Practicing Comping

[voelker]

Thought u guys might like this simple exercise that mixes all inversions by changing one note at a time, it let's you see which notes each triad has in common. It's for all triads in C for strings GBD. Do it up and down. You'll have to figure out the other sting sets and keys on your own.


0--0--0--1--1--1--3--3--3--5--5--5--7--7--7--8--8--8--10-10-10-12
0--1--1--1--3--3--3--5--5--5--6--6--6--8--8--8-10-10-10-12-12-12
0--0--2--2--2--4--4--4--5--5--5--7--7--7--9--9--9-10-10-10-12-12
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[Dave Woods]

Does anyone have any secrets or methods to practice comping out that are out of the ordinary? (ordinary = sitting and just playing the chords over and over with a metronome)

Keep track of the melody. Play the melody, and every time there's a space between its phrases, throw in the correct chords and jump back on the melody. This is the best place to start. As you improvise in general you should never lose track of the melody.

Next, play a chorus of the full progression strumming just the rhythm of the melody.
Down strokes are down beats, and upstrokes are up beats. You can keep this motion going in the air above the strings, not overtly, just enough to feel it's there, and just dip the pick into the strings when you want to.

The true reality of a "comp" is playing with others. It's a conversational "call and response kind of thing. You don't talk over the top of people, you listen and interject at the right time.

It's possible to keep moving your left hand through the chord shapes without dipping the right hand into the strings. Scat sing your solo, as you scat sing keeping the melody in mind. Dip the right hand into the chords at appropriate times in your scat sung solo. Comp for yourself.

[Drumbler]

Small? You're joking, right If you really need a bigger format, you can zoom a bit. If that is not sufficient I'll off course will make a bigger one.

Check out this one!

Seriously, I meant the type is small.

But I just figured out how to zoom in. It's all good!

[gersdal]

Seriously, I meant the type is small.

But I just figured out how to zoom in. It's all good!

Thanks. I'm pleased to know that you'll spend time looking at my notebook on comping. I hope you send me any questions or comments you should have.

PS: I did include a even larger version in the link behind the "Check this one out". Here you can zoom quite a lot, and everything should be readable.