Tag Archives: Minor BLues

Minor Blues – 5 Important Sounds To Know and How to Use Them

In this video I am going to show you some longer melodic ideas or licks with arpeggios and using different minor sounds on a Cm blues. It’s going to show you how to really get these sounds across and also how to create some great licks with the diatonic arpeggios also some of the other great arpeggios available like Quartal Harmony and Shell voicings. You can of course also use these ideas in a modal situation on a minor chord because the minor blues really is in between the modal and the functional harmony.

I am going to cover some of the more common scale sounds and also that are a little less common or even outside, and the nature of the arpeggios also demonstrates some odd note grouping ideas.

In this Lesson:

  • Minor scale options on a Minor Blues (Inside and Outside)
  • Arpeggio Based Licks or Melodic ideas
  • Material for Modal and Minor Blues progressions
  • How to make melodies with Diatonic Arpeggios

#1 Melodic Minor – Cascading Arpeggios or a Single Triad?

The first phrase is using the most common tonic minor sound in jazz: Melodic minor. The lick can be interpreted in several ways. The first one would be to see it as a row of 3 descending arpeggios: Ebmaj7(#5), B7(#5) and G7(#5). Notice how it contains two arpeggios that are not strictly diatonic arpeggios in the melodic minor scale.

In the video I demonstrate how I play the arpeggios in more detail, but that is easier to actually check out in the video as it shows my hands with the explanation.

The other way to analyze the likc is to look at as being variations of melodies created with an augmented triad and then on each string I add one note, so D on the 1st string, A on the 2nd and F on the 3rd string.

#2 Dorian Shell Voicings

The other very common minor sound that you want to be familiar with is Dorian. Dorian is a mode more than an actual key, but is used very often on minor chords, and also tonic minor chords.

This lick is using Shell-voicing arpeggios, 3-note arpeggios that contain the root, 3rd and 7th of a chord.

The first part is an enclosure targetting the 3rd of Cm: Eb. From there the line continues with shell voicing arpeggios for Ebmaj7, Gm7 and Bbmaj7.

The final Bbmaj7 shell voicing really helps bring out the 13(A) on the Cm7 which is the defining color of Dorian: Cm(13), a chord with both a b7 and a 13.

#3 Harmonic Minor Triads

The Harmonic minor sound is less common than the previous two, but is a very nice sound to have in your vocabulary.

In this case I am using the Harmonic minor sound (defined by a b6 and a maj7 on the C minor) to create alternating Cm and Bdim triads. I start with a Bdim and then move up a few inversions to end with a scale run down to the 9th(D) of Cm.

#4 Dorian Quartal Harmony

A great sound to explore on minor chords is Quartal Harmony. In this case I am using a Dorian sound and working with some 3 part Quartal Arpeggios. The first part of the line is a fairly straight forward Cm7 line that is followed by three quartal arpeggios from G, A and Bb. The final one ending on the 13th(A) of C.

#5 Diminished Quartal Groupings

A more exotic scale that you can use on a minor chord is the diminished scale. It doesn’t actually fit the chord since it doesn’t have a 5th, but is a nice effect on top of an extended minor section.

The construction is that we split the 5th(G).

C melodic minor: C D Eb F G A B C

now if we “split” the G into Gb and Ab we have:

C diminished: C D Eb F Gb Ab A B C

This is also shown below:

The lick uses the quartal arpeggios found in the diminished scale. The first one is from A: A Eb Ab. The pattern I play the quartal arpeggio in is adding a Gb as well and creates a 5 note pattern. This is shifted up and repeated on the next quartal arpeggio: C GbB. Finally the line ends on the quartal arpeggio Eb A D which also takes it back into the Cm melodic sound as it is found in Cm melodic as well.

This is a very smooth way of transitioning of shifting back into a more normal tonic minor sound.

Next Level Minor Blues

Take your Minor Blues skills to a higher level. If you want to really build a solid foundation and explore some more options on a minor blues then check out this lesson in my WebStore.

