Chord Solos - This Solid Exercise Is Useful In Two Ways
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- In this video, I am showing you how to use Block Chords on the guitar by breaking down an arrangement of the melody to Solar.
Playing Block Chords is quite demanding on guitar but at the same time Chord Solos, and Block Chord Harmony is a big part of the Jazz Guitar Tradition. There are countless great Block chord solos by Wes Montgomery, George Benson, and Joe Pass. It is in some ways the highest level of putting chords to a melody.
The Chord Melody arrangement is made using some of the core principles in harmonizing melodies with block chords. This also links a bit to the Barry Harris 6th diminished scale system, though that system has a lot of other aspects as well. Most of the Chord voicings I am using in the arrangement are Drop 2 chords which also links it to the Barry Harris approach.
Download the PDF: jenslarsen.nl/block-chords-th...
Content:
0:00 Intro - 3 Levels of Playing a Melody
0:34 Miles wants Block Chords!
0:42 The benefits of studying this: Options and Chord Solos
1:17 Arrangement of Solar
1:35 Example #1 - The Arrangement
1:57 Harmonizing the Cm melody.
2:17 The Principle - Inspired by Barry Harris
3:02 Split the melody in Chord Tones and Leading Notes
3:14 Example of a Harmonized Cm Scale
3:58 The Problem with "Simple Systems"
4:23 Gm C7 Melody
5:52 Gm7 C7 Slow Example
5:58 Fmaj7 - adding an altered dominant
7:39 Fm7 Bb7
7:51 Fmaj7 - Fm7 - Bb7 Slow
8:01 How To Learn to harmonize in block chords
8:22 Blue Monk Arrangement on Patreon
8:50 Drop 2 Voicings and other options
9:42 Ebmaj7 - Static Chord technique from Bill Evans
11:05 Ebmaj7 - Ebm7 Ab7 - Dbmaj7 - Dø G7 Slow
11:18 This is great together with Chord Solos
11:26 Like the video? Check out
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"Block Chords, Red!" Do you use block chords?
Content:
0:00 Intro - 3 Levels of Playing a Melody
0:34 Miles wants Block Chords!
0:42 The benefits of studying this: Options and Chord Solos
1:17 Arrangement of Solar
1:35 Example #1 - The Arrangement
1:57 Harmonizing the Cm melody.
2:17 The Principle - Inspired by Barry Harris
3:02 Split the melody in Chord Tones and Leading Notes
3:14 Example of a Harmonized Cm Scale
3:58 The Problem with "Simple Systems"
4:23 Gm C7 Melody
5:52 Gm7 C7 Slow Example
5:58 Fmaj7 - adding an altered dominant
7:39 Fm7 Bb7
7:51 Fmaj7 - Fm7 - Bb7 Slow
8:01 How To Learn to harmonize in block chords
8:22 Blue Monk Arrangement on Patreon
8:50 Drop 2 Voicings and other options
9:42 Ebmaj7 - Static Chord technique from Bill Evans
11:05 Ebmaj7 - Ebm7 Ab7 - Dbmaj7 - Dø G7 Slow
11:18 This is great together with Chord Solos
11:26 Like the video? Check out
Jens Larsen you show content time. This is very good ! Very easy to watch! Nice
Oh god i ve always wanted to learn those block chords on "you re my everything" so bad
Jens, this is what you do for people. I had played for 15 years with little to no development. Six months ago I started playing my scales and watching your videos ( along with some gypsy jazz triad instruction and plectrum style). I went from my majors and minors to 7ths, half and full diminished, 3nps systems, etc. I went from caged chords to closed, to sixths and alt's, and am now working on Gypsy comp. You lit a fire in me, and now I am using chord solos, and can fully understand the theory you are using. I don't think this would have happened without you, and forever your voicing and expression will be part of mine. You made a player out of me, and I will never be the same. Thank you! When I can donate, I will.
Thank you very much Ryan! That really makes my day! :)
made my day too haha@@JensLarsen
Ooh Jens flexing on us with that beautiful Gibson!
Haha! Thanks :)
"Solar" is usually attributed to Miles Davis. I attended an ensemble class on the music of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter. The insructor played a recording of a tune called "Sonny" by Chuck Wayne. It is "Solar!"
