How to Improvise over Summertime using chords

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For more information from the source site of this video please visit: secretguitartea...
This lesson is a sample from the Secret Guitar Teacher website (see link above).
It is for Intermediate players and comes from the Intermediate level course called: 'From Blues to Jazz'.
Here's the abridged transcript:
In this lesson, we are going to look at an approach to improvising using individual chords as our basis, rather than scales.
First, strip the chords back to their simpler forms where possible. So, instead of playing Am6 - a chord comprising 4 different notes - I just play the underlying triad - Am.Next, particularly where you have more than one chord change per bar test, to see whether the second chord is really essential to the structure of the song.
And the best way to do this I think is to sing or hum the melody along with the chord and check to see whether it really needs to change to support the melody. So you can hear that until we come to the 'Jumping Fish' line, we are quite happy just sitting on the Am chord. However, as soon as we hit the word 'Jumping' it is clearly no longer right to keep playing Am so we move to Dm as a simplified version of the Dm7 chord that appears at this point in our sequence. Then we can happily continue with this Dm chords until we get to the High Cotton.
The third line works fine with just Am again but at the beginning of the last line we are once again forced to change, this time to C. Now while we could keep to C for the whole of that bar It's definitely a whole lot smoother to keep the Am chord in for the second half of the bar so let's do that.
Now the next bar, we have a similar situation. We could just use the F chord...or actually just the E chord but there's no doubt that keeping them both in produces a much neater result so let's do that.
As a next step I am going to make a decision to approach the first 12 bars and the last two bars of the song using arpeggio patterns. So, according to these rules we will start by using the Amin7 arpeggio.
Okay so having got that pattern under your belt, let's move on and work out the most useful pattern for playing the D minor 7th. So we reduce our travel on the fret board we'll use the minor seventh pattern rooted on the A string.
Here's the diagram again if you'd like to pause the video while you get it learnt.
Next, let's learn the Dominant Seventh arpeggio pattern rooted on the A string as this will work great over the E chord:
Okay, so those are three patterns that you will find come in useful over and over again. But the next step is to really make sure we can grab them when we need them.
So first off make sure you have the starting root notes instantly identifiable
A here at fret 5 on the E string, D at fret 5 on the A string and E at fret 7 on the A string.
Now let's play the arpeggios one after another like this :
If most of this stuff is pretty familiar to you then a couple of runs through that process should be enough to familiarise you and you can move straight on.
Once you are well-oriented and confident that you are keeping up with the changes then start to mess around a bit. Begin by jumping around the patterns and varying the rhythm a little maybe like this...Then gradually experiment with adding extra notes in, either chromatically.....
As well as using the arpeggios you can of course use the chord shapes themselves and this is a particularly useful trick when you get several changes happening too fast to keep up with using other methods.
So let's see how I might use this trick over bars 13 and 14 where we have the C Am F E7 chords. One idea is to just grab a couple of notes from the first chord...
If you are well-versed on your note names on the fret board and, in particular have really good command of the CAGED system then there are literally hundreds of possible ways of playing this same sequence.
Here are these ideas against the backing track.
So, just the tip of a very large iceberg for you there, but these are great foundational ideas that will help you build a basecamp in Jazz Improv land from which you can set out on many many different adventures!
In the next few lessons we are going to continue to develop the chord and arpeggio-based ideas of improvising, but our attention is going to shift to the single most important difference between blues and jazz music - swing rhythm.
So I look forward to you joining me for that but meanwhile, let's play out with the backing track. I'll start by playing over the first verse using all the ideas we have covered in the last two lessons. Then I'll leave the track running and hand over the soloing to you!

Пікірлер: 14

@mauriziomoretti5392 9 жыл бұрын

Got no extra words: just great! particularly the step by step explanation and example on how to improvise mixing up arpeggios, chromatic passages, scales and chord shapes. After this I caught myself watching and actually understanding, from both theoretical and practical point of view, what the hell even Satriani was doing!

@97yawnac 10 жыл бұрын

Wow, I finally see the light on how lead solos can be conceived & played. Brilliantly explained. I have heard all of this before, but your technique and progression of arp-to-scales made the difference and brought it home!!

@bh8365 4 жыл бұрын

These series of Summertime lessons are awesome. I have to take it a little at a time.

@Blueguitar007 9 жыл бұрын

Good lesson. Even experienced (rock, jazz, blues) riifing around I do, it's stuff I don't think about when I'm doing it. Good to put it in theory as to get a better grasp on jazz riffing.