Chords for II V I - You Need To Practice This For Solos

The 2-5-1 is the most common chord [E] progression in jazz.
In this [Bb] video I'm going to show you
some of the basic things that you should practice
if you wanna improvise over it.
And I'm also going to show you how you take that material
and turn [Am] it into some great lines
[F] so that when you're [G] improvising over a 2-5-1,
it actually sounds like jazz
and [Ab] not like you're just noodling in a [Gm] scale.
My name is Jens Larsen, learn [D] jazz, make music.
If you look at the C major scale,
_ _ _ [B] _ [C] _ _
then for each [Eb] note in that scale we have a chord.
[Bb] That's what's called the diatonic chords.
And for C major that gives [C] us _ C major [Dm] seven,
_ D minor [Em] seven, E minor seven,
[F] _ F major [G] seven, G seven, [Am] A minor seven,
[B] B half diminished, _ [C] _ and C major [Eb] seven.
The 2-5 [Ebm]-1 progression is [G] a progression
that sort of takes us to the root of the key,
so the C major.
Starts on the [Dm] two, so that's a D minor seven,
then it moves [G] to a G seven,
_ [C] and then resolves to the C major seven.
And if we put those chords together
and play them [Dm] a little bit closer to each other,
then we get.
_ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
Now that you [G] know what the 2-5-1 progression is,
then we can start looking at some exercises
that are going to give you [Ab] something
that you can use when you [Eb] solo on this progression.
When you play a solo in jazz,
you're improvising [Db] melodies and lines
that are [C] closely related to the [Em] chords.
So that means that it makes [Fm] sense
to practice [A] the melodic [Ab] version of those chords,
which is [Ab] the arpeggios.
A great way to practice them
[B] would be to play them directly on the chord progression.
[A] That would be something like this.
[F] _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ [C] _ [Em] _ _
_ _ [Cm] Notice that I'm playing these [A] arpeggios
as one octave arpeggios,
and they're all in the same [C] position.
And that's just because I wanna have [B] it
so that they're kinda easy to play,
[F] but also so that when I [Bb] start to solo,
I can later connect them,
because I don't wanna skip around the neck
[Ab] to get to the different arpeggios that I need to [A] use.
If you practice soloing just [F] using the arpeggios,
[B] then you're very clearly connecting to the [A] chords,
and you can still create [Bb] really solid [A] lines,
something like this.
[F] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ To really make the chord changes clear,
then I'm looking for notes [Eb] that are
not in the chord that I'm playing on now,
[A] but are only in [Eb] the next chord,
and then I try to play towards those notes
and play those [B] notes on beat one of the [Cm] next bar,
because then you can [C] really hear,
now we get a different note,
we get a different [A] chord sound,
[E] and that makes the chord change really [C] clear.
So that's what I'm doing in the example as well,
where you can see that I'm playing the B
[A] on beat one of the G7,
[Fm] and the E on beat [C] one of the C major 7.
The way that I'm playing the arpeggios
as these one octave melodies
is something that you can also [F] work on
taking [A] through a scale in a [Fm] scale position.
And if you do [F] that,
then you have access to all the arpeggios
that are found in the scale in one place on the neck,
and that's a very powerful thing to actually have access to,
because [G] that means that you can do the previous exercise
for [Ab] any progression that you can come across.
That exercise sounds like this.
[C] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Dm] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Am] _
_ [Em] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
I have another video where I'm talking [Ab] about this [F] exercise,
and I think it's a super useful exercise
for [Eb] connecting the harmony with the scale [Ab] exercises
and the [C] arpeggios.
So in that way, it [B] really brings a lot of things [Ab] together
that are just very important for playing jazz
and something you definitely wanna work on.
There's a [Bb] link to that video in the description.
Later in [C] this video, I'm gonna show you
how this exercise can become a gigantic shortcut
[B] and give you a lot more material
that you can use on [Cm] any chord in this scale.
As you [N] could see in the beginning of this video,
then the chord progression is in the key of C major,
and everything is actually found within that scale.
So it makes sense that before we start working
with all the bebop tricks and chromatic notes,
we just wanna take the arpeggios
and then also add the scale notes,
because that's sort of the immediate context
that's found around those chords.
Those are the notes that we wanna use as well.
So if we look in this position,
then [G] the C major scale sounds like [D] this.
_ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Again, it really makes sense to [Ab] take exercises
and scales like this,
and then try to really put them onto the progression
so you can hear how they work.
And in this case, we can do that quite easily,
because we can add the scale notes around the arpeggios,
and then you get an exercise like this.
[D] _ _ [A] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
[G] Like this, you can hear how the [C] scale works for each chord,
and you can still [Fm] hear the chord,
because I'm sort of playing the arpeggio,
so all the chord tones are on the beat,
and the scale notes [F] are then in between the beat.
