Blues Comping #9: Rhythms (combination)

For today's lesson, I've listed four comping rhythms that use one attack on the beat and another attack on an offbeat. Example E1 and E2 are start on beat one followed by a syncopated rhythmic attack. In example F1 and F2, I did the opposite and played an offbeat rhythmic attack first.

Try playing each of these rhythms and then come up with your own rhythms (with two attacks per measure). I would recommend writing around ten to twenty different rhythms (some just on the off beats, some just on the beat and some in combination like the examples above). After writing them, play all of them and choose your favorite rhythms to practice. 

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #8: Rhythms (off the beat)

Today's A Chord A Day lesson continues yesterday study of different rhythms for comping. Here, all the examples are off the beat, i.e. syncopated rhythms. These are trickier so my advice is to practice one rhythm at a time, perhaps alternating between one of these examples and another from the Blues Comping #7 so that you don't lose the beat. If you're ready for a challenge, pick one rhythm from this lesson and keep that as the rhythm throughout a chorus of the blues. Play with a metronome or backing track so that you won't turn the time around accidentally since the rhythms are all syncopated.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #7: Rhythms (on the beat)

Today's lesson is the first one touching on comping rhythms that we can use to practice material from Blues Comping #1-6. For this first example, I've chosen rhythms that fall on the beat. Example A1 is the basic comping rhythm on beats one and three. Example A2 is a displaced version of A1 with the rhythmic attacks falling on beat two and four. Example B1 is another rhythm falling on beats one and two. Example B2, B3 and B4 are displacements of the B1 moving the rhythm one beat at a time. B2 starts on beat two, B3 on beat three and B4 starts on beat four though now it appears like a new rhythm since the longer rhythmic attack is on beat one.

Practice suggestions: Pick one of the rhythms and play the entire blues chorus (from Blues Comping #4 to #6) with that one rhythm. Alternatively, you can write a combination of the rhythms as a rhythmic etude. Since there are six rhythms here, use each rhythm twice to create a twelve measure rhythm etude. You can also practice material from Blues Comping #1-3 with these rhythms to develop more flexibility with the material.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #6: Chorus #1 (measures 9 - 12)

To conclude Chorus #1 of the Blues Comping lesson series, here's last four measures of a twelve bar Jazz Blues form. Remember to play the voicings cleanly and connect them smoothly. Again, I've played the chords as written first followed by a version with comping rhythms the way I would play them in a performance context. After learning this example, connect Blues Comping #4 to #6 together. Have fun and if you like to get deeper into the voicings, write a second chorus of comping to complement the lesson.

In the next lesson, we'll look at the rhythmic aspect of comping!

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #5: Chorus #1 (measures 5 - 8)

For today's lesson, we'll focus on the middle four measures of the twelve bar Jazz Blues progression. In a basic Blues progression, measures five and six usually stay on the IV7 chord but a very common variation is to insert a #IVo7 passing chord to lead back into the I7 usually in the form of I7/5 (a second inversion I7 chord) just like the example here.

I've used the same Drop-2 diminished voicing that was introduced in Blues Comping #3. However, here the chord functions as a diminished chord as opposed to the alternative function of being a rootless Dom7(b9) voicing (as it appears in measure eight).

After memorizing this example, play Blues Comping #4 and Blues Comping #5 back to back to hear how the first eight measures of this first full chorus example sounds like. Experiment comping with different rhythms, articulation, note duration and space. 

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #4: Chorus #1 (measures 1 - 4)

Today's example consist of the first four measure of a Jazz Blues progression. The voicings here are a combination of the I7 and IV7 voicings in Blues Comping #1 as well as II-V progression in Eb using voicings from Blues Comping #2.
In the audio example, I first played them as written so you can hear the voicings and voiceleading. The second time, I played them with different rhythms as I would in a performance context. Play, memorize the voicings and afterwards, experiment playing the voicings with different rhythms.


Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #3: Drop-2 Voicings for the V7(b9)/II and related II-7(b5)

In the third installment of Blues Comping, we're looking at two chords that really adds more Jazz flavor into the Blues progression. In this context, the G7(b9) functions as a secondary dominant that leads into the II-7. The voicing here is a rootless voicing which makes it possible for the chord to also be viewed simply as a Drop-2 diminished 7th voicing.

In the next few lessons, we'll start combining all the voicings we've looked at into complete Jazz Blues choruses. To prepare for this, make sure you practice the voicings as much as possible so that it becomes comfortable. We'll also be playing the same voicings in different keys in future examples, so get a head start by doing that now.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #2: Drop-2 Voicings for the II-7 and V7

In the second lesson installment for our Blues Comping lesson this week, here are the four voiceled inversions for the II-7 and V7 in the key of Bb. For this lesson, I've even included the chord diagrams (so you can also see how the chord shapes relate to one another visually) in addition to our standard notation and tablature!

Practice playing all the Cmin7 and F7 inversions separately as well and in different keys! It's important to memorize these as soon as you can since future lessons will be based around alterations of these shapes.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #1: Drop-2 Voicings for the I7 and IV7

For this week, I've decided to continue exploring Dominant Chords. Today, we're looking at one chord quality (Dominant 7th) in one voicing type (Drop-2) within the context of a Bb Jazz Blues progression! In this first installment, we're looking at all the Drop-2 inversions of Bb7 and Eb7 within the inner four strings of the guitar (A-D-G-B).

For now, play the voicings as written and get comfortable moving from voicing to voicing. Be sure of the fingering that you want to use and plan each movement so that the transition is smooth. Although I've written the example in Bb, try playing the voicings in all twelve keys to really learn it.

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Enjoy!

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