Yes, especially ironic that it is also on Miles' tombstone 🙂
Great lesson! I learned that concept from Wes Montgomery who also used this type of alternating between an inversion and a diminished chord for a particular chord scale in his chord solos. Of course he does it so fast and with such fluidity...
Thanks! What Wes does is of course fast but I think that i actually doable for a lot of people if you were to practice playing like that :)
SUCH A GOOD LESSON...! Love the use of the diminished chords and tension notes to suggest movement and resolution harmonizing the melody. Thank You...!
You're very welcome Donald! :)
Your video lesson is perfect! Thanks a lot, dank je wel!
Thanks Jens. Useful and practical information and some tasty voicings with a nice song choice.
Glad you like it! :)
Really nice video, thank you Jens!
You're very welcome, Pieter 👍
Jens, I've probably said enough by now for you to know that this lesson is right up my alley. I love block chords; that dense, thick harmonic sound really appeals to me, even if it's sometimes a challenge, depending on the song and tempo, to prevent it from sounding clunky on guitar. Being into swing, I became aware of block via most of the pre-Christian horn-style soloists, especially Allan Reuss, my favorite; also, of course, Van Eps and Carl Kress. Wes, Barney and Joe from later. Your Patreon lessons have made a huge difference in my ability to harmonize a melody, which often seemed a daunting challenge before. My instinct was to use the construction techniques -- drop 2's, dim chords -- you demonstrate here, but I often got stuck, so some of the solutions, like "less is more" as in triads, that you use in the monthly chord melody have helped a lot.
That is really great to hear! This lesson was of course also the result of what we have talked about on Patreon :)
Your lesson is always amazing :)
THank you! :)
great concepts/tips...thanks Maestro
Glad you like it! 🙂
Amazing lesson! ❤️
Thank you :)
That little Miles clip made my day
Glad you like it 🙂
Just wanted to point out Jens, sometimes if a melody note is on a diminished chord instead of a minor 6th chord you can still play the minor 6th chord with that one diminished note. Barry calls this borrowing notes. It leads to all sorts of beautiful chords that you would never otherwise play.
Yes, as I say in the video: don't rely on a too simple system. Use your ears :)
@@JensLarsen Agreed. I was just pointing out that Barry's method seems to me ,to be all encompassing. It's only limited to one's imagination.
Yes, one would expect that given your user name :)
@@JensLarsen You got it Brother.
Great job - I just did a video on this too last week and I think it is some grail level stuff for people who like listening to chord solos. I’ve spent a lot of time on it myself because when I was starting out Wes just blew me away with how he built intensity with his chord solos, and in general I love his concept of harmony on the guitar. He is still my favorite and probably the one guy I will never get tired of hearing no matter how many times I hear him (not to say I don’t like other guys too but he was my earliest and most constant favorite). It can be hard but it’s really worth the time if you want that sound and using diminished chords to imply movement between inversions by essentially inserting altered V7 chords is not only effective but teaches a lot about harmony too. Glad to see this video and I think you chose a very good tune to showcase it.
Thanks Paul, I hear you on Wes! 👍🙂
Thanks for this, Jens. Its super helpful to hear your explanation of the system, leading tones with diminished and chord tones with the actual chord and then exceptions depending. My favorites are Wes and Benson and I have always wondered how they would do this so spontaneously. Thanks for giving some guidance on how to get started.
Glad you like it Dave! Give it a go sometime, it is not as difficult as one might think :)
Amazingly interesting!
Thank you, Jume
Thanks for the videos man, really great content. I love jazz! 😎
Thank you! Glad you like the content!
Yeah man! I😎🙌
You finally hit 100K!! So happy for you! Can't wait to see a plaque reveal video. You've been an amazing teacher from afar, you're the man Jens!
Thank you! I am still waiting to get a link to get the plaque for almost two months :)
@@JensLarsen I've heard from multiple people that it takes a while, don't worry, it'll come.