This way of practicing the scales on the chords
is something that I learned from Barry Harris,
even though he tends to mostly ignore the two chord,
and then just [A] play the five chord for an entire two-five.
The next thing we can do
is to start making some licks with this,
[E] and that sounds like this.
[F] _ _
_ [A] _ _ [B] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [C] So here we have a lot more [Gm] options
when it comes to what melodies we now can create,
[A] but I'm still using the chord tones.
They are still sort of the notes
that are tying us to the chord
that are making the harmony clear,
and I'm playing those [Ab] mainly on the heavy beats,
so on beat one and beat three.
You can also still hear
how the changes are still pretty clear
if you play this lick [A] without any backing.
[Abm] Besides playing lines that are really connecting
[Gm] with the chord changes,
then another [C] part of the jazz or bebop sound
is that you use chromatic leading notes,
[Am] and you can, of [Ab] course,
turn this into all sorts [C] of complicated rule sets,
but I think if you're just getting started with this,
then really what you want to do
is that you just wanna [F] experiment
with [Bb] adding some chromatic leading notes
to the arpeggios that you use when you improvise,
so the chord tones,
because then you have this strong pull
[A] of the chromatic leading note
that resolves into the chord.
That's [Abm] just the strongest resolution
when you're improvising,
[B] and that means that you can make [A] lines like this.
[Dm] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ Here, the [D] chromatic notes are placed before a chord tone,
and they [Db] sort of really help spell out the changes,
and they [Dm] also sometimes help
[C] just really making the chord change clear
because I'm [Ab] using them moving from one chord to the [B] next.
So I have the C sharp before [Db] the D,
_ _ [G] and I'm also using the chromatic leading notes
to really change chord in a very clear way
because here I'm using [Bb] the A sharp
to lead to the [B] B on the G7,
so in that way, [A] it's really sort of [B] emphasizing that B,
making it really clear [A] that the chord is changing.
The [Bb] same happens when I'm going from D sharp up [E] to E
on the C major 7,
and [Ab] once you start getting a little bit familiar
with using these chromatic approach notes
to the chord tones,
then you can, of course, expand on it
and try to target notes that are not in the chord
or maybe use them as suspensions
so that you create a little bit more tension
and [A] make your line [Db] a little bit more [Dm] surprising. _ _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [Fm] Here you have some [Bb] chromatic notes
that resolve to scale notes, not to chord tones,
so in the first bar, you have a D sharp on beat three
that's resolving [E] up to the E, so the ninth,
and I'm also [C] using sort of a suspension,
so usually you wanna put the B, the third of the G7
really on the one to make it clear,
but here I'm delaying it,
[B] and that's just another [E] way of creating some tension
and [C] resolving that,
so on beat one, [Bb] we really get the A sharp
that's not really a note that fits in there,
[B] and then I resolve that on the one end.
[E] I'm using the A, A [G] flat, G to [Ab] go to the C major [A] 7,
and I also have [Ab] a leading note on the C major 7
that's just to a chord tone,
so [Eb] just approaching the third from below.
[Em] _ _ _ [Fm] As I said earlier in the video,
if you practice your arpeggios in the scale like this,
then you get access [E] to a lot more material
for each of the chords.
[Eb] In fact, you just get twice as many arpeggios
that you can [C] use for each chord.
Let me show you how that works.
So if we take a look at a C major 7 arpeggio
[B] or a C major 7 chord, then [Cm] we have these notes,
[E] C, E, [Gb] G, and B.
[C] When you're playing a solo
and you're using the C major 7 arpeggio
over a [Eb] C major 7 chord, then that sounds good,
and that [Ab] works because you're just playing the notes
that the one playing the chords are also playing,
so of course that works together.
Since the arpeggio, so C, E, G, and B sounds good,
then another arpeggio that has pretty much the same notes
will probably also [C] work,
and that could [Ab] be the arpeggio from the third of [G] the chord.
So that means that we can, of course,
have _ the basic arpeggio,
and then we can [E] start from the third, that's the E,
_ and we have those notes as well. _
_ [Em] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[B] This you can take to all the chords in the 2 [G]-5-1,
so that means that over [Ab] a D minor 7 chord,
you can also use an F major 7 arpeggio.
Over the G7, you can also use a B half diminished arpeggio,
and of course, on the C major 7, as you just saw,
you can [Bb] use an E minor 7 arpeggio.
[F] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ And [A] this material you can use,
and [C] of course, also combine with chromaticism,
and then create a line [Gb] like this.
_ [F] _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ If you want to [Fm] explore this in more [Eb] detail,
starting with the exercise of the diatonic arpeggios,
and then going through all the great [G] things
that you can do with this,
some really neat bebop tricks,
and also [F] just some great sounding licks,
[B] then check out this video called
The Most Important Scale