From our free, Jazz Guitar Lessons Daily Series: Lesson 42
Tuesdays - Melodic Ear Training
3/9/21
When is a 7 chord arpeggio NOT a 7 chord arpeggio? When it’s not an arpeggio.
This week we’re focusing on building a relationship with the b7. Yesterday we did this with a warmup where we inserted chromaticism and intervallic leaps within a G7 “arpeggio” to create something that didn’t sound at all like an arpeggio.
Today we are doing something similar, but rather than focusing on muscle memory and dexterity we’re focusing on developing our ear, our phrasing, and our musicianship.
Rather than thinking of a G7 arpeggio as 1-3-5-b7, four equal notes like rungs on the ladder that each need to be climbed up or down and carry our weight equally… instead let’s break this down to a G major triad and then an addition tension b7. This gives us the same set of pitches, but now there is a clearcut and obvious set of functions and roles within the notes that we can take advantage of to develop our melodic ear and create more human and organic phrasing when we improvise. We get the G note, which will feel the most stable. A complete feeling of returning home. The 3rd and 5th of the triad will give us a little more color but still feel very stable and resolved. And then the F note, the tension b7. This note will crave movement. It will produce a feeling of instability that will propel our lines forward to help us create more compelling lines that feel alive and dynamic.
Try these steps. First play through a basic G7 arpeggio, but every time you get to the F note STOP. Hold it a little longer, dig into it a bit harder, repeat it a few times, resolve it up to the root note then drop back to it again and move back and forth between that tension and resolution to over exaggerate the drama and the movement. FEEL what’s happening inside those two notes. Then continue on up through the next octave and do it again. Go all the way up that position, then turn around and do the same process descending.
Then try applying this to a basic I IV V blues. Use the basic major triad for each chord and take advantage of the tension b7 of each to help create phrases. Your goal should be to NOT outline by running the arpeggios of each 7 chord. Instead think about implying the changes. You can imply the movement to a new chord with just one or two notes. So keep things simple and focus on playing less note, but making each of them count more. Really take advantage of those tension b7 notes and the...
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8 мар 2021
