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How to think about providing what the soloist needs really deserves it's own forum, not just its own thread. That said ...
1. What's the situation? By which I usually mean, is there a piano?
2. What's the musical style?
3. What's the tune?
4. How loud should you be playing at any given moment?
5. How busy vs how sparse at any given moment?
6. Does the soloist want to be fed ideas, or does the soloist want to lead in that way?
7. Finally we get to harmonic content. Suppose the soloist is playing tritone sub to I each time. Does that mean you play tritone sub and make the soloist sound vanilla? Or do you stay with the original V7 so the soloist sounds hipper? Multiply that by the number of chords in the tune.
This assumes, of course, that you have big enough ears to make these determinations on the fly. Tbh, I don't. But, I can tell inside vs outside and if the soloist is doing one, I might consider doing the other.
Voice leading comes into play here. And to do it well, on the fly, you probably are going to need some well-practiced chord patterns, or instant knowledge of the chord tones, tonal center and where all that is on the fingerboard. Not that you can't make something new up on the fly, but it's hard to do that for six choruses.
8. Which chorus? You aren't going to play the same thing every time.
9. And, throughout, how are you going to play propulsive, great-feeling rhythm?
To sum up, it's all probably too much to think about. So, you build these skills over long periods of time in combo playing. Eventually, you listen to the band as a whole and do whatever you can to make it sound good.
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07-15-2025 01:39 PM
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Without good comping you probably won't get a good solo.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
So, good comping could be considered to be much more difficult than single note soloing.
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Does anyone have real world experience with this situation? Where a soloist wants your input? Or is it just online pontification.6. Does the soloist want to be fed ideas, or does the soloist want to lead in that way?
By the time you hear the tritone line it's over, jazz is about what's next not what has happened. I just don't see how this situation can work in real time. You hear the soloist set up a tritone, so you play the chord, at best, 2 beats late? I don't understand the actual notes being played in real time, real world application of this. The theory sounds nice as a voiceover in Ken Burn's Jazz. It's a great piece of jazz marketing, but I don't get how it can actually work.7. Finally we get to harmonic content. Suppose the soloist is playing tritone sub to I each time. Does that mean you play tritone sub and make the soloist sound vanilla? Or do you stay with the original V7 so the soloist sounds hipper? Multiply that by the number of chords in the tune.
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Me Originally Posted by AllanAllen
. Whenever I play with a new drummer I keep trying to toss them stuff to see if they’ll pick it up and run with it. I super like playing with really interactive weird rhythm sections.
Also the weird electric group I play with this is a thing.
I think I’m probably in the minority though and when it’s people I don’t know I’m going to err on the side of less interactive.
It also tends to be little things that people like to be fed …
throw a little octave pedal in to see if the soloist runs with it.
throw a short polyrhythm or something in to see if they run with it.
change the rhythmic riff to see if they interact with you, in which case maybe you’ll be more active down the line.
It’s that kind of stuff … not like “hey here’s a hip substitution for you, Mr Soloist.”
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Bb blues … one chorus rooted shells, one chorus two note rootless shells, one chorus roots on top, then a few choruses just playing for you goobers. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Three notes or less, all 3/7 shells on the D/G strings.
As per usual, unaccompanied it’s probably more fancy pants than it would be someone were soloing
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There can be a good solo without any comping at all. Just a bass player with a good feel already a good foundation for a solo. Which begs the question, what's the contribution of comping? Why does it make the band sound better? Does it serve the soloist or does it serve the listener?
Sonarity: So redundancy is not a bad thing. It's another tension and release dynamic. You can go between the (sort of) polyphony of just bass and solo to full wall of sound experience of the band. It provides a homophonic support that's already implied so it often disappears into the background sonic experience.
Polyrhythm: Adding another rhythmic layer either as a groove or motivically.
Counter-melody: Harmonized lines to add something else to grab listeners attention.
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Oh yeah.... drummers love this stuff. I'm so used to playing without a drummer I forgot. I think I've only had 1 or 2 gigs with a drummer this year. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Me. Whenever I play with a new drummer I keep trying to toss them stuff to see if they’ll pick it up and run with it. I super like playing with really interactive weird rhythm sections.
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Oh yeah that’s a whole different thing then Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I found these Colourful Shell Voicing on the Web: Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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You can ask a soloist how they feel about you feeding them less conventional harmony. If you ask me, I'll probably tell you not to get too adventurous. If you ask a soloist with bigger ears they may tell you they like the challenge. And, yes, I've done it. Something similar comes up with bass solos. Most bassists I've asked seem to want more chords than they might otherwise get. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
You're right about not being able to decide on a tritone sub at that very moment. So, you're actually making a prediction. I have had the experience of being scolded for playing a tritone when the soloist also played a tritone. I knew he wasn't a vanilla player so I should have chosen accordingly. If the player is vanilla, you might choose the substitution.
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Yep, I mean if you are some on the level of Peter Bernstein, you are great and can comp to the player you are playing with, on a sliding scale from vanilla and solid to super creative and provocative, perfectly judged to bring out their best. And then you work ALL THE TIME.
