Chords for Fake Counterpoint And Jazz Chords: Both Beautiful and Practical

This way of comping is incredibly fun and I [F] really love how it sounds.
[Bb] At the same time, [Eb] I'm not exactly [Bb] sure where I learned [E] to play this way.
[Cm] It's about being more free [Eb] and creative with the [Cm] chords that you play.
And [D] I'll take a [Bb] slow song to show you how [Abm] I think about the chords
and turn them into a sort of counterpoint.
But it isn't real counterpoint, mainly because studying counterpoint was a massive failure
[Bm] when I was a student.
But I'll [A] get back to [Db] that story.
I guess it's my take on everything [Ab] that I listened to from [Bbm] Bill Frisell and John [C] Schofield,
maybe even [Ab] some Jimi Hendrix and a bit of folk music as well.
You can tell [Bb] that I'm not really sure where I got this from.
As you'll see, I'm not really following a rule set.
I'm just trying to make it sound good.
_ _ _ [Gm] _ [Bm] _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ [G] _ _ [Db] _
_ [Eb] _ So [C] I'm using Someday My Prince Will Come and playing it in [Ab] this almost ballad-waltz tempo,
mainly because I think that's a great tempo to show you how fake counterpoint works.
The main thing to notice in the beginning is that even though I'm pretty active,
[Bb] then I'm actually not playing a lot of [Gm] different chords.
Instead, [C] I'm relying on arpeggiating the chords and getting them to flow [N] into each other smoothly.
The chords are very [Bb] simple.
So shell voicings for the Bbmaj7, [C] triads on [Gm] D7 and Ebmaj7,
and then [Ab] another shell [Em] voicing, which is an Ab minor major as an [E] incomplete G7b9.
The flow of the chords is almost a [C] visual thing on the first two chords,
[B] where the top notes move down [Bb] and the lower voices [Gm] move up. _
[C] _ _ _ That's also what's happening on the Ebmaj7 [B] to [Gm] G7b9,
except here, the top note [Cm] actually stays a G all [E] the time.
Playing like this is a good way to really get to know your chords.
The [Fm] next part uses arpeggios, but also more fills around the chords.
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Cm] _ [F] _ _
[Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ _ [Abm] The first part of this is mostly about using fills rather than chords,
and it's not really [A] about using [Bbm] several layers [Ab] of counterpoint.
For the Cm7, then the voicing is [Eb] just like a basic Eb major triad that I'm arpeggiating.
Actually, it's a little bit like a banjo [Abm] roll, like a [A] bluegrass thing,
[D] but _ _ [A] _ _
_ [Bb] I don't think I really have enough [Am] bluegrass influences for it to be that.
But then that's [F] connecting to a G7, which is just a tritone interval.
And on the [Bb] G7, you have a fill to get that altered [Fm] dominant sound [Gb] across.
[G] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ Then it moves to a Cm7 with a 9 in bar 3, and here I'm using a drop 2 voicing. _
_ _ And actually, four note [Bb] voicings are not something that I'm using [A] a ton
when I'm playing like this, but I'll also talk about that in the next part.
So now we can [D] get back to using several layers,
and especially some fourth intervals in this one.
I think that also kind of makes it clear [B] why this often works better with two or three note voicings.
_ [Cm] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [Fm] _ [Ebm] _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ [Gb]
[C] I'm [Ebm] using this Cm7 11 voicing to [Bb] make it possible to play the fill with [Eb] the fourth intervals.
_ [D] _ [C] _ [D] _
And then that ends on the F7 13.
[Eb] And actually, that F7 13 [A] also is kind of like a consequence of the fill,
because the top part of that is the last fourth [Abm] interval.
The fourth intervals then come back on the Bb major 7 chord,
[Bb] where I come out [F] first with just a long F as a melody note [Bb] that's [F] sustained,
and then [Bb] under that, [Fm] I'm adding another fourth interval melody.
Now [B] at the end of the first half, then it's probably worth mentioning that
really what's [Dm] happening [Eb]
is _ _ [Dm] _ _ sort of [Eb] an [F] embellished or arpeggiated version [Abm] of this very simple [Eb] 2-5.
