In this third lesson in the series with the work of Larry Coryell we want to look at his use of extra notes, chromatic notes or notes that are outside of the key. You remember in our first lesson we talked about the blues we talked about C7, F7 and G7 chords and then we went on to look at how we could use the minor Pentatonic on C with the major third E. We also looked at how you could use the minor Pentatonic on A and how those scales work effectively with the chord progression.

We also looked at how Larry Coryell took the three basic chords in the blues and took them in a jazz direction by putting extra chords in there, using those extra kinds of sounds. In this jazz direction he starts to introduce and use chromatic notes or notes which are outside of the key and in this melody which he has kindly written out for us, he shows us in the first twelve bars how he can introduce just one new note into the first phrase. He starts on C7 as usual then F7, then plays the phrase which uses notes from a standard A minor scale. So if we look at those notes and listen to the phrase we can see that he added just one extra note that is the Eb, and only does it very briefly, as a trill. He also uses the Eb an octave lower on the fifth string as a slide onto the E. Nothing very startling about that, but if we are going to play a phrase in the style of Larry Coryell based on that idea we would play several similar phrases. There are many different combinations. So with one extra note we can learn a lot about how he approached playing the blues.

In the second half of his first twelve bars he has a more complicated chord progression. He goes through C7, F7 Emi7b5 A7#5 then when goes into the D minor he starts with the note C# which is just a movement by semitone onto the D. The C# is not accented, it is off the beat, and moves onto the beat. The C# is of course outside of the key.

On the top part of the phrase he moves by semitone from E to G. He introduces a new note the F#, and when he goes to the first string plays an upward moving line moving in semitones from A to C through another new note the Bb. That gives us then some new notes to use in the blues pattern. Try some combinations of these notes.

Then as he comes down the scale he uses the Blues scale going down through Bb, which we had passed briefly through on the way up but here it is accented. The next new note is the Gb played as a trill then continues down through Eb, and Bb. Note the way he slides from Eb to E and finishes the phrase on a Bb.

If we want to create our own phrases in this style we should use the same notes in a different order. Try as many different combinations of these notes, interspersing them with the chords in the same rhythm and groove as the blues patterns we have already played.

In the second twelve-bar melody he takes us through the more complicated chord substitutions through to bar 17 then over the F9th in that bar we can see that he used a two-octave diminished scale starting on B with an extra two chromatic notes on the top, C and C# leaping up to the high E. The diminished scale is a useful connecting scale moving semitone, whole tone semitone whole tone etc. Try playing something similar. You could break up the diminished scale into shorter fragments, put a chord in between the two fragments, change the rhythm and vary the note order.
On the way down this phrase Coryell uses a different set of notes, basically just an ordinary A minor pattern, but adds a new note, the C# on the third string. The C# is accented and matches the A7#5 chord in the harmony. It has a very strong, telling kind of sound in this context.

There is a stylistic feature that Coryell does at the end of this phrase. He does this kind of leap. Often in jazz phrasing we hear these short jumping notes. In the jazz of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s the style is known as bebop and you often hear these phrases finish with a sudden leap downward or sometimes upwards.

So if we want to play in the style of Coryell we could use the diminished scale, an ordinary A minor pattern descending but with an added, accented C# and a jumping Bebop ending. See how many times you apply these stylistic techniques to create new melodies. Remember also to use the Eb added to the A minor scale, the E, F, F# G figure and A Bb B C figures moving by semitone, the descending blues scale with a major third E natural as well.

At the end of this third lesson we see the picture starting to emerge of how Coryell’s approach works. Do not just copy the notes, but copy the techniques, while creating your own new note choices. Good luck. Stay in the groove and make it sound good.

Chord Substitution

The Blues Larry Coryell: Lesson 2:
Chord Substitution

Lesson Two

In this second lesson we are looking at the guitar-playing of Larry Coryell (1943-2017). In a book called Jazz Guitar he showed us how he approached the art of playing smooth jazz chord progressions on the guitar using a twelve-bar blues sequence like we looked at in Lesson one.

Remember that musicians do not use these chords in jazz alone. We use them in all styles of music even though we are basing today’s lesson around a jazz style. The second thing is that they do not belong to Larry Coryell or anyone. They evolved over a period of time so we can hear precedents in the European orchestral work of the Italian Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), French musician Erik Satie (1866-1925), George Gershwin (1898-1937) and Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and many others.

Still Coryell had his own way of doing things on the guitar and that is what we are looking at here.
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Of course you need to make it sound good so just playing mechanically does not work. Remember as long you can feel the groove and it sounds good then fine.

So to warm up play a twelve bar blues using the chord sequence from lesson one and combine it with notes from the Minor Pentatonic in A.

The second part of this lesson then is about chord substitution.

We often use four main techniques of what they call substitution. Instead of just staying on one chord for a whole bar we use other chords to add more movement to the musical texture, with the aim of creating a smooth or sometimes surprising transition from chord to chord. There are four well-known ways of doing chord substitution:
Chord extension,
Moving by bass line,
Approaching chords by a semitone above or below, and
Using turnarounds.

Turnarounds

Turnarounds are often used like in the last two bars of blues. Instead of C to G, we could use four chords C Am Dm7 G7 like Stand By Me. There are many variations on turnarounds.

Semitone Approach

Finally we can approach any chord by a semitone above or a semitone below. Therefore, instead of for example, Dmi7 to G7to C we could play Dmi Ab7 down to G7. Or Dmi7 to Db7 to C. Again there are many ways to do this. Listen to these substitutions.
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We could play our A minor pentatonic with this as well. Try it.

This lesson covered the use of the minor pentatonic three semitones below and a brief look at chord substitution. Please do more with this material than just copy it. Experiment with it and see how you can continue to find new ways to apply these techniques to make new sounds every time you play.

Remember music is best when we share it. Good luck. Stay in the groove and make it sound good.

Guitar-players often use riffs, a riff is a repeating pattern, a little like a bass-player would play.
You could combine the riff with the chord progression and that would give you something like:
....

You could then include chords, a melody using the pentatonic scale and some riffs, still following the same twelve-bar pattern.


Well this short lesson should be useful to you just to give you a brief introduction to the blues on guitar. If you already know how to do this, well good, but if you think you need to brush up on some of these techniques you could rewind the video, pause at any point, and check out the detail.

Finally I should say that making music is best when you share with it with other people so while it is good to learn as many skills as you can, team up with some other musicians and make music together. You will find that you learn much better that way. So good luck, play every day, stay in the groove and make it sound good.