Making it all fit together...

[kswilson89]

So I've been playing around 10 years now and feel pretty confident with my guitar technique and theory knowledge. The issue I have is that I know all of these chords, shapes, scales blah blah blah... But when improvising I often find myself stuck when trying to fit all these pieces together. For example, here's a clip of Jerry Reed playing City of New Orleans...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7a6R2GNFQs

In the opening few bars Jerry plays more melodically than I could ever dream of and seems to fit the chords around the melody. Does anyone have any tips on how this is done and how to fit all these chords, scales etc. in a pleasant way?

Cheers!

[jseth]

Well, first off... don't beat yourself too bad for not being able to play like Jerry Reed! The guy is just a wonderful, masterful player who is largely unsung...

You say you have confidence with your theory and technique... so the first thing I do when learning or embellishing a tune, is to determine in what diatonic key it's played, noting any of the standard departures to a straight-ahead diatonic chord set.

In the song in question, it has both a "V7 of V7" and a flat7 chord change, so those need to be taken into account when extemporizing... if you DON'T KNOW from whence I speak, then your basic diatonic theory needs some work!

Jerry starts out playing some basic diatonic double-stops, both in thirds and sixths. I love these and use them a lot in all the songs I play, pretty much... learn them in all the major keys, but certainly the "standard" ones: E, G, A, C and D... then fill in the blanks with the other ones as you get a few under your belt!

(These are basically "do-re-mi", using harmonized thirds, such as starting in the key of G with a G/B double-stop... or harmonized 6ths, in G again, starting with a B/G, but with the B the lower of the two (try at the third fret, 1st string and 4th fret, 3rd string, to start. The reason I call them "harmonized" thirds, etc. is because, as you move up the scale, the interval distances change within the fret concept to accommodate the "thirds" part of the equation. I'm sure there are more technically accurate ways of speaking this, but, there you go!)

Once you have these down, you'll recognize how many songs use this device... and believe me, there are a LOT of them throughout all genres of Western Music (harmony, not C&W only!).

Then it's just a matter of where you want to use them! As always, the melody of the song will be your guide in this...

Hope this helps! It's really a lot harder to explain in words, than it is to do...

[rick-slo]

Jerry Reed did not do this through a study of music theory. Mostly junk the theory and thinking of things out of context of actual songs (independent scales, a bunch of chords) and just start listening to the synthesis of elements. Listen a lot and learn a lot of complete fingerstyle tunes. Then take some existing simpler melodies (pop tunes, Christmas tunes, whatever) and work up arrangements. First go straight forward and simple, then add more interesting harmonies and variations.

[kswilson89]

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate your advice! It seems that the likes of Jerry and Tommy Emmanuel manage to pick out 'jazzy' chords but make them fit perfectly into the piece of music they are playing... I suppose it's this that baffles me so much! Does anybody have any advice on how to make the correct chord choice?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by kswilson89

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate your advice! It seems that the likes of Jerry and Tommy Emmanuel manage to pick out 'jazzy' chords but make them fit perfectly into the piece of music they are playing... I suppose it's this that baffles me so much! Does anybody have any advice on how to make the correct chord choice?

Just keep learning songs. Songs you like, of course, but as many as you can find.
"Correct chord choice" is about two things: (a) harmonising a melody, (b) flowing from one chord to the next. Songs always contain text-book examples of both. Laying out rules for how it works will always involve using songs to illustrate the concepts, so you may as well start taking songs to pieces now and seeing how they work.
That will get you used to the basic rules of chord progression. (Or rather "common practices", rather than strict "rules" as such.)

Of course, the guys you're talking about are introducing all kinds of jazzy embellishments not present in the originals! They can do that because they understand those basic rules (through a similar process of learning to play countless songs, including copying some things jazz musicians do).

Making things "jazzier" (to oversimplify) is usually about chromaticism: adding transitional chords between the given chords, or altering one or two notes in a given chord - always to make the harmony move more smoothly (or more interestingly) from chord to chord. (IOW, expanding on point (b) above, with or without regard to any melody that might be occurring.)

A useful concept to think about is "voice-leading" - it means that each single note in a chord (like voices in a choir) will want to move to the nearest note in the next chord - usually only a scale degree (half or whole step); that's if the note needs to change at all. Making it "jazzier" often involves inserting a half-step in the middle of a whole step move. (It doesn't matter if the note is out of key; usually better if it is, in fact...)
Eg, when changing from C to F, you could go via Caug (raising the 5th, G to G#, so it leads up to A). Using C7 does a similar thing, more traditionally: inserting Bb between C and A, giving a chromatic move Bb-A.
More complex jazz chords are often about adding more of this kind of chromatic transition, more variety of voice-leading.

Eg, a common jazz move is the "tritone sub".
Take that C7-F move. You should notice that the E note goes up to F as the Bb comes down to A. So far, so classical/traditional.
Supposing we also flatten the G in the C7 chord, so it goes down a half-step to F? OK: now we have a C7b5 chord: C E Gb Bb.
If you look at that chord from another angle, you'll see we could also call it Gb7b5 (Gb = root, Bb = 3, C = b5, E = b7). Same chord, two names.
But we could also use a complete Gb7 chord (Gb Bb Db E). Then we get 3 descending half-steps to the F chord (Gb-F, Bb-A, Db-C), and one ascending half-step (E-F). (The tradition is more about downward moves than upward ones.)
Sometimes in jazz, a C7 chord (going to F) will get entirely replaced with Gb7 (or Gb9). Sometimes the Gb7 comes just on the last beat or two (very common in blues). Other times you might just get one or two altered notes.

There are plenty of other tricks like this, but pretty much all of them involve the same idea: chromatic (half-step) voice-leading. If you bear that in mind, you can usually make up your own transitional chords, and if they sound OK it doesn't matter if you can't actually name them.

[Fruitloop]

It's good that you have the theoretic knowledge, now put it aside and start learning songs by ear. I had the same kind of situation for a long time and the problem was I wasn't using my ear nearly enough. After I started transcribing things everything became much clearer (still have a long way to go). It is the most valuable skill to have in my opinion. After you get a good feel for it you will notice brilliant new ideas and things pop into your playing like magic, because you have started to make a connection between the ear/brain/fingers.

All those great melodic players didn't get that good by studying just theory (of course most are good at that too), it's all in the ear.

[Mbroady]

Play with others that are better then u.

Or take lessons, perhaps in a group setting.

[jwing]

Start playing at at age 7 and devote your life to playing guitar. Start playing professionally as a teenager. Write some hit songs in your 20's so you can continue your music career without having to take on a "day job." Practice relentlessly.

[CrkrJim]

Rats, missed starting on time..........by 50 some years