Page 53NZM December/January 2013

The last article focused on guide tones (3rds and 7ths) for dominant 7th chords and how we could use these in a blues to

bring out the harmony more.This time we’re going to extend our work on

guide tones to include all four types of seventh chord found in the major scale. These are major 7, minor 7, dominant 7 and minor 7b5 chords. Here’s a quick summary of the guide tones for each of these chords.

Chord Type of 3rd Type of 7thMajor 7 3 7Dominant 7 3 b7Minor 7 b3 b7Minor 7b5 b3 b7

(Notice that minor 7 and minor7b5 chords share the same guide tones – the only difference between these chords is the 5th).

Here are some shapes for these (guide tones in black, root notes shown for reference):

We’re going to use the first 8 bars of the jazz standard Autumn Leaves to work on this, as it contains all of these chords. Notice how the melody itself emphasises the guide tones (see (A) for this).

(B) shows the guide tones on the middle two strings for each chord. Although I’ve notated them as 2-note chord voicing’s, we’re looking to aim to play either one of the guide tones on each chord as a target.

(C) is a simple example of how you might target the guide tones. Notice I’ve placed the guide tones on beat 1 of each bar, and that they occur at the end of phrases. Play this as written over a backing track (or just the basic chord sequence), and then come up with your own versions.

The notes I’ve used to get to each guide tone in this example are commonly used ‘approach’ notes – these can be diatonic (in the key) or non-diatonic, but the important point is that they resolve to the guide tones. You might like to experiment with this idea a little or, as we are in the key of G minor, simply use notes from G natural minor or even G minor pentatonic/blues as your basis and then target guide tones from that.

An important aspect of working with the guide tones is that it helps you to hear the essence of the harmony clearly. Ultimately you want to be able to trust your ears and think less about such things when improvising. But this takes time, and initially you will have to work slowly and carefully at it in the practice room. I’d suggest applying this approach to any new tune you are learning to improvise over.

Next time we’ll start to take a closer look at developing our chord vocabulary to help with playing jazz standards.

A bit of Christmas break homework:1) Be able to play guide tones for major 7,

minor 7, dominant 7 and minor 7b5 chords. Do this on the middle 2 strings to start with, but then extend to all six strings. (Using the

names of the notes will help with this, as well as visualising them within chord shapes). Try this in different keys.

2) Solo over the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves, using G minor and/or G minor pentatonic/blues as a basis to solo from. Use a backing track or just the basic chords. Target guide tones - aiming to play one of the guide tones as the chords change.

3) As a bonus, then try doing this over the whole chord progression for Autumn Leaves.

You’ll find extra resources to help you with all this on my website (below). Happy practising!

Dylan Kay is a professional guitarist and teacher based in Auckland. He can be contacted through his website www.dylankay.co.nz.

The Power of Two (Guide Tones – Part 2)

jazz guitar shedwith Dylan Kay

Page 53NZM December/January 2013

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