I need help in how to use the above scales as
related to jazz progressionsThanks so very much
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for this question James and glad you liked the stuff on arpeggios Well be adding a new series of free
lessons on scales in jazz over the coming weeks but in the meantime I hope this information gives yousomething to work on
First of all lets get clear about how to play these three minor scales Ive used D as an example to show the
notes in each of the scales
D Dorian D E F G A B CD Harmonic D E F G A Bb C
D Melodic D E F G A B C
As you can see the scales only differ in terms of their 6th and 7th notes Here are some fingering diagrams forthe scales Each scale is shown for one and a half octaves
Click on a diagram to listen
There are lots of different ways in which you can use these scales Ill give all the examples in this one key and
leave it to you to transpose them to other keys
First of all if you have just a Dm chord to solo over you can generally use any of these three scales against itEach scale has a slightly different flavour and its up to the player to decide which sound they prefer at any one
time Have a listen to these short licks
D Harmonic Minor lick over Dm chord
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3538
D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3538
D Dorian lick over Dm chord
D Melodic Minor lick over Dm chord
Next lets look at what is called a 2-5-1 chord progression In the key of C this would be the chords Dm7 G7 C
Notice how in a C scale the note C is 1 D is 2 and G is 5 So a 2-5-1 progression refers to the chords built oneach of these three scale notes D G and C
In this progression D Dorian is a safe scale choice for soloing over the Dm7 chord Over the G7 you could use
something called a G Mixolydian scale and over the C chord a C major scale This is a modal approach tosoloing It sounds fine but is not what most real jazz players would use See below for the G Mixolydian and C
major scales
Click on a diagram to listen
If you have a 2-5-1 progression in a minor key then the harmonic minor will work well over all three chords Sofor example Em7b5 A7 Dm is a 2-5-1 in the key of Dm All of these chords can be built from the D harmonic
minor scale and the scale can be used over those chords This has a slightly Eastern or gypsy-ish sound to it
Finally heres a real jazzy bebop sound for you that uses substitution Play the D melodic minor over a G7chord and youll begin to sound like Wes Montgomery Listen to this example
D Melodic Minor over G7 chord
For any dominant 7th (or 9th 11th or 13th) chord just count up a 5th (7 frets) from the root note of the chord
and then play the melodic minor scale starting on this note This kind of sound is so cool that youre almostobliged to wear shades
Hope this is some help Ill cover these scales and 2-5-1 chord progressions (and lots of other stuff) in more
detail in the future
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 3
Istvan from Hungary writes about the unusual left hand fingering used by gypsy jazz guitar players
hi i have a question about gypsy jazz i noticed that the gypsys like Stochelo Rosenberg use fingerings that
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3638
seem to me a bit different i dont really understand the logic of this technic
Id like to see for example a melodic minor or a major scale in the style of gypsy guitarists I hope this is not a stupid question and You can give me some instructions
Thank You
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks for your gypsy jazz question Istvan Its actually a very interesting question that youre asking
For the benefit of other readers let me explain that many gypsy jazz guitarists use unusual left hand fingeringwhen playing their solos Unlike classical guitarists (and many other players) who use all four left hand fingers
for fretting gypsy guitarists tend to use only their first and second fingers
The guitarist who originated gypsy jazz was Django Reinhardt When Django was 19 he badly damaged hishand in a caravan fire and was left with only two fully functioning left hand fingers He had to completely re-
learn his guitar fingering to overcome this disability and some commentators say that because he used only thetwo strongest left hand fingers (the 1st and 2nd) this actually improved rather than limited his playing
As a result many gypsy jazz guitarists deliberately copy Djangos unorthodox two finger left hand technique believing that it produces a more dynamic sound than when using the weaker fingers as well
Now you asked for some examples of scales using this 2 finger method Do bear in mind that Djangos wholesoloing style was based on arpeggios rather than scales but heres a tab example of a simple C major scale
played with only the 1st and 2nd fingers Hopefully youll get the idea of how this fingering can be made towork in most other musical situations
C Major Scale
Left hand fingers
Incidentally Django did have some use of his two weaker fingers and could use them in a restricted way for
playing chord shapes
Heres a picture of Djangos hand
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
Back to top
Go to Guitar Lesson Index Page
Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3738
Finally if youve never seen the famous film footage of Django playing the guitar let me strongly urge you to see it
It is now freely available as a video clip on You Tube just typeYou Tube Django Reinhardt into your favourite search engine
and youll find it
The clip is about 4 minutes long and shows Django playing thetune JAttandrai with some close-up shots of his unusual
technique
Hope youve found this answer helpful Keep those questions coming everyone
Tony Oreshko
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Question 4
Heres an excellent question about the best chord shapes or voicings to use when changing from one chord to
another in jazz progressions
Dear Tony
Iam Ari from Indonesia I would like to know about voicing I means the harmony fingering that efective forharmony progrees in Jazz Is it true that better to make softly harmony progression by stepping progress than
than jumping progress in voicing the harmony Can you explain the details guitar voicing of the harmony that you used in the your lesson
Thank you very much
best regards
Tony Oreshko replies
Thanks a lot for writing in with this good question Ari
Yes its important to be able to join your jazz chord shapes together so that they flow nicely into one anothermoving by step rather than jumping around the fingerboard For this its helpful to know different shapes (or
voicings) for each chord so that you can choose the best ones for building a smooth progression
You can take a big step towards creating smooth chord movement (also called good voice leading) in a progression by using the tritone substitutes that Ive described in lesson 3 and lesson 4 Let me give you an
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
7182019 Jazz and Blues in Ormation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfulljazz-and-blues-in-ormation 3838
example
Heres 8 bars from a common jazz blues progression that has been used as the basis of lots of different tunesCharlie Parkers Bebop blues tune Confirmation is just one well-known example
Fig 1 Jazz blues progression
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 D7 | G7 | C7 | Fmaj7
Lets take this basic progression and add in some tritone substitutes (shown in red) Heres how the progression
looks now
Fig 2 Jazz blues progression with tritone substitutes added
Fmaj7 | Em7b5 Eb7 | Dm7 Db7 | Cm7 B7 |
Bbmaj7 | Am7 Ab7 | G7 Db7 | C7 Gb7 | Fmaj7
With this modified progression we can now get some great voice leading Here are some shapes that wouldwork well
(httpwwwchrisbuzzellicomindex2html)
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