Chord Shapes as a basis for Improv

[charlieparker]

If you ask me the notes in a C7 I know them instantly and I know where every one of them is on the neck. I don't have to think about grips or scales.

But, if you ask me to spell a "first inversion drop 2 C7" I'd have to get out a pencil and paper and think for a few minutes. Why? Because, in my view (and there's always a great player who thinks differently) thinking about drop-n is not helpful, unless you're an arranger. The concept seems to appeal to people who want to organize every possible inversion and grip, or something, but I don't see the utility. Maybe I'd be better off if I did, but I don't.

That said, it's helpful to know grips and their various names. Makes it easier to grab a chord quickly when reading, say, a big band chart. And, thinking about a grip may be quicker than thinking about scale choices. It's a kind of safety net -- not my preferred way of approaching a solo, but I fall back onto it often enough.

What I would suggest is thinking about what Reg calls chord patterns. A pattern would be a sequences of chords that expand the basic harmony and, when he does it, sound classically jazzy (to my ear). Knowing those patterns will make comping more interesting and, if you play on all the extra chords, your solos will be more interesting too.

Or, you could learn the notes in the chords and scales you use (which is a lot of work, but so is every other approach) and learn the fingerboard really well and then use those tools to make melody.

Interesting approach. If you can do that you are on your way but it seems like a tough place to get to.

[AllanAllen]

I'm not advocating to know how to spell all your chord grips, but more to just use your chord grips as a basis for notes to use. You don't really need to know if it is a drop whatever. I'm trying to simplify.

I think you’re on the right path and you’ll see things faster if you keep at it.

We all have our own way of thinking about these things and the terms can overlap and cause confusion when it’s all new.

[digger]

I only solo at a very simple level and I don't really improvise, so I've probably no right to comment, but soloing from chords is on of the three (and a half) pillars of my lead playing (the other two being the melody and licks, and the half being arpeggios). I wouldn't know a drop two chord if one bit me (although apparently I do play them), but I use basic three note shapes, some four note shapes, and the usual CAGED barre chords. Whenever I transcribe a line I like - in fact, whenever I transcribe anything - I do my best to relate it to a chord form I know and use, thereby making the line easy to remember and easy to reuse in almost any key. I play entire Charlie Christian solos only out of chord shapes, I can literally see the shape as I'm playing. In fact, much of the time I can hold the chord down and still play the notes, and if I slide into the chord (maybe to get the approach notes, or the passing notes) it's a remarkably nice full sound that still sounds like a solo but is full enough for a duo, or even solo guitar.

My plan is to progress beyond this approach - but it certainly gets me through my eight, twelve or sixteen bars!

Derek

[mr. beaumont]

Derek, i think what you're finding here is this approach, done well, can not only get you through the next 12-16 bars, it just might get you through the next 12-16 years.

[princeplanet]

I organize everything around CAGED, but rather than play off chord shapes, I feel that I'm playing around them. I associate a number of well rehearsed devices with each chord shape in each of the 5 positions. So If I'm taking an F9 chord, for reference I'll think of the 4 drop 2 inversions + the "fill in" drop 3 shape to make up the 5th shape. Each "shape" then corresponds to a number of devices I can play in the same position, using all the available notes in that position, above and below the actual notes in the chord shape.

Consequently, the associated devices don't always resemble the actual drop 2 shape because I'm often playing around the chord using extensions and chromatic passing/embellishing notes. For me the aim was to be able to think of the chord shape to find my bearings anywhere on the neck for a particular chord, and play from the associated devices, without playing the chord. So following a chord chart I could "etude" my way through a number of devices where I associate said devices to the chord shape as easily as paying the chord itself. In other words - think chord in position X and then play any number of a dozen devices in an instant in that position.

Is this what some of you guys mean when you say you play "off" the chord shapes? Or do you literally mean playing ideas that including the chord tones in the actual "shape" of a particular voicing?