Groovy Minor Blues – 7 Chorus Etude

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Minor Blues – 5 Arpeggio LicksDownload

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Minor Blues Comping – How To Use Drop2 Chords

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The Minor Blues is a great vehicle for improvisation and a very common chord progression that you want to be able to comp and solo on. In this lesson I am going to show you two different sounds that you can use in minor blues comping. One of the great things about minor is that the options we have several options when it comes to the extensions or sounds available on the blues.

The easiest way to think about this is probably to link the chords to scales and use that to describe the sound of the chords. This way of thinking also opens up what you can use and gives you more options when it comes to using different extensions on the chords.

The Different Comping Sounds


The easiest way to think about this is probably to link the chords to scales and use that to describe the sound of the chords. This way of thinking also opens up what you can use and gives you more options when it comes to using different extensions on the chords. 

Therefore this lesson has three main parts. Two on different sounds, Melodic Minor and Dorian, and one final example which is more open and as concerned with rhythms as it is with the voicings.

Minor Blues Drop2 voicings

The voicings I use for this video are all drop2 voicings and all on the top string set. Drop2 voicings are very practical for playing chords with extensions, both on guitar and piano. I won’t cover the basic Drop2 voicing stuff in this video, but if you want to check it out then maybe have a look at the Jazz Chords Study Guide

Melodic Minor – Rich Jazz Minor!

The best place to start when it comes to Minor sounds is the Melodic Minor scale. Melodic minor is the go to tonic minor sound for Jazz. Dorian, the other topic in this lesson, was added later after the introduction of Modal Jazz. If you check out the original Coltrane solo on Mr PC you will find that it is mostly Melodic minor on the tonic chord.

The first example is using Cm6 and Fm6 for the I and IV chord in the Blues. These are both the most stable versions of chords from the melodic minor scale. The m6 chord is a little more stable than the mMaj7 chord.

Example 1 is a very basic way to play the Blues Chorus, but if you want to expand on your options then it is a good idea to harmonize all the notes of the melodic minor scale with the chords that you need.

Below is the C minor melodic scale harmonized with Cm chords.

And you can do the same exercise with the Fm6 chords:

The Dominant Chords

In the form I also have 3 dominant chords. A C7alt to pull towards the Fm6 in bar 5, and the final cadence with Ab7 and G7alt.

These are all played using the melodic minor scale, so C7alt and G7alt are both altered dominants using Dbm and Abm melodic respectively.

C7 altered:

G7 altered:

The Ab7 is a Lydian dominant so that uses Ebm melodic:

Dorian Sound – Modal Minor Blues

The Dorian sound only differs one note from the Melodic minor sound: It has a b7 instead of a maj7. But the sound of the chords changes quite drastically because of this.

Below is an example of one chorus of Drop2 voicings using Cm7(9,11) and Fm7(9,11) on the I and IV chords. The dominants are the same as in the previous example so they are still using material coming out of the melodic minor scales Lydian b7 and Altered sounds.

Dorian Scale Harmonizations

Similar to the exercises with the melodic minor scales it is also possible to harmonize the Dorian scales with the chords. Here is how this is done with the Cm7 chord

Chord Extensions

With the Dorian scale there are still quite a few ways to color the chords that are used. Here are some of the options you can create from a basic Cm7 voicing.

The basic rules:

  1. The Root can be replaced by the 9th
  2. The 5th can be replaced by an 11th or a 13th

In one example I am also replacing the root with a 13th.

Minor Blues Comping Example

In the previous part of the lesson I was focused on how to find some simple clear solutions with a very basic set of chords. The transcription below is demonstrating how you can put some of this to use adding some more interesting rhythms and tying it all together with top note melodies.

More Drop 2 voicings in Action!

