Tag Archives: How to solo over changes

3 ways to Solo over Chord Changes – Important Jazz Strategies

You want to Solo over Chord Changes and still play melodies that makes sense. This can be extremely difficult in the beginning. Most of us quickly realize that it is not just about hitting the right notes, it is also about the melodies that we make with those notes.

In this video I am going to go over some different strategies for making melodies over chord changes that I think you should work on and get into your playing. They will help you be much more free when you are soloing and also give you ways to practice playing over chord changes and still sound play a melodic solo.

Solo Over Chord Changes

Table of Contents

0:00 Intro – Solo Over Chord Changes

0:09 Playing Over Chords and sounding Melodic

0:29 The Three Strategies

1:20 #1 Transposing Motifs – What it is, What it helps you do

2:05 The Cliché example of this

2:28 How It Is Used In Compositions

3:00 What Transposing Motifs does not do

3:26 #2 Target Notes – How It Works and adds Forward Motion

3:54 Choosing Target Notes

4:13 Example of Line Using Target Notes

4:48 Another Set of Target Notes for the dominant

5:24 Pros and Cons of Target Notes

6:06 #3 Melodic Voice-Leading

6:51 A Basic example on a II V I

7:41 How To Practice and Use Melodic Voice-Leading

8:41 Two Examples of how it can work in a II V I line

9:33 All Three Techniques Are Useful

9:55 Like The Video? Check out My Patreon Page!

Get a free E-book

If you want to download a Free E-book of 15 II Valt I licks then subscribe to my newsletter:

Sign up for my newsletter – Get the II V I Ebook

Get the PDF!

The PDF with examples for this video is available through Patreon. You can check out my Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen

Jazz Guitar Insiders Facebook Group

Join 1500+ Other Jazz Guitarists 🎸Join us in the Facebook Jazz Guitar Group Community: http://bit.ly/InsidersFBGroup

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts, and releases.

How To Solo Over Fast Moving Chord Changes – Jazz Guitar

It is difficult to Solo Over Chord Changes, and especially if you are also playing a song with a lot of chord changes and a high tempo.

In this video I am going to discuss 4 things to keep in mind and how to practice so that you get better at improvising over chord changes. These are all important things that you need if you want to know how to solo over chord changes and play more difficult songs like Rhythm Changes, Giant Steps, Very Early etc.

Table Of Contents

0:00 Intro – Improvising over Fast Chord Changes

0:42 Splitting it up into smaller goals or topics

1:15 #1 – Technique

1:48 The Double Time Mistake

2:09 Practice Technique towards playing fast

3:02 #2 Know The Song Extremely Well

3:43 Checking if you do and working out the problems

3:56 #3 The Right Way To Practice

4:20 The right Tempo and the right type of playing

5:19 #4 Think Ahead

5:49 A Solid Method to work with this: Target Notes

6:21 Other Approaches to Train Thinking Ahead

7:09 Want to learn Giant Steps?

7:17 Like The Video? Check out my Patreon Page

Get a free E-book

If you want to download a Free E-book of 15 II Valt I licks then subscribe to my newsletter:

Sign up for my newsletter – Get the II V I Ebook

Get the PDF!

The PDF with examples for this video is available through Patreon. You can check out my Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen

Jazz Guitar Insiders Facebook Group

Join 1500+ Other Jazz Guitarists 🎸Join us in the Facebook Jazz Guitar Group Community: http://bit.ly/InsidersFBGroup

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts, and releases.

Best Exercise for Difficult Chord Progressions – Never ending Scale Exercise

We want to be free when we improvise over difficult chord progressions. This Flexible Scale exercise is a great way to start working on having an overview of the fretboard and the scales you need for difficult chord progresssions like Giant Steps, Moments Notice and Very Early.

The exercise helps you learn to think ahead, know where you are in the bar and play towards target notes. The goal is that your melodic idea is stronger than the movement of the chord progression.

List of content:

0:00 Intro — The Exercise for difficult progressions 

0:39 The Chord Progression for this lesson and where this works well 

1:05 The Turnaround: Cmaj7 A7alt Dm7 G7alt 

1:21 The Goals of doing this exercise 

 

1:42 The Scale exercise 

2:05 Demonstration: 1 chord per bar — scales in position 

2:20 Keep it open: Positions and different starting notes 

2:49 Demonstration: 1 chord per bar starting on the 5th — scales in position 

3:10 Positions vs Entire fretboard 

3:20 Demonstration: 1 chord per bar — Scales Entire Fretboard 

3:34 Don’t play too fast — stay ahead of what you are playing. 

 

3:55 The next level: Structures like arpeggios and triads through the scale 

4:21 Why it is still just a scale exercise and not a solo 

5:01 Demonstration: Diatonic Arpeggios in position 

5:29 Also on the entire fretboad 

5:38 Demonstration: Diatonic Spread Triads — Entire Fretboard 

5:57 The weird Loop in this example 

6:28 Why this turnaround is a good place to start 

6:44 Increase the tempo of the harmony: Two chords per bar 

6:59 Demonstration: 2 chords per bar — scales in position 

7:18 Avoiding the loop 

 

8:27 Exercises should be close to the songs/music we work on 

8:57 Do you have great exercises like this geared towards playing over a progression 

9:23 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page