hello the snick ramble I'm sporting a
beard now I thought I'd try that it's a
little bit of a different look but same
guitar player at the end of the day a
couple of things I wanted to talk about
today I'm gonna talk about some jazz
fusion stuff so I'm going to talk
primarily about playing over one chord
type themes so there could be your sort
of D minor e tonight things you need
sort of over that that might go round
around for a while I'm gonna use D minor
as an example a good example would be
the tune so what by Miles Davis so that
tune just kind of so so what kind of
just sits on D minor for a while so I'm
gonna use that kind of as an example so
the first thing I'm going to talk about
is and play for you as some examples of
different modes you can use so if we're
demining
how do we know if that's D Dorian or D
Phrygian or D harmonic minor or whatever
well we don't because there's often not
established this that the harmonies not
moving anywhere it's one chord so you
get a bit of Liberty to sort of do what
you want with it
so for me I like to establish a tonality
so that's usually the first thing I'll
do so if it's d minor and I'm just
getting that from the band then I might
play Dorian for a while
now I don't think c-major over this I
think D Dorian as its own sounds a d e f
g a b c d and i'll play from that
tonality for a while so
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so it has a certain flavor and a certain
sound sometimes maybe I want something a
little bit darker and a little bit more
colorful in an interesting so I might
use Phrygian for example because again
it's not really described by the chord
if it wasn't described by the chord then
I have to play what that is but if it's
not described then it's up to me really
so to me that has a very different
flavor
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I and you can go in and out of these you
don't have to sit on any one flavor you
can kind of you can start with Dorian
and then maybe go into a bit of Phrygian
for that kind of color but each has its
own color and I'll explore those in my
practice then when I play I kind of
forget about everything and just go with
where the music takes me and another
option that I use a lot is the harmonic
minor there has a different flavor again
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and again the band could just be groovin
on D minor and so I'll explore those
various different flavors but I like to
establish them before I do anything else
so first thing I'll do is establish a
kind of a center if you will okay so the
next thing you can look at that that's
really useful so once you've got that
going and you're establishing there and
you can do that convincingly next thing
to look at is to look at the arpeggios
that exist out of it or arpeggios as
Americans would say there's a D minor 7
arpeggio and that comes from D Dorian
all the notes in there are indeed Orion
but that doesn't really tell me much
because if I'm playing that over say
Phrygian that it's also in Phrygian so
what I often do is play all the causes
that belong to their key soften up D
Dorian it'll be so d minor is our first
chord D - annex chord if major 7 as an
ex corde g7 a minor B half diminished C
major seven and I'll play those our PG
owes over the D minor
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so what I've done here is just created a
little loop so you can hear sort of
based on D minor under scope this D
minor a livin and a C to a dino very
simple so I'm going to show you what
those are PG OS from D Dorian
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and see my
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so as you heard there at the end I just
mix them all up and I started going
between them and that's often what I'll
do I'll kind of play them all kind of
melding and together I'm not really
wanting one to stop and the next to
start they kind of just want a mesh and
as you see it sort of has a certain flow
about it um it's a little bit different
from playing from a scale now they're
not substitutions I'm just drawing on
the arpeggios that come from that scale
I mean they're kind of out like
substitutions but I'm not thinking of
them that way I'm thinking purely these
are they're RPG O's that belong to that
key and I'm playing in that key and in
that mode and that's where I'm exploring
it from
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naturally you can do the exact same
thing but you can do it using Phrygian
as well and you'll get a very different
kind of flavor so we have D minor and
then e flat major if see them G minor I
have to finish being B flat major seven
move C minor and D minor and all those
chords belong to B flat major but I'm
not thinking that I'm thinking D
Phrygian so she what this sounds like
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so first to do the same thing with
harmonic minor I would use D minor 7th
minor major seven I would use a minor 7
flat 5 if made the seven sharp 5 etc and
I would use the RPG OS out of them as I
said over up agios if you want to call
them that right so that was kind of
dealing with all this RPG O's that come
out of the scale so and that kind of is
like substitutions but I don't think of
it like substitutions because they all
belong to to the specific key what I'm
going to do now is show you some
substitutions that don't belong to the
specific key so if I have D minor 7 in
this case I'm playing D minor 11 but
whichever kind of D minor could be D
minor 9 6 9 whichever D minor is
basically that the home so when I have
that I could also the strongest
resolution I have is a 7 2 D minor so I
can play that as a soloist against the D
minor 7 chord resolve into D minor and
that can work really really well as a
sound because it's sort of a tension
resolution thing and a lot of music is
just about tension and resolution so
yeah check it out I'll show you against
that vamp so I'm gonna play a 7 sharp 5
or the altered scale so but then I'm
gonna go a B flat C D flat
when if di and then I'm gonna resolve
and daddy door for jazz musicians D
Dorian is really the kind of most common
sound that you you will get on those
mainly because we're thinking about like
two five one