Of course if you want to dig a little deeper into using Drop2 Chords in comping then check out this lesson on using Drop2 voicings and adding Chromatic Passing Chords:

Drop 2 & Chromatic Passing Chords – Take The A-Train

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Don’t sound the same all the time – Minor chords

It’s important to not get stuck in one sound on a chord. If you can play something with a different sound each time that chord comes along. You keep surprising the listener. In this video I am going to go over three different sounds on a minor chord, so scales and sounds. This works really well on a tonic minor chord as in a minor blues, or summertime or invitation.

In the video I am going to go over 3 different approaches to a tonic minor chord. For each one I will demonstrate a comping and a soloing example for each sound. I will try to not talk about the different notes in the sound but also a bit about phrasing and devices that are commonly associated with this sound. This is often just as or more important than the notes.

Melodic Minor

The Melodic minor sound is really the meat and potatoes sound of tonic minor since bebop. It is a very nice strong sounding scale that actually doesn’t really have any avoid notes.

The character notes of the scale is the major 6th and major 7th.

To get this sound across we can make good use of m6 and mMaj7 chords like this:

And the line that I wrote to illustrate this sound is this:

The melodic minor sound is such a huge part of the “modern jazz sound” that we can easily use some of the melodic devices associated with that. In the line above it is first a DmMaj9 arpeggio followed by a line constructed by individual upper structure triads: G, Faug and Em. The line ends on the 9th of the chord to keep a more open ended sound. Notice the use of larger intervals in the triads.

Dorian

Dorian is probably the most commonly used on a minor chord since Miles Davis Kind of Blue in the 50’s. It is since then also included in compositions like Joe Hendersons Recorda Me or Wes Montgomery’s Four on Six.

The Dorian scale is of course the 2nd mode of a major scale so D dorian is the same note material as a C major scale.

Since all of the examples are D minor they are pretty much the same except for the 6th and 7th of the scale. In Dorian we have the combination of a major 6th and a minor 7th. The comping example I am using the same trick that Wes uses in four on six. Playing a II V and use that as a tonic Dm sound:

In the line I am a very common device associated with more Coltrane/McCoy Tyner era modal jazz: Stacks of 4ths. Stacks of 4ths or Quartal harmony entered jazz with Kind Of Blue and became the foundation for a whole period of Coltranes music. 

The core of the Dorian sound in this case is the 6th(or13th) against the b7 on the minor chord. This note removes the line from being a II V to becoming a minor sound.

The line is constructed with first a stack of 4ths from the root D. Then it continues with a Dm triad inversion that then temporarily emphasizes the 13th(B). It then continues with a Dm7 arpeggio before it again rests on a B.

If you want to see more examples of m13 chords you can check out this lesson: The Minor Chord You Never Use

The Blues

A sound that we often use but never really think of as something separate is the Blues. The blues is of course mostly by defined by a way of phrasing and a feel defined. Which is therefore important to keep in there. For the rest we would characterise by this 6 note scale: 

Since blues is often more associated with dom7th chords in terms of harmony it is difficult to really get it across in chords if the song isn’t in a blues feel. In the comping example I chose to borrow some dorian sounds and try to phrase it in a bluesy way.

The line is in terms of notes really a simple Dm7 line with an occasional Ab as a leading note. In the blues it is clear that it is much more about phrasing and melody. The typical blues phrases emphasizes the beat and has the chord tones on the beat. The phrasing uses dynamics and is using a lot of slides or legato techniques.

Get your sounds together

I hope you can use these examples to get started using different sounds over minor chords. If you check out one of Wes’ solos on four on six you will find examples of all of the sounds. This is in fact the case for a lot of solos on minor chords.

Check out how I use it

If you want to see some examples of how I use these different sounds you can check out this lesson:

Summertime – Tonic minor options – Solo Lesson

If you want to download the examples I went over here you can find the PDF here:

Don’t sound the same all the time! – Tonic minor scales

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics or how I can make the lessons better 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.

