Chords for The Blues: A Modern Jazz Guitar Approach - Part I | Tom Lippincott

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_ [Db] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ [F] _ _
[F] _ _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ _
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[F] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [Gb] _ [C] _
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_ [Gb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [A] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [C] _
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_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ Hi, _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [B] _ [Bb] _
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[N] I'm Tom Lippincott and welcome to The Blues, a Modern Jazz Guitar Approach, Part 1.
Today, we're going to be exploring the blues progression, but with an emphasis, of course,
on using modern jazz vocabulary.
The idea is to voice lead through the arpeggios.
This is pretty basic stuff, but it's really important stuff.
Before we get into all the cool substitute sounds and four-part fourths and all that
kind of stuff, I do think it's important [B] to touch on this a little [Bb] bit.
_ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [F] _ _ [Bb] _
_ [Eb] _ _ Essentially, what I'm doing is every four bars, I'm making a switch.
First four bars, chord tone.
Second four bars, blues scale.
Third four bars, chord tone.
_ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [D] _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ [Dbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Bb] _
[C] And then the next bar, the five chords, C7, [Ebm] perfect place for the altered [Eb] sound.
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [Ebm] Or, _ Gb7, Lydian dominant, [E] tritone sub, [Dm] same melodic minor scale, Db again.
[Ab] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [Dbm] _ _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [Fm] _ _
_ [Bb] Bb [Dbm] major and C sharp minor can be moved around in minor thirds, that little cell there.
[Bb] Now I move that whole structure down three [Bbm] frets, _ [Gm] another three frets, and so [G] forth,
and then [Eb] play each one as a four [Bbm]-note arpeggio.
So I get this sound. _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ [Bb] Or Bb major, C [A] sharp minor.
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Dbm] _
_ [Eb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ Now if you [Gb] look up here on the top of page 10, example 14 takes us through three different
polyrhythms that are all based on groups of three.
If you're using a pick, think of it as down strokes and up strokes.
If you're playing down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, your down strokes
will be [Eb] your quarter note triplets, and your up strokes will be your displaced quarter note triplets.
_ [G] _ _ _ Alright, [Eb] just moving those sounds around gets this [G] interesting sort of tension [Ab] and release.
Kind of [F] mimics the tension and release that traditional harmony has, but maybe in a little
bit less systematic of a way.
It's just dissonance and consonance, almost in its pure form.
_ [Eb] _ _
[Db] _ _ [D] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ [Db] _ Now what [Am] I'm going to do is change all of those to F suspended triads by changing, going
from the [Bb] third up a half step [F] to the natural fourth.
So _ _ _ _ that's the top line.
Example 18. _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ [E] Now what we're going to do with this concept is we're going to use [F] those structures and
move them around diatonically. _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [Fm] _ _
_ [B] _ _ [Gbm] _ [F] _ _ _
Alright, the next thing I'm going to do is, I thought it would be an interesting idea.
A lot of these exercises that I've written out give you examples to hopefully give you
ideas of different things you can do when you're soloing, but it occurred to me that
when I'm improvising a solo and when I write something out, my thought process is a little different.
And to really get the flavor of when I'm improvising all this stuff, [B] I thought why not actually
try improvising a solo and then give you a transcription [Bb] of what I play.
_ [Eb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Db] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [F] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [Bbm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
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