[ragman1]

Your middle paragraph. Either the chord itself or a substitute chord. But not necessarily exclusively in a whole solo. There's more to life than 'chords' :-)

[charlieparker]

I organize everything around CAGED, but rather than play off chord shapes, I feel that I'm playing around them. I associate a number of well rehearsed devices with each chord shape in each of the 5 positions. So If I'm taking an F9 chord, for reference I'll think of the 4 drop 2 inversions + the "fill in" drop 3 shape to make up the 5th shape. Each "shape" then corresponds to a number of devices I can play in the same position, using all the available notes in that position, above and below the actual notes in the chord shape.

Consequently, the associated devices don't always resemble the actual drop 2 shape because I'm often playing around the chord using extensions and chromatic passing/embellishing notes. For me the aim was to be able to think of the chord shape to find my bearings anywhere on the neck for a particular chord, and play from the associated devices, without playing the chord. So following a chord chart I could "etude" my way through a number of devices where I associate said devices to the chord shape as easily as paying the chord itself. In other words - think chord in position X and then play any number of a dozen devices in an instant in that position.

Is this what some of you guys mean when you say you play "off" the chord shapes? Or do you literally mean playing ideas that including the chord tones in the actual "shape" of a particular voicing?

I'm thinking a bit of both. Ultimately it will be like what you describe but I do want to experiment with primarily playing the notes in the chord voicings.

If you watch the Tim Miller posted earlier in the thread he does exactly this. He literally plays arpeggios through chord grips and it sounds amazing. He will take like three different voicings for C7 possibly alterations and string them together. It isn't an arpeggio in the traditional sense because there are gaps introduced by the particular voicing.

[Mick-7]

If you watch the Tim Miller posted earlier in the thread he does exactly this. He literally plays arpeggios through chord grips and it sounds amazing. He will take like three different voicings for C7 possibly alterations and string them together. It isn't an arpeggio in the traditional sense because there are gaps introduced by the particular voicing.

It's nothing new though, it's still the arpeggio/chord tone approach to improvisation (versus a more scale based approach). Arpeggios can and should be broken up and combined in a myriad of ways.

[MarkRhodes]

Happy Thanksgiving!
I thought I'd make a short video about Herb's shape system and give one example. As it turned out, I did 3 examples, one each from three different books (Swing Blues, Rhythm Shapes, and All the Shapes You Are.) And it took 7 minutes.

Herb names the shapes by number but encourages students to use whatever names suit them best.
He never mentions the term CAGED but a few of his shapes can be linked to the CAGED system.

As for the three examples I play here (-from memory, not from looking at the books) are as follows:

Example 1: Fm (the first example played) is from page 12 of "All the Shapes You Are." Herb calls it a vamp. (Emily Remler did the same thing; students of hers might remember her "That's my Eb Minor" from one of her instructional videos.) In Herb's system, this would be shape 7 (though for most of us, it's a minor chord with the root on the A string)

Example 2: F, this is from pages 10-11 of Swing Blues. It is 7 measures long. Herb calls this Shape 3, though students of CAGED may call it C or D (-the two overlap)

Example 3: Bb, this is from page 13 of Rhythm Shapes. This is an 8-bar phrase meant to play over an A section of Rhythm Changes. Herb calls this Shape 2. Students of CAGED might call it the E shape.

NB: if one uses the "fretboard roadmap" of Fred Sokolow, this would be the F shape (because it looks like the F chord we all learned when we started out.) Sokolow's other two major shapes are A (-which some old timers called "long A" because it's like the G in the CAGED system. The third shape would be D. It's interesting how those three triads occur along the neck. I prefer this 'system' to CAGED but that's not a hill I would die on.

Again, Herb gives the shapes he used but had no preference for what students called them. "Whatever works for you."

[charlieparker]

It's nothing new though, it's still the arpeggio/chord tone approach to improvisation (versus a more scale based approach). Arpeggios can and should be broken up and combined in a myriad of ways.

