Teaching an Old Rocker New Jazz Tricks
I’ve been playing guitar in rock, fusion and jazz bands since high school, but have always felt like more of a rocker than a jazzer. I’ve recently been playing with a jazz pianist every week and have started getting really serious about learning jazz. These are the lessons I’ve learned as I try to go from a proficient rock guitarist a passable jazz guitarist.
This a work in progress. So I’ll be adding things as I figure them out. There are some lessons that have titles but no content. That means I want to learn something but don’t understand it as yet. I'll also add new lessons as we go along.
Using Arpeggios to “Improvise Over the Changes”
This is really what makes jazz solos sound different than rock solos. When you play rock you tend to use a single scale and play it through out the solo. In jazz one way to improvise is to use arpeggios that correspond to each chord in the chart. So as a recovering blues and rock guitarist, I’ve had to get a lot sharper on my arpeggios. “But it’s just skipping every other note in the scale” you say, “how hard can that be?” I know they are easy to derive if you know your scales but they really need to be automatic. There are more choices for arpeggios than I could possibly memorize so I have picked the ones you need to survive playing over chord changes. I've also included several forms of each arpeggio designed to cover the fretboard so that there’s almost always one of these in reach.
I looked around on the internet for a printable chart of the most common arpeggios but couldn't find one. So I pulled out Photoshop and made my contribution. I hope you find it useful.
Reading the Arpeggio Chart
There are three columns of arpeggios. The left column are all dominant 7th arpeggios, the middle column are minor 7th, and the right column are major 7th argeggios.
There are four positions for each arpeggio. The top row bases the tonic (square box) off the low ‘E’ string. The next row positions the tonic off the ‘A’ string. I use the third row as a filler arpeggio that lies on the fretboard between the E—string arpeggio and A—string arpeggios. The bottom row is a 2—note—per—string format that falls into the hand nicely.
There are a couple of sounds that I didn't include on the chart such as Lydian and Augmented arpeggios but I don't think those belong in the bare minimum survival set of arpeggios.
Arpeggio Exersizes
The idea here is to practice stringing your arpeggios together over the top of chords. I've chosen the common II—V—I chord pattern here.
It's not very musical but this is just 8th notes played from the arpeggio in order and synchronized with the underlying chords. Note that I'm not just starting each new arpeggio at the bottom but trying to string them together seamlessly.
Once you get comfortable with this exersize you might try inventing your own lick over the same chords. Now it’s time to open up your Real Book, pick out a song, and string together arpeggios over the song’s chords. If you’re having trouble picking something then I suggest “Autumn Leaves”.
Getting Started with Chords
This section describes the notation I use on this site to indicate chord names and chord abbreviations.
Chord Progression Notation
Throughout these pages I use a Roman Numeral chord notation to show chord progressions. The roman numeral indicates the tonic note of the chord as a scale degree within the song’s key. So a Vmaj7 in the key of C major would mean the chord’s tonic note is the fifth (dominant) of a C-major scale or a Gmaj7.
I use this notation to indicate chord progressions. Each chord in the progression is separated by a dash (—). I use a ‘%’ to indicate that you should repeat the previous bar.
So the basic blues progression would be
I7—%—IV7—%—I7—%—V7—IV7—I7—V7#9.
If you're playing blues in ‘A’ (a very rock thing to do) then it would be
A7—A7—D7—D7—A7—A7—E7—D7—A7—E7#9
Chord Name Abbreviations
I tend to use chord name abbreviations as follows:
| Chord Name | Abbreviation |
| Major | maj, Δ |
| Minor | m, - |
| Half diminished | -7b5, ∅ |
| Diminished | dim, Ο |
Jazz Chord Progressions
Harmonizing the Major Scale
Let’s start by taking the major scale in ‘C’ and building a chord out of 1—3—5—7 at each interval of the scale.
This is useful because as long as the chords are of this type and on this interval then you can use the same scale to improvise. For example, you’ll often see a I—VI—II—V in the turnaround. So if you see a Imaj7—VIm7—IIm7—V7 then you know what key to use when improvising over the turnaround.
This also useful for “comping” or making chord substitutions while playing rythem. You didn’t think you'd just play the chords as written did you? This is jazz after all so everybody gets to improvise all the time.
Common Chord Progressions
- IIm7—V7—Imaj7
This one is so common that we have a whole section about it.
- Imaj7—%—Im7—V7—bVIImaj7—%—bVIIm7—bIII7
I love to improvise over this. It goes from a Imaj to a Im to a bVIIm. So it goes down in whole steps. “How High the Moon” uses this progression.
Jazz Endings
I’ve always said that how you end a song matters more than how you play it. If the song is weak but the ending is crisp then the audience applauds. If the song is great but the band falls apart at the end then the audience will just sit there and you'll be able to hear the crickets chirping from outside the club.
Jazz endings are definitely different beasts than their rock counter parts. It sounds like the band sort of drifts off into ever more complex chords and just kind of peters out (but in a cool way). Here are a couple of jazzy endings that are working for me.
Substitute Chords
You can always just substitute an “ending chord” for the last chord in the song using either the same tonic note as the key of the song. In major keys try a Isus2, Isus4, I6/9, or Imaj6/9#11 ending chord substitutions. In minor keys try I-/maj9, I-6+9, and I-6/maj7.
On all of these endings you kind of trail off without a since of tempo.
Major Key Ending Chord Progressions
For songs in a major key substitute a progression for the last chord at the end of a song. Here are a couple:
- bVImaj7—bIImaj7—I6/9. You can substitute any of the single chord substitutions from above for the I6/9 as well. This is played without tempo. The pianist I’m jamming with calls this a “surprise ending”.