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Minor Blues Comping

In this lesson I will go through what a minor blues is in Jazz and show some chords so that you can play through it and improvise while doing so. It is also a demonstration of how to apply the material from my lessons on Quartal harmony and Triads

The Minor Blues Progression

All the examples I am working on in this lesson are based on a minor blues in the key of C. You can see the basic progression in example 1 here:

Minor Blues Comping - ex 1

You’ll probably notice that it is very similar to the major blues progression, but that there are a few differences:  There is no IV chord in bar 2, and the ending cadence is not a IIm7b5 V (Dm7b5 G7)but uses a tritone dominant of the V (Ab7 G7). The reason for the dominant might very well be that that chord includes the blue note in the key of C (F#) and it is also a fairly normal progression in minor. In general there are fewer cadences and the structure is a little more basic. I don’t actually know why, but I think it has to do with the fact that the minor blues became popular in a period of jazz where modal playing was being explored more than playing over functional harmony and therefore players preferred to have one chord for longer periods. Of course that is just a theory..

A few voicings for each chord

In example two I run demonstrate a few voicings for each chord that are placed on the neck so that it should be fairly easy tro make melodies with them.

Minor Blues Comping - ex 2

On the Cm7 chord. I chose to use a Cm7 Dorian sound, since the modal aspect of the minor blues lends itself very well to that. You can of course also approach it from a melodic minor angel, but that will be for another lesson. The voicings I chose over the Cm7 are all quartal harmony or derived from that. If you want to check more on that you can look at this lesson: Jazz Chord Essentials: 3 part Quartal Harmony

The C7alt voicings are from the Db melodic minor scale. You might notice that I am using Stacks of 4ths, triads and drop2 voicings on it. In the end you want to mix up all the different kind of voicings that you study, this is a good example of it.

I use triads and drop2 voicings to play the Fm7. This is mostly because I want to stay in the same register and place on the neck so that it is easier to make a logical connection between the chords on the C and on the F, and the quartal voicings for F are easier to play somewhere else.

Both the Ab7(#11) and G7alt are constructed from a shell voicing with different notes above it. The Ab7 chord is a lydian dominant which you can read more about here: Lydian dominants. Basically the Ab7 is the tritone substitute of D7, and the scale that you use to take extensions from is Eb melodic minor. The G7alt is in the same way constructed by adding notes from the G altered scale (which is the same notes as Ab melodic minor)  this gives you G7 with extensions like b5, b13 and b9.

Minor Blues etude

In this last example I am playing an etude that I wrote as an example of how I might comp through a chorus on a C minor blues.

Minor Blues Comping - ex 3

The first 3 bars are essential small rhythmical motives with stacks of fourths, here the focus is more on creating rhythmical movement than melodical movement.  That’s why the chords are repeated and often not sustained. On the first Cm7 chord I added the root, something that works well as a sort of resolution, playing a heavy root or even power chord on the one of a four bar period. McCoy Tyner did this very often and is something that I associate with the style of that period.

On the C7alt I play a stack of 4ths followed by a Bbdim triad which resolves to the Fm9 which is anticipated on the 4& in bar 4. I play an Fm11 and an Fm9 to get back to the Cm7 stack of 4ths in bar 7. The movement in bar 7-9 is an example of more emphazis on the melody than on the rhythm since the chords are being played sustained, on the beat and with a clear direction towards the Ab7(b5) on the 1 of bar 9. Then in bar 9-10 the rhythm becomes more important and the chords shorter  moving from Ab7 to G7. The last two chords are both sustained and I include the root to get the McCoy effect that I mentioned earlier.

I hope you can use the material I presented here to make up your own comping patterns and hopefully some perspective on how to use some of the material I have gone over in previous lessons.

You can as always download the pdf of the examples here:

Minor Blues Comping

If you want to check out an example for comping on an F blues I wrote a lesson with two choruses using different types of voicings. It is available for sale in my store: F Blues Comping Etude #1

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