Improvising over VI7 II7 V7 I Progression

[min7b5]

Originally Posted by mellowman

Thanks again Eric. This really helps. I'd be interested to hear when your book comes out. You can count on one customer right here!

Cool. I'll keep you posted, but to be honest, it may be a while. I've got several books in various stages of progress and abandonment.... but I'm getting there slowly

[mellowman]

Originally Posted by min7b5

Cool. I'll keep you posted, but to be honest, it may be a while. I've got several books in various stages of progress and abandonment.... but I'm getting there slowly

Thanks Eric. Please do keep us posted about the book. "Various stages of progress and abandonment" could be the title of my life story. I love it!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Aaron Smith

I would have a pretty hard time remembering to always play a II#7b5 over a VI, for instance.

Great explanation and demo, Eric! One thing that I find that helps de-mystify chord substitutions a bit, and helps me to remember them is to realize that often it's just a name game. There are cases where people really substitute a radically different chord for the original, but in a lot of cases, the change isn't nearly as radical as it sounds at first, or at least there's a less radical way to think about it. For example, a typical way to play a C#m7b5 is x4545x. Lots of blues players, say like Stevie Ray, would just call that an A9 chord (without a root, of course), and Eric spelled out that that's exactly what it is. It only analyzes out to C#m7b5 if you analyze the notes from a C# bass. Or to say it another way, we could get really out there and talk about a C#m7b5/A chord, and that's a valid chord, it's just that we know it by a far easier name, A9. Once you see that connection, it's not as wild a substitution as it seems at first glance. You're just playing the top notes of an A9, leaving out the bass. And you can visualize the A7/(A9,C#m7b5) shapes as being related geometrically on the fingerboard pretty easily.

Eric's of course taking it to another level by thinking in terms of the C#m7b5 arpeggio for playing a melody, getting rid of the boring root note, playing it all over the neck, etc. Pretty cool. This reminds me of the Larry Carlton trick of playing higher partial triads in 3rds over chords (A triad/A = A sound, C#m triad/A = Amaj7, E/A=AMaj9, G#m/A = Amaj9#11, etc), only this example is on a dominant chord.

[Alexrkstr]

Could you please post the books you have read to learn this theory?

All this information is great!

[Doug Young]

Alex, there are tons of books on music theory, improvising, chord construction. Not even sure where to begin to list specific ones. There's also lots of material freely available on the web, and guitar magazines often have articles on chord construction. Do a search on chord construction, or chord substitution, and you should be off and running.

My comment about the C#m7b5 being equivalent to an A9 doesn't require much theory, just take a look at a chord book, and start looking at chord shapes and noticing similarities. A book like Ted Green's Chord Chemistry (there's a a good recommendation) will probably list that chord shape under C#m7b5 in one section, and show it as an A9 in another. You can just be sitting looking at chords in a chord chart, and start noticing little things like this. Ask yourself "why?", figure out that there's an overlap between the notes in the chords and you'll be off and running. These overlaps are all over the place. Am7 is the same notes as C6. All of the notes in an Em chord are in Cmaj7, etc. So you can use that, and realize that if you know a lick in Em, you can probably play that over a C chord and get a Cmaj7 sound, and so on.

[min7b5]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

....Lots of blues players, say like Stevie Ray, would just call that an A9 chord (without a root, of course), and Eric spelled out that that's exactly what it is. It only analyzes out to C#m7b5 if you analyze the notes from a C# bass. Or to say it another way, we could get really out there and talk about a C#m7b5/A chord, and that's a valid chord, it's just that we know it by a far easier name, A9. Once you see that connection, it's not as wild a substitution as it seems at first glance. You're just playing the top notes of an A9, leaving out the bass. And you can visualize the A7/(A9,C#m7b5) shapes as being related geometrically on the fingerboard pretty easily....

Exactly. Once you can start seeing chords that way light bulbs start going off. Lately I’ve been flirting with gypsy jazz, so thinking about an A-6 chords for example, I see that as D9/A. To me that’s just a D7, so I’m off and running playing the notes of F#-7b5. So for a tune like Minor Swing, with just three arpeggios you can get nice tones for lines very fast. On the other hand, getting one scale to work over that tune is just about impossible. I know it’s kind of a sub of a sub, but it really does come quick with a little practice. As I said before, I’m getting students up and running on this fairly quick.

Originally Posted by Alexrkstr

Could you please post the books you have read to learn this theory?

All this information is great!

Cool.

For me I arrived at this just from transcribing solos for students for years and years. If you take the Parker Omni book for example, and start looking at his solos, comparing small groups of notes to the chord symbols above, this stuff lights up like a Christmas tree. Django, Charlie Christian, Wes... one or two licks and you quickly see it. In fact Wes’ move of playing a major seventh arpeggio one whole step below dominant chords ( yields b7,9,11,& 13) was my epiphany.

Basically what I tell students now days is that I think in terms of chords when I’m making single note lines, and I think in terms of scales when I’m making chords. Kinda backwards, but it works for me.

[Mokai]

Originally Posted by min7b5

I feel like playing the root kills the forward motion of a melody. If you analyze a lot of classic jazz solos you notice how little the root is really played.

This is a great thread, I appreciate Eric Skye explaining use of half diminished over dominant instead of just running mixolydian, esp pointing out not playing the root of the dominant chord. Really key.

Eric, or anyone, what is a good equivalent trick for ii7, V7 changes, instead of just playing dorian on the ii7? Does avoid the root still hold? What chord substitution rocks as hard as the half diminished over dominant?

thanks, Mokai

[min7b5]

Go back in this thread to posts 7 and 8, I think I wrote about that a little.

Basically for the ii, using the relative major gives you the 3, 5, b7, and 9.

For the V chord my first choice is the -7b5 arpeggio from it's third as I’ve been talking about, but there’s really a ton of cool options for the V....dim7, aug7th... Because basically what’s happening is that you’re at the apex of the progression -it’s the maximum tension point before resolving to the one, so it’s almost limitless what you can do. The ear will take a lot of tension on the V... as long as you resolve it on beat one of the I chord! If whatever weird thing you were doing for the V chord carries over the county line to the I chord it instantly goes from being some cool tension to clamsville.