Also, Wes FTW❤️
Ive bought your book cannot wait to study everything ready for my final year in University! :)
Thank you! I hope you find something you can use in it :)
Thanks Jens, great lesson
Glad you like it! Do you use this on bass? (Your profile pic is a bass, if I am not mistaken)
@@JensLarsen absolutely it's great practice on bass as well, although you have to a bit more open with the voicings as to not sound too muddy or even just use intervals (double stops) in certain spots. I like how you mention to separate the melody into chord notes and passing tones, that's a nice way of planning out ahead what tones you're aiming to hit those diminished and dominant chords with
Also like how you mention joe pass, I honestly cant think of anyone that really mastered this skill quite like joe pass
I really liked the Miles clip. "Red" is Red Garland, and "Rudy" is Rudy Van Gelder, the legendary recording engineer who recorded thousands of the greatest jazz sessions of all time. If you want a serious jazz education, check out the incredible iconic albums Rudy recorded for Blue Note, Prestige, Savoy, etc. at his private studio. The man was a genius and a true legend.
Rudy was indeed incredibly important for jazz! :)
thank you
You're very welcome! :)
Saudações aqui do Brazil!
Great lesson !
i love how Barney Kessel use chords too.
I found that in a major context this Diminished chords worked well too.
For exemple C - Ddim 6 - Em - F#dim etc...
Didn t dig dipper ( but i will !) but i like this sound.
Thanks for your work Jens !
Thank you! Yes, you can certainly do the same thing in Major :)
Being a BlockHEAD, I LOVE Block Chords.
Haha! That's great James :)
Martin Taylor does amazing chord melody - his “Solo” album is highly musical with many inner voice movements, walking bass lines, etc
Ok, but this is another topic than chord melody though 🙂
1:49 If transposed and perhaps reworked, it could possibly be of great value as a modulation in even possible repetition. 3:03 Barry Harris. By individual artistic integrity, if you could just extract three chords. I don't know, but I'm hearing something. 9:42 There were two very popular songs that used this type of progression. One was by Blondie, "Call Me," the other was by the Carpenters, although I'm not sure. Every jingle lingle ling every word still rhymes.
Excellent video, Jens! I know a fair amount about the Barry Harris method, but I don't often hear it discussed often. I think most people just extend the top top of a drop2 and then move on the the next inversion. An approach that I like (the person that taught me called it the "japanese fan" technique) with an ascending melody is to have a descending bass line (often chromatic), and then fill in the space with first none, than one, than two, etc. so you get some building tension and a contrary line. Hard to do on the fly for me though. I'd love to hear more approaches. Thanks!
Thanks Jim! Glad you like it! I tend to not go into too much Barry Harris stuff because there are a lot of fundamentalist followers of him on the net and I get tired of having to discuss whether 6th diminished is the solution to everything.
I know the type of counterpoint you talk about, never heard that name, but japanese fan is a good description! :)
Cool sound and great lesson! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! Glad you like it!
tricky at original speed_ nice lesson
Thanks! Well, I do need to keep you busy :)
Molt booooo, Jens, joan, Catalonia fredom,❤️❤️❤️
Dear Jens,
Great channel. Really love.
Have you ever seen Arnie Berle’s Chords & Progressions for Jazz & Popular Guitar???
Neil
Thank you Neil! I am not familiar with that, is it a book?
Yes it is. You don’t need it though! XD
I can't wait to print these out & try them. Though it's pretty tough, I've found chord block/chord melody a lot more enjoyable to play than other guitar styles or features. I recently watched a John Stowell Truefire Modern Chord Melody course and he liked to tune down a major 3rd. He said Ted Greene liked to do this and Stowell got his inspiration to do that as well.
I wasn't sure how I could down-tune a major third with a floating bridge, but I did find two different options: The Tremol-No system ($62), basically, a bar to keep the tremolo block on the back-end from moving, so you can then alternate tune. There are also pedals that can do it. The Kemper can do it as well. Currently, I don't own any of these things, however.
Stowell liked to talk a lot about melodic minor and the various melodic minor modes/chords, but nothing specific. Do you have more details about melodic minor chords/modes Jens? There doesn't seem to be too much material about it. You recently put out the scales, which I downloaded & printed out, but I suppose the scales only really make sense when you have the harmony/chords to use with them, and might make for some interesting block chord arrangements.