Again, I feel that I'm coming in as Mr Boring, but I think there's a way to come which is perhaps not the most exciting or conceptual but is a basic level of competence which is always going to be welcome, and that's about playing simple and strong. I kind of thing it's good manners on a straightahead-ish pick up gig to start from there if you don't know who you are playing with, and I think you definitely need to be able to do that before going to other places.
There's a lot deeper one can get with playing simple and strong in the pocket than it seems at first of course.
Just play stuff that sounds and feels good. Improvisation, meh. Music first.
Play a Charleston, Conga, whatever. Get that dialled in.
I think getting that down is your buy into the band stand. Half of the stuff they talk about on jazz courses are the icing on the cake. The cake takes a lot of baking. (It's alright I'm not going to start going on about Green Icing.)
It's like drummers. We all like a great spang-a-lang ride cymbal standard jazz comping. It's always a lovely thing and makes life easy. Of course, it is also not the only thing in the world, even in straight ahead jazz. But can Ari Hoenig play that spang-a-lang beautifully? You betcha.
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A great way to work on this is to comp for yourself. Comp and play on your comping.
For more advanced practice, flip it over and record the solo first.
If it's anything like my experience, you will find things that bug you, and that's good.
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I probably wouldn't want you to play the tritone if I am doing it. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
In the same way if I'm playing a dotted quarter rhythm, I probably don't want the rhythm section to follow me.
But no it doesn't work like that. We aren't all trying to micromanage our harmonic choices to 'fit' - we need to make space for each other to do things that are a little more 'out' and so on, but it's about listening to the band. I mean if the sax is going off on one, there are worse thing you can do than play a pedal, and so on.
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I forgot:
Which octave to comp in at any given moment.
Whether to play stacatto or legato.
Probably more.
A lot to think about, but it all matters.
If I had to summarize it, it might be "don't get in the way of the soloist while you're being supportive".
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Yeah I think like … 95% of everything I’ve done when I’m comping, or soloing, that felt interactive in like a “whoa that was cool” sort of way was rhythmic. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
So much of the dialogue happens on that level.
I think the rhythmic thing I’ve worked on that felt like it helped the most immediately was to pick a simple rhythm — Charleston or some other simple two attack rhythm or something — and play through a tune using the sort of rule of three or something.
Rhythm - Rhythm again - rhythm again - something different
Rhythm again - rhythm again - rhythm again - something different
and just play through a few choruses of a tune like that. Usually kind of an up-ish tempo because that’s where I feel less comfortable.
But that sort of thing is great.
Also that’s definitely one of many things I thought of to help a student and then was like … crap I should do this
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During covid I had the opportunity to jam (outside) with a truly great drummer.
This was eye-opening in a number of ways.
His playing was filled with rhythmic information. If I didn't know what to comp, all I had to do was focus for a few seconds on the drums and pick up on something therein. And, it was a two way street, to the extent that I was able to provide something to work with. He was listening.
Another thing he could do was look at a chart and understand what the music was supposed to sound like and how to contribute to making it happen. Many times, I thought to myself, "he doesn't know this tune?". That is, he didn't play beats. He played songs and could do that even if he didn't know the song.
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What do I really need to practice with?
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I transcribed and shared Peter Bernstein's chorus on rhythm changes - see Christian's post #81 - the day it went live and before those chord grids were overlayed by the YouTube poster (maybe he used my transcription as a reference?). Originally Posted by AllanAllen
It's an impressive display of voice-leading between chords of variable density from 2 to 6 notes. Of course, there's so much more happening here including incredible rhythmic interplay/groove, a wealth of substitutions, etc.
My transcription came from a much longer streamed version of the video so ignore the timecode. The performance comes in around 1'35":
I'd recommend checking out the two examples of rhythm changes in Barry Galbraith's excellent 'Guitar Comping' book as well.
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Oh I didn’t even realize that was his thing with Jordan
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I guess it's been a few months since I was last devastated trying to keep up with that video... I'll give it another spin.
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Play the extra stuff at the end as your solo, then you'll be doing big time Bickert stuff. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Lol. Same here Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Another one I like for voiceleading …
when the thirds and sevenths are automatic you can focus on adding one note at a time to the top. I like grouping them into pairs that are a fourth or a fifth apart (like the third and seventh) so that they’ll voicelead well through common chord progressions.
They are:
root - 5
5 - 9
13 - 9
root - 13
root - 11
More or less that order is where I like to practice them. So you start getting a sense of where all the nice common tones and stepwise moves are in common progressions. Then from there adding altered notes is just a matter of passing tones in your melody.
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For an Fdominant he's got A Eb Ab Db Gb. F7b9#9b13.
Ignoring the A and the bassist for a moment, that's Eb Ab Db Gb, which is a common stack of fourths.
I never noticed that a stack of fourths can be used like that.
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It's probably derived from the minor pentatonic on the b3/major pentatonic on the b5 on the V7 chord Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
So for F7 that's Ab minor pent/B major pent
He likes that sub
At a guess I qould say this is originally from McCoy Tyner.
I notice that often in modern dominant playing they get rid of the tritone notes in the chords and focus on sounds like major and minor triads and pentatonics that don't contain them. It produces a more 'colour' based sound, and resolves in a less predicable way compared to the standard dominant-tonic resolution we've been hearing for hundreds of years.
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