Work Song Soloing

[dzzy121]

Wondering how I can spice up my soloing in the tune Work Song. I've been listening to Wes' and Grant Greens solos for ideas. Presently, I'm playing the tune in F min, so I'm using an F minor blues scale and arpeggiating the chords too. What else can I do for a more jazzy/blues sound? Any ideas would be great, I would imagine transcribing would be helpful, but I don't seem to have the ear quite yet.

[phdmerrill]

I'll give you the method I used starting out. It is exercise-like, but its totally necessary. If you can't do these basics, you won't be playing anything harder or more sophisticated. I don't know how much you know/are able to play, so sorry if this is patronizing.

Get the tune on a backing track. Play the arpeggios in quarter notes all over the neck, without changing direction or position when a chord changes (or being able to change direction only when you choose to, but not just to grab notes you are most comfortable playing). Once you are thoroughly comfortable with that, pick a specific rhythm and play the chord tones with that rhythm consistently over the changes. Then come up with some other rhythms, and start mixing them together, but make sure you are playing them methodically and consistently. And be sure to swing! Articulation is key.

Once you can do this much, you'll start building 8th note phrases or lines. Throw in bebop notes--three consecutive chromatics (typically played descending) between a whole step interval of the scale of the chord you are on. On a Fm7, you can find these between the root and the m7, the 9th and the root, the 4th and the m3, etc. These notes should be considered to be in the context of a phrase, which should resolve to a chord tone--this means their stuck in between your arpeggios. Also, be able to cross the bar line in your phrasing, meaning you should resolve one chord to the next without pausing.

These are the basics, you have to be able to do them well. There are zillions of other things to do and learn, but you should definitely start here.

[phdmerrill]

Oh I was just rereading what I wrote to you, when I say "stuck in between your arpeggios" I mean play the bebop notes somewhere within your arpeggio line, as in, among chord tones of whatever chord you're on. You can start, end, or connect phrases with bebop notes, whatever is appropriate. Hope that's clear.

[dzzy121]

Thanks so much, I've been working for so long on the arpeggios ans playing the notes in between too, it's just not sound good yet. Hopefully with more practice I'll eventually get there...

[Atticus]

Our jazz band is playing Work Song, so I asked our lead trombone player about this (he's the best soloist in the band and gets a solo on almost everything). He suggested F Dorian and F Harmonic Minor on the Fm chord. When there's space between the chord changes, you can get more mileage out of extensions.

phdmerrill's point about starting slow is very true.