Chords for Jazz Guitar Lesson - Phrases Not Scales - Henry Johnson

[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Okay, so now one of the things is, _ as I came up, _
I thought if I learned all my skills that I would be able to play music.
And over a short period of time I found that not to be the truth.
So, what I started finding out that music is a language,
_ and skills are just the alphabet. _ _
You need phrases to actually put sentences together.
So, say for instance we were dealing with _ _ C major 7th, right?
_ [Abm] Okay, so if you're soloing and you just [G] go, _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
[F] doesn't really sound like a solo, [Em] does it?
_ _ Here's what you actually are hearing on the recordings.
When somebody plays a C major 7th, [B] they're thinking about this.
_ _ [Em] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ [Cm] _ [B] _ _ _
[G] _ _ [A] _ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ [Ebm] _ [A] _ [G] _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _
[N] Those are all statements.
They have periods at the end of them.
That's what a musical phrase is.
It has a period at the end of it.
And a musical phrase can go over any chord.
It doesn't make any difference what color,
all of the different kind of alternate notes that's in it, doesn't matter.
Still a musical phrase.
So, you want to start thinking about playing phrases,
not scales because you won't have the answer with scales.
Scales is not music.
Scales is just the alphabets that allow you to put music together.
But you're going to have to put phrases together to actually have musical quality.
So, how do you get from scales to phrases?
Well, music has three elements that totally make it all musical.
And that's melody, harmony, and rhythm.
When you combine those three elements together,
that's when you're actually starting to make music.
And that's music that affects people because the reason we make music
is because we want people to feel something.
And those three elements is what does it.
So, if we're going to take our phrases, they're going to be based on that element.
Number one, rhythm.
If the bass player and the drummer are playing on one,
I'm going to play after one, sort of like this.
[G] _ _ _
[D] _ [Em] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ It gives my phrase an uplifting feeling because not playing on one actually pushes it forward.
And I'm playing with the rhythm section, not against them.
Okay, so when we're [Abm] dealing with harmony, it can be any kind of harmony.
It could be minor, it could be major, it could be dominant seventh, or maybe all of them.
We [B] can actually go from [C] here to [Cm] here [E] to here.
_ So my phrase has to actually, you should be able to hear the quality of the phrase
without actually hearing a person play behind me.
So, here's a phrase that's based on [G] major.
_ _ _ [Gb] _ [Em] _ [A] _ [Em] _ _
_ _ [Eb] Now, harmony, again, using minor.
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ [G] _ _ [Eb] _
_ [Fm] _ [Eb] _ _ [Bb] Alright, right there you should be able to hear that's minor.
And now, if we're using dominant seventh, same thing.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [B] _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ [C] _ _ _ _ [Cm] You should be able to hear the different qualities in each phrase that I was playing.
Because when I want to actually add more colors to it, it can be even more.
So, if we're playing minor, minor has all of these other colors inside of it as well.
So, in other words, here's a little quick thing.
If you just take the root of the minor and you go down in half steps,
you're going to get a different color of minor.
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ Now, if I'm using my phrases and I'm creating phrases based off [Bm] the harmony,
_ [Eb] _ [F] _ [Eb] _ _ [D] _
[B] _ [A] _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ now I included all of those notes in there.
It's because I'm used to the shape.
And as you get used to the shape, you'll start doing the same things.
Now, the other element is melody.
Everybody knows a melody _ from_ _
_ [A] _ _ [Fm] _ [Em] _ [Bm] _ [C] _ _
But if you add a different rhythm to that, you'll have another element.
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [Fm] _
[Em] _ _ [E] _ [C] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _
_ [C] _ _ _ Same melody that we all came up listening to,
but with a different rhythm, [Abm] it becomes something unique.
And remember, there are countless rhythms.
_ So, when you add rhythm into your harmony and your melodies,
that's when you really get to the essence of improvising
because you won't run out of any material.
You'll keep coming up with new stuff just based off of what you already know.
_ So, hopefully that explains to you a little bit
about how important it is to play phrases and not [N] scales.