To me it is different than that general approach in that it offers a specific way to construct these arpeggios, i.e., just using the notes in a specific voicing and playing them.

That's a lot more constrained than saying here are all the notes in a within these five frets that belong to C7.

The advantage as has been stated several times in this thread is if you know how yo play a C7 chord you already have the notes on the fingerboard to use.

Iny opinion, it's a less is more type of approach. It may not be the ultimate destination but it's a simple thing to start with.

[pauln]

I dropped the drop..the term inversion I can grasp and see and hear the chord
to me it HAS to make sense ..When I first looked at this stuff..my question was ..."2 of what?" I could not get the concept using that title.

Hey, you are not alone about that. Drop chords are piano lingo that numbers the chord notes arbitrarily, from the top down, as proxies for the fingers numbered inverted... so it violates three conventions on the piano; no wonder thinking of them on guitar is confounding. The drop chord lingo comes from fingerings specifically intended to help pianists convert lead sheets into something that begins to sound like jazz. Understanding how they are done on the piano may make clear what they are and why they may seem a bit foreign on guitar.

The lead sheet has a treble clef that indicates the notes of the melody line with chord symbols above the clef. To play this the pianist learns to form chords like this (as steps, but they learn to do it as one move)...

- read the melody note
- read the chord symbol
- right hand forms the chord from the top down, melody note as top note
- drop 2 refers to the second note of the chord counting down from the top
- drop (lift finger, don't play) that second chord note from the top
- left hand thumb plays that dropped note an octave below, now the bottom of the chord

This does a few things...

- it leaves a gap or offset between the chord and the melody note above it
- it leaves a spare finger adjacent to the melody note for playing the melody line
- it produces inversion of the chord, depending on melody note, number of chord notes

Getting good at it, the pianist will form the fingering as one step, choosing which drop number based on the shape of the melody line (for best fingering), and adding some notes under the left hand thumb. The development of understanding and personal technique eventually displace the mechanics, but while that is coming, the result does help to sound more like jazz.

[ragman1]

I thought I'd post an example of chord-based improv. I'm not showing off, it's not that great, but the object is to demonstrate how breaking a complex progression down to simple chords makes what could be a difficult task much, much easier.

I picked a tune I haven't done for a long time although I've done it on stage many a time. And it's quite easy to remember. It's Nuages and the progression is:

Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7/Am7 Bbo - Bm7
Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7 - G6

B7/F#m7b5 - B7/B7b9 - Em/Eb+ - G/C#m7b5
A13/Ab13 - A13 - D7/Am7 - D7/D7+

Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7 - G6
Ab7 - Dm7b5/G7b9 - CM7/Dm7 D#o - Em7/G7+

Cm/Eb+ - Eb/Am7b5 - GM7/Am7 Bbo - Bm7
Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - G6/Cm6 - G6

Pretty fearsome. But you can break down the various chordal 'zones' and keep it simple. For example, Bbm7/Eb9 is just Bbm and Am7b5/D7b9 is just Cm (Am7b5 is a Cm6 in disguise).

The minors are all played as melodic minors over the shape, emphasising the m6 note. The minors like Em and Cm that have the run-down cliche are just played as the minor; the background does the work. The only other scale is D wholetone over the D7+.

Occasionally I do use a dom7 sound because it needs that strong sound at that point. The only 'lick' I put in is right at the end because I remembered it from when I used to do it. Instead of playing D7 -G I used a B7 arp because it suits the tune and finishes it nicely. It suits Nuages but doesn't work very well with standards and ballads.

There are two choruses using exactly the same shapes only done at different places on the guitar. You can spin out much soloing that way, just by shifting positions. And it's all take 1, incidentally.

These are the shapes/chords I was using. All the necessary notes are right there.

