If you play Jazz then you need to know how to solo over jazz chords!
In this video, I am going to talk about how just assigning a scale to a chord is not really helping you play a better solo, but another approach which will make your solos sound a lot better.
There are many ways to think about a chord progression or a piece of music, but some of the common ways we break down harmony are really not helping if you want to learn how to solo over chord changes or Jazz Standards.
Locked in Thinking Scales
I have often come across students who spend a lot of time thinking about what scale goes where. This is also often what you will find phone apps say that they can figure out or in old Aebersold books.
Obviously it is nice to have a pool of notes to use when you are soloing and a scale is a practical thing that we can play.
And if you have to think about what scale you are playing you will not sound very good.
At the same time, 7 notes don’t really tell you a lot about how it sounds, you are not going to start all your lines on the root so it is far from a complete picture.
A lot of pieces have the same 7 notes happening all the time, but they don’t sound the same (think of 4 bars of Autumn Leaves). It is also difficult to know what to play out of those 7 notes that work well over the chord. There is more to it that will make it easier to play a good solo line.
Know the chords and How the Harmony moves
First, let’s look at what you need to know and a simple way to use that before I will get into some very useful soloing concepts. So this is what you need to know and then I’ll talk about a few ways to use it.
If you know the chords and the notes in the chords you can also see how each note in the chord moves from one chord to the next, but that is only possible if you really have a good overview of it and can voice-lead from one chord to the next.
You can figure out the Target notes that you want to emphasize in your solo since they are mostly chord tones and often you can look at notes that are not in the previous chord. ‘
This already helps you play something that connects with the chords and is clearly following the harmony.
Voice-leading for melodies and solos!
In the video, I also demonstrate how Voice-leading phrases is a great way to generate lines and something you want to have in your system.
This becomes a tool to really tie together different phrases and make youse solo a more complete musical whole.
Content:
0:00 Intro
0:37 Locked in Thinking Scales
0:52 Music is not just a Group of Notes
1:18 Autumn Leaves Example
2:10 Know the chords and how the harmony moves
2:26 Getting the Overview – Understanding a Chord Progression
3:03 I Remember You Example
3:30 Not just what the notes are but also how the voices move
4:38 Using Voice-leading in Comping and Soloing
4:53 Target Notes 3 examples
6:12 Voice-leading As A Melodic Tool
6:30 Moving Motifs with the harmony
7:29 One way to Practice this
7:53 Going through the progression
8:40 Example – Solo Using the Simple Exercise
9:09 Analyzing the Solo on the song – 3 ways of using voice-leading in a solo
10:44 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page!
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