Part 2: All Blues tips and tricks

[ragman1]

This is a follow-up from the first thread.

Same format, different ideas. Hope you get it, or at least some of it. It's not that difficult.

1) G7: blues. C7: go underneath the chord tones of the Gm. I played G A-Bb C#-D F#-G etc. Sounds lovely, very effective. D7/Eb7: Rather than go F - F# -F as in the first thread, go F - F# - Ab - (G). It works.

2) G7: blues. C7: Gm blues, F mel m (F G Ab Bb D C). D7/Eb7: Dm and Ebm on the 5th/6th fret.

3) G7: blues. C7: use the Bb wholetone how you like. It's quite interesting, there are only two 'out' notes in it, the rest conform to the C7: Bb C D E F# (tritone) Ab (b13). D7/Eb7: C mel m, Eb mel m (6th fret).

4) G7: blues. C7: double-stops using fourths from the 8th fret: GC, FBb, DG, CF. G7: Continue with fourths over the G7: BE, AD. This is a variation of an old blues trick over dominant chords, to play the 6th and the 9th shapes.

5) G7: blues. G7alt (Ab mel m). C7: normal C7 line. D7/Eb7: Dm6 lick (5th fret), same lick Fm6 (8th fret).

6) G7: blues and alt. C7: descending chord tones on Gm and use a A/F#/C/Eb dim arpeggio to resolve to the G. It just about works! D7/Eb7: Dm and Ebm, nothing special, back to Gm blues pent over G7.

[kris]

[Aiq]

Here are some examples of the three soloists from the recording.

All Blues - Improvising Techniques from Miles & Coltrane • Jazzadvice

I happily use these kinds of materials as:

I am elderly (74 this year) and time is of the essence.
I will kick them round and submerge them in the subconscious.
I will never remember it verbatim anyway and some convoluted mutation will emerge and I will call that improvisation of a sort.

[Bob_Ross]

go underneath the chord tones of the Gm. I played G A-Bb C#-D F#-G etc. Sounds lovely, very effective.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "underneath"?

[ragman1]

Sure. Say you're on the C7 (or C9) of a G blues progression. You'd be playing over a Gm7 shape, which is what blues players do. You might play a line like:

| G A Bb C D E F G | A etc

But let's say you played a half-tone beneath the chord tones it would come out like this:

| - G A Bb C# D F# G | A etc

So, visually and actually, you'd be playing from 'under' the Gm7 shape. It sounds very nice and you can hear me doing it at 0.12 on the clip in the OP.

Hope that makes sense!

[pauln]

Here are some examples of the three soloists from the recording.

All Blues - Improvising Techniques from Miles & Coltrane • Jazzadvice

I happily use these kinds of materials as:

I am elderly (74 this year) and time is of the essence.
I will kick them round and submerge them in the subconscious.
I will never remember it verbatim anyway and some convoluted mutation will emerge and I will call that improvisation of a sort.

My soloing is based on the harmonies, so I get to know the tune through that first. Sometimes it helps to find little connections that express the tune. Examining the connections often reveals all kinds of nice things that will be meaningful to me when improvising.

When I was exploring ideas for All Blues I found I liked this chord:

x8998x as the G chord.
Could call it a G6/F
or G6th over F
but some just call it a 13th
I've seen G13/F
and G/F 13th

With some experimentation I found the 3rd 4th and 5th strings could be moved through a kind of harmonization of the tune's long G chord:

x000xx
x233xx
x455xx
x555xx
x777xx
x899xx
x101010xx
x121212xx
x131414xx
x151616xx
x171717xx

Two shapes or pattern fingerings do all that, and playing chord series, e.g., from x899xx through to x131414xx and back again during the long G chord sounds nice; and you might notice that the switching of the fingering patterns is allowing so that the three strings are each playing a different scale(!)

3rd string is playing C major / A minor
4th string is playing G major / E minor
5th string is playing F major / D minor

For the C chord, shift down to x787xx is cool, then back up to x899xx for that G.

The tricky two bars is the easiest using parallel movement:

x91010xx | x101111xx - x91010xx | back to x899xx

Departure from that depends on the sound you want:

x9101011x | x10101011x - x9101011x | x8998x
sounds modern because of the stacked fourths chord

or

x9101011x | x10111111x - x9101011x | x89910x
sounds very Milesish to me

[Bob_Ross]

But let's say you played a half-tone beneath the chord tones it would come out like this:

| - G A Bb C# D F# G | A etc

So, visually and actually, you'd be playing from 'under' the Gm7 shape. It sounds very nice and you can hear me doing it at 0.12 on the clip in the OP.

Hope that makes sense!

Uh... no, it doesn't.

Only some of those notes are "a half-tone beneath the chord tones"
...and which chord tones are you talking about? The G minor 7 (I), or the C7 (IV)? In neither case are all those notes "under" the Gm7 shape.

I'm not following.

[ragman1]

Well, it's like salt and pepper, or chilli sauce, or ketchup. You apply it as required according to taste. On the appropriate food, of course.

[pauln]

Looks like he is showing this chord G Bb D G,
excluding the root being called a chord tone
adding half tones below proper chord tones?



G (A)<Bb (C#)<D (F#)<G

[alltunes]

G7: C major scale
Gm: F major scale
D7#9/Eb#9: whatever you want

[Bob_Ross]

Looks like he is showing this chord G Bb D G,
excluding the root being called a chord tone
adding half tones below proper chord tones?

G (A)<Bb (C#)<D (F#)<G

Ah, okay, that makes sense.
Not sure I would use the word "underneath" to describe that approach though; "beneath" or "below" seem to be much more common terms in music.