Bbm - Cm - GM7 - %
Bbm - Ebm (D alt) - GM7 - %
B7 - Cm (B alt) - Em - %
A7/Ab7 - Em - Am - D7 w/tone

Bbm - Cm - GM7 - %
Ebm - Fm (G7b9 sound) - CM7 - % (plus a bit of Bm for a lydian sound)
Cm - % - GM7 - %
Bbm - Ebm (last time B7) - G6 - %

I know it's tedious to write out but it's not hard to play and it tends to stick in the mind. Well, hopefully :-)

[charlieparker]

I thought I'd post an example of chord-based improv. I'm not showing off, it's not that great, but the object is to demonstrate how breaking a complex progression down to simple chords makes what could be a difficult task much, much easier.

I picked a tune I haven't done for a long time although I've done it on stage many a time. And it's quite easy to remember. It's Nuages and the progression is:

Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7/Am7 Bbo - Bm7
Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7 - G6

B7/F#m7b5 - B7/B7b9 - Em/Eb+ - G/C#m7b5
A13/Ab13 - A13 - D7/Am7 - D7/D7+

Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - GM7 - G6
Ab7 - Dm7b5/G7b9 - CM7/Dm7 D#o - Em7/G7+

Cm/Eb+ - Eb/Am7b5 - GM7/Am7 Bbo - Bm7
Bbm7/Eb9 - Am7b5/D7b9 - G6/Cm6 - G6

Pretty fearsome. But you can break down the various chordal 'zones' and keep it simple. For example, Bbm7/Eb9 is just Bbm and Am7b5/D7b9 is just Cm (Am7b5 is a Cm6 in disguise).

The minors are all played as melodic minors over the shape, emphasising the m6 note. The minors like Em and Cm that have the run-down cliche are just played as the minor; the background does the work. The only other scale is D wholetone over the D7+.

Occasionally I do use a dom7 sound because it needs that strong sound at that point. The only 'lick' I put in is right at the end because I remembered it from when I used to do it. Instead of playing D7 -G I used a B7 arp because it suits the tune and finishes it nicely. It suits Nuages but doesn't work very well with standards and ballads.

There are two choruses using exactly the same shapes only done at different places on the guitar. You can spin out much soloing that way, just by shifting positions. And it's all take 1, incidentally.

These are the shapes/chords I was using. All the necessary notes are right there.

Bbm - Cm - GM7 - %
Bbm - Ebm (D alt) - GM7 - %
B7 - Cm (B alt) - Em - %
A7/Ab7 - Em - Am - D7 w/tone

Bbm - Cm - GM7 - %
Ebm - Fm (G7b9 sound) - CM7 - % (plus a bit of Bm for a lydian sound)
Cm - % - GM7 - %
Bbm - Ebm (last time B7) - G6 - %

I know it's tedious to write out but it's not hard to play and it tends to stick in the mind. Well, hopefully :-)

Sounded good. To be more specific which Bbm chord were you using as the shape you were soloing over? Was it one with Bb root on the 6th string or basically where the first finger is at the 6th fret.

[ragman1]

which Bbm chord were you using as the shape you were soloing over? Was it one with Bb root on the 6th string or basically where the first finger is at the 6th fret.

Solo 1:

xxx321 ---- bars 1 and 4
xx8666 ---- bars 16 and 29

Solo 2:

xxx321 ---- bars 1, 4 and 16

Fingerings were just where the fingers fall naturally on the shape, no gymnastics involved. This shape xxx321 also spells the fingers used to play it: third, second, first.

There's another Bbm shape I could have used but didn't: xxx10.11.9. Usually the fingers would be second, third, first.

But don't forget I'm playing round the shapes, not just arpeggiating them. So the fingering is just what comes naturally. It's really not difficult.

[ragman1]

Incidentally, if you think this is my special method all to myself (!) it's not, it's commonly used. There are bebop lessons on this very site by Dirk. Here's an excerpt from one. You can see that he's put in what he's using in blue.

It's just the same thing except that his are more detailed than mine. His lines are a lot smarter too :-)

[charlieparker]

Incidentally, if you think this is my special method all to myself (!) it's not, it's commonly used. There are bebop lessons on this very site by Dirk. Here's an excerpt from one. You can see that he's put in what he's using in blue.