_ _ _ _ [D] _ When I think about counterpoint, then I usually think about baroque music
with a lot of layers moving like an organ player,
working [A] really hard with all limbs [G] to keep it all happening [Db] at the same [Gbm] time.
[C] My other association with counterpoint is the course that I had to take
when I was studying at the conservatory.
_ [Eb] _ [Cm] _ [Gb] _ _
[Gbm] All jazz guitarists had to take this, and I found [Ab] myself in a class with,
for the rest, only people studying [N] baroque music.
Now the teacher was a very friendly classical composer,
and this was one of the few topics at the conservatory where we actually worked from a book.
This was not a success.
I had no real idea what I was supposed to learn in that class,
and nothing was related to the music that I played.
Now you can probably imagine how showing up every week
and [Am] writing baroque music from a [Ab] set of rules was everything but inspiring.
I think in hindsight it could have been an interesting topic to explore
in terms of learning how melodies work.
But because it was so far away from the music that I was busy with,
then it just seemed theoretical [C] and irrelevant.
[D] Later another theory teacher, actually one of my favorite teachers,
told me that studying counterpoint was [Bb] not worth the time.
And really everything you needed to know was these two things.
One, stepwise melodies are very strong.
And two, a melodic leap in one direction [B] is resulted by stepwise motion
[E] in the opposite direction.
I learned really a lot [Ab] from her, and this certainly fitted with my experience as well.
So of course this really resonated with me.
Now [N] to immediately relate this to jazz, because that was what was missing,
then these [Ab] two rules explain how Parker's octave [C] displacement works.
If you look at this simple line,
[Ebm] _ [Cm] _ [Bb] _
_ here you have [Gb] a melodic leap from F sharp up to [Ebm] E flat,
and that's then [D] resolved moving down [Gm] the scale in steps.
[N] And it's actually a great demonstration of melodic tension and release.
Now if you think that it's important for jazz musicians to learn counterpoint,
then let me know in the comments,
but maybe add some real examples of the benefits like this one.
As you can probably tell, then I don't really remember anything that I learned in counterpoint. _
And I'm really just using the term counterpoint to describe that I'm improvising
several layers in the comping examples.
So it's not really in that way a tradition,
it's just a description of how the music sounds.
Now whether I learned to play chords like this from Bach, Jimi Hendrix or Bill Fussell,
and it's probably a mix of all three,
[Gm] I think you can hear some of this coming from Bill Fussell's way of [Bb] working with chords,
which I do [C] like really a lot.
And [E] if you think about it, then the idea of playing chords and sort of spreading them out
and adding fills is also very similar to how Hendrix plays Wind Christ's Mary [Dbm] and Little Wing.
And I also had [Ab] a period where I was checking out [Bb] everything Jimi Hendrix quite obsessively.
The next part is almost a chord melody as a way of comping
with [B] a very distinct melody that's [Dm] being supported by chords. _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ [D] _ [F] _ [Bm] _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ [F] _ _ [Bb] _
_ [Eb] _ [Bb] _ _ [E] _ _ [Cm] _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ [Dm] _ _ [Fm]
Except for one [N] place in this example,
you have a very simple melody that is in fact mostly moving in steps.
And then under that you have chords that are supporting it.
If I just add the melody on top,
then you can really hear how that is [Dm] what ties the whole thing together.
_ [Gm] _ _ [D] _ _
[F] _ [D] _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
[F] _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Abm] _
[Cm] _ At _ the end of the [C] example on the [B] Cm7 F7 bars,
it becomes counterpoint again with the [Eb] sustained G note,
and then just walking down to spell [A] out the changes going [Ab] to F7.
And that's really just sort of a counterpoint or a melodic way to play these very [Eb] simple chords.
_ _ [A] _ _
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think you [Ab] need the right guitar for this.
Playing like this is relying very heavily on having sustain
so that the chords don't disappear and that you can move one voice
while the others keep [Am] sounding.
So you need a guitar [Ab] with [Bbm] sustain.
Are you saying there's something [Fm] wrong with my gear?
And that's also why I use a guitar [Bb] like this and not my ES-175
because it can't really [N] do this type of sustain.
And when I discovered that, this was a part of how I played.
And that was also what made me realize that I needed to find another instrument.
But if you want to hear about that process and also just the story of my ES-175,
how I found it and how I later found out it was stolen, then check out this