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Category Archives: Chords
Common Tone Substitutions of the Harmonized Major Scale
Common tone substitution is a must have tool in your comping tool box. It is fairly straight forward and is easily incorporated, giving you exponentially more options of chord voicings to choose from. Every chord has other diatonic chords sharing … Continue reading
Posted in Chords
Tagged 251, Bill Frisell, Block chords, Chord Substitution, major scale, play-along, vamp
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Line Cliché, Chromatic Cliché or C.E.S.H. Voicings.
The term CESH (Contrapuntal Elaboration of Static Harmony) scared the bejesus out of me when I first read it. The what of what? After I initially balked at the language, I found the idea to be both familiar and usable. … Continue reading
Major7#11: The Jazz Musician’s Ending Chord of Choice
Ok, I have no statistics to back up that headline. However, from listening to jazz for years and years, I do know that it is a very common chord choice for ending a tune. The Major 7 sharp 11 chord … Continue reading
Soloing with Block Chords Part 6: Major
Good music should reflect life! Life has it’s ups and downs, happy and sad, rain and sunshine, winter and summer …tension and release. The beauty of anything is so much more vivid when seen in contrast to ugly. If I … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords
Tagged Block chords, chord solo, Chord Voicings, vamp, Wes Montgomery
2 Comments
Soloing with Block Chords Part 5: Altered Dominant
The ability to find new applications for old material is one of the greatest musical endeavors you can undertake. I had a teacher tell me one time that I already knew all the jazz vocabulary I ever needed, but I … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords
Tagged 251, Block chords, chord solo, Chord Voicings, Wes Montgomery
1 Comment
Wes Montgomery Chord Solo Transcription: ‘Round Midnight
With all the recent talk around here about block chords, I thought today we would go direct to the horses mouth, or should I say the master’s guitar. Wes Montgomery tastefully combines single lines, octaves, and block chords with incredible … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords, Transcriptions
Tagged Block chords, chord solo, transcription, Wes Montgomery
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Soloing with Block Chords Part 4: Whole Tone Scale
As I peered through the bushes the purple monkey driving a tractor spotted me. I knew I was in trouble when he climbed down asked me for a banana…”cue whole-tone dream sequence music”…”fade to black” Today we will be exploring … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords
Tagged 251, Block chords, Chord Voicings, play-along, Wes Montgomery
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22 Ideas for comping over 1-6-2-5 progressions
Today I would like to offer you 22 voicings that outline a 1 6 2 5 progression (ex. Cmaj7 – Am7 – Dm7 – G7). This is perhaps the most common chord progression ever know to man/woman. This is also … Continue reading
Soloing with Block Chords Part 3: Half-Whole diminished
One of my favorite scales to use over a dominant chord is the half-whole diminished. The symmetrical nature of this scale really lends itself to block chords. (half-step, whole step, half, whole, etc.). The tensions that we get over a … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords
Tagged Block chords, chord solo, Chord Voicings, diminished, play-along
6 Comments
Soloing with Block Chords: Part 2 (Unaltered Dominant)
“Gimme some block chords, Red” – Miles Davis If you listen carefully to the beginning of “You’re My Everything” on the album Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, you can hear Miles stop Red Garland’s intro and tell him to … Continue reading
Posted in Block chords, Chords
Tagged 251, Block chords, Chord Voicings, Wes Montgomery
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