It's just the same thing except that his are more detailed than mine. His lines are a lot smarter too :-)

Thanks Ragman. Which lesson is that you referenced, BTW? Love how it is mostly chord arpeggios.

[ragman1]

Love how it is mostly chord arpeggios.

Is it? Look more closely. Arpeggios are easy.

[Skip Ellis]

I seem to recall Herb Ellis saying in one of his videos that he thought of chord shapes when soloing.

[ragman1]

He did a whole tutor about soloing with chord shapes plus an audio cassette with him talking and playing (complete with heavy breathing). I used to have it.

It wasn't just chord shapes, it was the shape plus the arpeggio plus the scale. Then he'd play some lines with it.

I don't know if they've republished it as it was. There is one called 'All The Shapes You Are' but I don't know if that's the same content.

[wolflen]

Brilliant video. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

CP..melodic patterns are basically chord arps that can great effect in creating solo lines

In the Miller vid he is using CM7 first inversion so the pattern in C diatonic is 3 7 1 5 ..E B C G

now go to the third degree of the scale Emi7 first inversion..and play that pattern 3 7 1 5 G D E B (10th fret its also G6)

continue the rest of the scale chords in first inversion you may have to use different string sets to get some of the chords..but thats a good thing!

I use every other scale degree it has a more melodic feel and it cycles all the chords I iii V vii ii IV vi I

If you really get this under you fingers it will open up a vast array of melodic ideas

[Tal_175]

I think Jimmy Wyble's the Art of Two Line Improvisation is also built around chord shapes. In this case the improvisation is in the solo guitar context which involves breaking the chords apart into two voices.

Here is a video of Sid Jacob demonstrating the concept:

[Tal_175]

I first learned a bunch of scales mostly devoid of their relationship to any chord grips.

But lately I have wanted to move towards an approach where chord grips are the primary source material for improvisation.

By that I mean, one approach to solo is to just play some of the notes in a chord grip maybe with a few additional notes connecting them.

Maybe I am wrong, but it feels like what Charlie Christian does isn't too far from this. I think Pass and Herb Ellis' Shape System are not to far off from this.

The problem I am trying to solve is that I right now have scale shapes and chord shapes and they aren't connected that well and I want chord shapes to be the primary source material.

I wonder if others think this is a fruitful approach.

I am under the impression that this approach applies to all instruments. So maybe we can generalize this notion as using chord visualization as a reference for melody. On the piano, it's obvious. You can play inside the voicings that you like. I think horn players also have a way of visualizing their chord arpeggios. Obviously, the mind doesn't have to literally look at something to process visual information. It's more like your mind's eye.

On guitar, chord visualization can go beyond chord shapes. It's really any sort of visual reference that allows you to see the melodic options in the context of a chord anywhere on the instrument.

In fact, is it possible to improvise in the jazz style without at least in part relying on some sort of chord by chord visual references?

[pamosmusic]

In fact, is it possible to improvise in the jazz style without at least in part relying on some sort of chord by chord visual references?

I don’t know. I’m sure it depends on how loosely you define this, but horn players generally think I’m a little nuts when I talk like this.

Maybe they have some kind of visual reference, but I don’t think they conceive of it that way. And they definitely think in a more linear way.

[Mick-7]

On guitar, chord visualization can go beyond chord shapes. It's really any sort of visual reference that allows you to see the melodic options in the context of a chord anywhere on the instrument.

That is pretty much the point of this -- Slonimsky Curiosities

Maybe they (i.e., horn players) have some kind of visual reference, but I don’t think they conceive of it that way.

Surely many horn players are familiar with the practice of playing chords over chords a la John Coltrane?

[pamosmusic]

Surely many horn players are familiar with the practice of playing chords over chords a la John Coltrane?

Sure but I’m not sure they’re “visualizing” anything