- bVIImaj7—bIImaj7—I6/9. Same as above with a bVII instead of a bVI.
- Imaj7—bIIm7. This effectively adds a chord after the end of the song.
- #IVm7b5—IVm7—I/III—bIIIdim7—IIm7—bII7#11—Imaj7.
Minor and Diminshed Scales
When to use the scales:
It seems like in a lot of Jazz the dominant 7 chord (V7) is when you get to go crazy with interesting altered scales.
This is especially true of altered dominant 7 chords such as a V7b9 or V7b5. The idea is that you're probably going
straight to the I chord so you can resolve all the tension you're creating by using these scales.
Reading the diagrams:
- Squares represent tonic notes
- The solid black dots are the fingering with the tonic on the 'A' string
- The dots with a thick black border with a white center is the fingering with the tonic on the 'E' string
“Avoid Notes”
Another way to improvise is to think about what notes to avoid rather than which ones you should play.
The following is conventional wizdom about what sounds bad (unless they are passing notes):
- A 4th over any major chord
- A major 3rd on a minor chord
- A minor 3rd or minor 7th on a major 7th chord
- A sustained root note over a major 7th chord
- A b6 or b9 on a major 7 or minor chord
- A major 7th on a minor 7th or 7th chord
I have to admit that I haven’t spent ANY time with this yet. Right now I seem to be using knowledge of the melodie, lots of chromatics between arpeggio notes, and a little luck to improvise. I’ll keep you posted as I experiment with the idea.
Getting that Jazz Tone
Do you need to go out and buy a bunch of super expensive archtop guitars and Polytone amps? No, although a nice archtop is a truly wonderful thing.
Some rock gear is easier to re-purpose for jazz. If you’re playing a Marshall you’ll have more trouble than if you have a Fender amp. And let’s face it…flat wounds on a Van Halen signature axe is just plain wierd, but heavier round wounds on a Les or a Strat work really well. Be sure to test, my Mesa Boogie can produce a warm clean sound and makes a great jazz amp even though it has a reputation as a rock amp. So your milage may vary.
Here's a list of “tone factors” for re-purposing rock gear in order of importance:
- Strings: You should have pretty heavy guage strings. I use .012 flat wound D'Addario Chromes myself. Plenty of serious jazzers also use round wound strings. Whatever your preference you should go for much heavier strings than you would use on a rock axe.
- Pickups: Use your neck pickup only. You also might experiment with setting your tone and volume at around Seven instead of the typical Ten used in rock.
- Amp Settings: You’re going for a warm clean sound here. On my Mesa Boogie I run my Volume at around Four and my Master is usually set pretty low depending on where we're playing. To get the warmth without the distortion start by setting you Master very low, then turn up your Volume (or Drive…or Gain…or whatever they call the preamp stage on your amp) until you can just hear some distortion when you really blang a chord hard, then back off on the volume a little. Now do all your volume adjustments from the Master Volume control. Start out with your tone settings flat and adjust to fit in the mix. I usually have a little bit of cut in the midrange. There are several solid-state jazz amps out there (Roland Jazz Chorus for example), but I like all-tube amps myself…transistors belong in your iPod not your guitar amp.
- Reverb: You’ve got to have reverb for a good jazz sound. Digital delays just aren’t the same, but digital reverbs do well for jazz. A spring reverb built-in to your amp is the most practical and has a great sound. Some people also use Chorus but that certainly isn’t a requirement or even the most common sound.
So try out these changes and see if you can get a jazz sound out of your rock gear. Hopefully you’ll be able to get a good enough sound to satisfy so can focus on your jazz chops. If you’ve just gotta have that $15,000 vintage archtop Gibson (trust me…I understand) then you have my permission to go for it, but rock gear doesn’t have to keep you from exploring your jazzier side.
Clave Rhythms
A Clave is a rhythmic pattern that’s usually two bars long. It is the basis for the groove in many African, Cuban, and Brazilian tunes. Getting the feel for these rhythms can really change your sound away from the standard straight ahead four of rock music. Here are a couple of my favorites:
African - The Grandfather Rhythm
The grandfather rhythm.
The II—V—I Chord Progression
The II—V—I chord progression is probably the most common phrase in jazz music. It's the jazz equivalent of the 12 bar blues form that you see everywhere in blues and rock & roll. The II—V—I progression is made of a m7 on the II, a dominant 7 on the V, and a major 7 on the I, so it’s frequently written as IIm7—V7—Imaj7. There are also lots of interesting licks and chord substitutions for II—V—I. Let's have a look at a couple of them.
Tri-tone Substitution
A tri-tone substitution substitutes a dominant chord six half steps higher or lower from the original dominant chord. In the IIm7—V7—Imaj7 progression this works really well because the substitution gets you a II—bII—I sequence that moves the tonic note down chromatically from the II to the I.
To make this really work well you can flat the 5th to get a half diminished chord (1—3—b5—b7) for a IIm7—bIIdim7—Imaj7 progression.
These examples are off the E—string and A—string for a IIm11—bIIdim—Imaj7 progression.
Altered II-V-I Chords
There are a few typical alterations you can do over a II-V-I. I like to augment the 5th on the V chord. Here's an example.
Improvising over II-V-I
When you spot a IIm7—V7—Imaj7 in the chord changes then you can improvise over all those chords in the I major scale if you wish. You also can use this even if the whole II-V-I isn't there. So if you see just the IIm7—V7 or V7—Imaj7 then you can improvise using I major. For example, you can improvise in C major over a Dm7—G7 or a G7—Cmaj7.