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so you can hear their I'm kind of
weaving my way through the a7 altered is
leading into the D money so make sure I
come in on come out on a note that suits
the D minor chord so in that case there
was a Dino
so there I had a lick that was and I'm
coming out on an a note which is the
fifth of D so I'm making sure our
resolve to a chord tone of the D so
it'll make sense so I'm thinking they
altered to D minor and that's a really
strong substitution because the
relationship of that five chord to one
is just something that people's ears we
hear that and music all the time so
following that and that another thing
that you could do as well is instead of
a seven you can play a tritone away from
it the tritone substitution so we can
play E flat seven so we look at a seven
chopped five any flat nine there one
what's the same it's just a slight
change in the root note so we can play
effects
today - what that sounds like
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so you can hear their I'm kind of waving
my way into that e-flat thing that's
moves really strongly to the D minor of
course there's a heap of substitutions
but those are just two that I like to
use a lot when I have one chord vamps
and I kind of think a lot of times when
you have one chord vamps you have to do
something it's actually in a lot of ways
it's harder than playing changes or I
think so anyway
for me when you play changes you can get
into patterns you can get into all kinds
of things that relate to that but when
you have one chord you have to kind of
create something and do something
otherwise it's just going to be boring
isn't it so another one that I use quite
a bit in here John Scofield using this a
lot as side slipping so instead of D
minor by the way I should say with all
of these I'll start with the key and
then work towards something else then
come back and never just go straight to
the the concept because if you do that
you haven't established anything to kind
of work your way back to so for me it's
like almost always I've got to establish
it really clearly and strongly and then
I'll work my way to something else so
anyway so with the side slipping so I'm
thinking D Dorian and I'll play D flat
Dorian
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and then resolve into D Dorian and what
that does is you create this kind of the
tension is created that way rather than
you know five to one or a tritone
substitution or any of those other
things and this creates a really cool
sound too I use this quite a bit in my
plane
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so you'll notice that the in there what
I actually did there was I actually side
slipped the opposite direction I played
an E flat minor going into D it doesn't
matter either way I tend to prefer to go
below and work my way back up but you
can go above and work your way back down
that works really cool too for me the
the going below and going up works
better
mainly because to my ear that sounds
like it's got a forward motion or is if
you play above and come down that's kind
of resolving that in the opposite
direction of what I usually want I'm
doing this sense when I want the music
to kind of push forward and feel like
it's got a forward motion
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one of my favorite things to do on these
one chord vamp things is to kind of pick
one rhythm and apply a bunch of notes to
it
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so you hit there are kind of did
variations on that same rhythm but
essentially still it's the same rhythm
I'm just developing it and on a one
chord thing that can be pretty cool
because now your your your approach is
rhythmic and that gives you bands
something to interact with
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again the last thing I'll talk about
this is actually probably one of the
biggest things to consider when playing
over one chord vamps is to think big s
structures don't think two-bar phrases
or one-bar phrases try to think over a
period of eight bars or sixteen bars or
thirty-two bars as soon as you do that
then you can start to shape your ideas
and make them develop and build
somewhere so give you an example I'm
gonna play a little thing and I'm going
to try and I'm gonna think in like long
sections eight bars at a time
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so you can hear out of that I was
creating kind of these ideas that was
sort of moving towards that that bigger
picture of like an eight bar or four bar
or sixteen bar or whatever but a longer
form kind of idea so I'll play something
I'll play something else and then I'll
kind of wrap it up and that sort of
money my ideas are not kind of existing
on their own that they're thought of in
bigger chunks that makes such a big
difference when you play over one chord
vamps only because I think what happens
is you start to sound more compositional
in your ideas and for me that's the
great soloists that's what they do they
think compositionally you can hear it
and they're playing anyway I hope you've
enjoyed this lesson look me up on
Facebook Instagram any of that kind of
stuff I've got a new album out that's
coming out on Friday and a couple of
days so depending on when you see this
it'll be out in that's called reamped
and it's a kind of a fusion record and
there's some some examples of the stuff
I've seen in there but BenCab is
probably the best place to go and check
it out let me know if you can spot some
of the places we've I've used some of
these things and some of them might be
where it's only event for four bars or
eight bars it's not like an infinite but
I have definitely used them in various
different places so let me know if you
can spot it yeah and if you've got your
own ideas leave them in the comments
below I mean I'm always interested in
hearing about new things that you can do
over this stuff if I've missed anything
you know I mean I can't cover it all in
one lesson but hopeful is has given you
some stuff to think about so thanks very
much remember to subscribe you know
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very very soon thanks very much Cheers
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