I saw Plini in concert this week. He has some great chops. Have you heard of him? One of the weird things that I saw about his playing is that he didn't seem to have any struggle at all while playing anything. I saw him talking to his bandmates while playing the guitar and it didn't seem like he had to put much concentration into it. It was strange to see someone play so effortlessly.
Plini changes his music a lot: constant time signature changes, movements, and so on. It's a lot to take in & my ears were pretty fatigued after about an hour or so. He had a huge crowd of young men & women, probably in their early 20s, & they were fanatics for his music. One time, he asked the audience to jump up & down & they did for quite a few minutes! I haven't seen anything like that in a club concert in many decades. I had been standing for 5 hours, so I was not about to start jumping...
I actually paid for Plini's master class, showed up earlier in the day for that & stood around for 90 minutes only to find out it was canceled. :( Fortunately, he gave me a refund.
I certainly have a some melodic minor videos: czcams.com/video/lytyKOki0NM/video.html
I know of Plini but what I heard never really made me feel like listening more, but I am not really into prog rock anyway :)
@@JensLarsen Thanks for the playlist. I'll be sure to check those out! I was hoping to borrow from Plini to bring back to the jazz guitar world, if there is anything to borrow. On some of his songs, he has some interesting Holdsworth-like sounding melodies and leads.
Hey jens I noticed in your notation on the F minor on the Bb melody note you're playing a standard drop 2 diminished voicing but what you have written is a little different, I think you're actually playing a g as your bottom note but you have notated an e natural
That would not surprise me. I am often good for a few typos in my videos :) It should be a regular drop2 dim voicing :)
Amazing lesson! However, I thought it was going to be a video on “block chords”- the kind I associate with piano: closed Voicings. Maybe a cool lesson would be a video on using open strings to get some more cluster like Voicings.
Thanks Dylan! Block chords are not only closed voicings though :) On guitar this is mostly done with Drop2 like I do in this video.
Hey Jens, do you notate your chord melodies, or do you like to be able to look at the lead sheet and improvise chord melodies, playing off the cuff? thanks
I sometimes learn them by heart, but I never write them down :)
Man, I had no idea this was possible on guitar
It is very possible! Go for it! :)
I remember a while you said to study this guy in a comment saying that the way this guys creates melodies with the chord is very good. but I cannot remember the name of the guy you were mentioning
Ok, sorry I have no idea who that was anymore :)
@@JensLarsen aw it's ok
How about Mcoy Tyner?
McCoy plays a lot of block chords? What is a good solo where he does that? :)
@@JensLarsen I read online that he uses them in 'my favorite things'
Well, that is true that he does a little bit of that in the beginning, but it is on static harmony and when he plays lines they are not harmonized. His solo actually sounds more like comping thant a solo to me. Try to compare it to Evans playing block chords.
@@JensLarsen thank you for clarifying, that makes sense!
"UNSUNG", check out any CD's, Albums, Cassette's, 8-Tracks, Reel to Reel, Original Masters, You Tube Video's, whatever medium you can find of him, unfortunately, 'Live' is no longer an option (deceased 9/18/13)...the Block Chord master, Mr. Jimmy Ponder, R.I.P, sir. In my opinion, anyone who saw you live was blessed to hear a humble soul, dedicated to the soul of the Guitar.
Thanks Mr. Larsen (a true Master in your own right) for this teaching format and tool, it helps a lot of guitarist understand, technically, what is a gift to a precious few.
Hm,when I try to harmonize melody
I try to make the main note of melody became 3th,7th of the chord
or color tone 9,11,13.
Today I was looking for an unusual progression
and I am thinking about the following: V7 to #I (or flat V7 to I) G7 to C#.
Do you know songs that use this progression?
I would like to see something about other progressions, not only ii V I :)
there is too much ii V I everywhere ;D
That is actually a really common progression, there even is a name for it. Just learn some more songs and you will probably come across it your self.
You mean ii V I or V7 #I?
G7 C# at first glance looks like tritone substitution
but C# is maj7 not dominant chord.
Yes, Db is a maj7 chord. Instead of trying to invent harmony again on your own by thinking you could check out some real music :)
fantastic !!
Glad you like it!
@@JensLarsen Cara , eu amo seu trabalho !! você sensacional !! I love you !!