Playing blues changes.

octatonic · August 2023

EricTheWeary said:

An early exercise I give students about playing over the V chord on bar 8 is to bend up from F# to the G# (2nd string 7th fret 3rd finger) and then back to the F# and then down to the E (2nd string 5th fret, 1st finger), then slide the whole thing down 2 frets to play over the IV chord and play a similar line but instead of bending up a tone just bend up a semitone (from E to F)

I'll record a version of this a bit later and post it.
You can clearly hear the chord change outlined just playing single notes.

Now do it again but this time instead of bending From F# to G# just bend up to G.
Technically you are playing a dissonant note- the G over the the E7 but that tension is a big part of playing blues and it can sound good, esp if you slightly overbend the G.

Jeepers, devil is in the detail there as it the bending exercise sounded like arse. BUT you are using an E7 chord rather than Em7 as I’d assumed/ not read properly. Aha! Well, I suppose it proves the importance of target notes. And reading stuff.

An exercise:
Here is a diagram of 4 notes placed on the fretboard.
Playing them ascending might be a way to start a blues solo, especially if you bend D up at the end to Eb.

Figure out a few lines that you like using just those 4 notes.
Try to come up with 5-10 variations.

(You could also try to find other places on the fingerboard to play them in different octaves.)

The question I have for people is if you play a line using just these notes over the I chord in a minor blues in A how many of these 4 notes are target notes of the I chord?

To know this you need to know what are the notes of Am7, what are the scale degrees and to know what scale degrees are target notes (I said it on the post on the first page).

You have root, third and dominant or minor seventh (or seventh, root and third as you ascend).

Second thing to consider.
What relationship do these 4 notes have to the IV chord (Dm7) in our A minor blues?

fourth, fifth, seventh, root/octave.

Final question for this post.
What target notes do the I and IV chord have in common, if any?

The third in A minor is the same note as the seventh in D minor.

Thanks for responding.
I wasn't sure if people were still with me.

'Jeepers, devil is in the detail there as it the bending exercise sounded like arse. BUT you are using an E7 chord rather than Em7 as I’d assumed/ not read properly. Aha! Well, I suppose it proves the importance of target notes. And reading stuff. '

Cool
How did you find it otherwise?

EricTheWeary · August 2023

octatonic said:

EricTheWeary said:

An early exercise I give students about playing over the V chord on bar 8 is to bend up from F# to the G# (2nd string 7th fret 3rd finger) and then back to the F# and then down to the E (2nd string 5th fret, 1st finger), then slide the whole thing down 2 frets to play over the IV chord and play a similar line but instead of bending up a tone just bend up a semitone (from E to F)

I'll record a version of this a bit later and post it.
You can clearly hear the chord change outlined just playing single notes.

Now do it again but this time instead of bending From F# to G# just bend up to G.
Technically you are playing a dissonant note- the G over the the E7 but that tension is a big part of playing blues and it can sound good, esp if you slightly overbend the G.

Jeepers, devil is in the detail there as it the bending exercise sounded like arse. BUT you are using an E7 chord rather than Em7 as I’d assumed/ not read properly. Aha! Well, I suppose it proves the importance of target notes. And reading stuff.

An exercise:
Here is a diagram of 4 notes placed on the fretboard.
Playing them ascending might be a way to start a blues solo, especially if you bend D up at the end to Eb.

Figure out a few lines that you like using just those 4 notes.
Try to come up with 5-10 variations.

(You could also try to find other places on the fingerboard to play them in different octaves.)

The question I have for people is if you play a line using just these notes over the I chord in a minor blues in A how many of these 4 notes are target notes of the I chord?

To know this you need to know what are the notes of Am7, what are the scale degrees and to know what scale degrees are target notes (I said it on the post on the first page).

You have root, third and dominant or minor seventh (or seventh, root and third as you ascend).

Second thing to consider.
What relationship do these 4 notes have to the IV chord (Dm7) in our A minor blues?

fourth, fifth, seventh, root/octave.

Final question for this post.
What target notes do the I and IV chord have in common, if any?

The third in A minor is the same note as the seventh in D minor.

Thanks for responding.
I wasn't sure if people were still with me.

'Jeepers, devil is in the detail there as it the bending exercise sounded like arse. BUT you are using an E7 chord rather than Em7 as I’d assumed/ not read properly. Aha! Well, I suppose it proves the importance of target notes. And reading stuff. '

Cool
How did you find it otherwise?

All good. More of a revisit than anything new so far but playing over a backing track trying to use mostly target notes has an instant musicality to it, its not developing a structured solo as such but if you were given 12 bars to play over in a song it would create something that sounded right.

octatonic · August 2023

OK, here is a small exercise to get people playing the notes of the progression as single notes (arpeggios).

If you play them ascending and descending then it turns into a 6 note pattern, which with a triplet feel will fit nicely.
It might take a little while to get them under the fingers.
When moving from C to E on the Am7 arpeggio roll your first finger and roll with your 3rd finger when moving from E to G# on the E7 chord.

If it is hard to change positions then SLOOOOOOOW DOWN.

I like teaching these arpeggio fragments, rather than using all 6 strings because people can learn them easier and you can start moving about.
There is another version of the E7 arpeggio I will post later and another version of all of them starting on the lower strings.

Something to think about whilst you are doing it.

Hopefully people should know the A minor pentatonic scale shapes.
Have a look at the arpeggios and think about what notes are in common for each chord with that scale and which ones are not.
It should be fairly obvious on the Am7 and Dm7.

Any questions, please ask.

Stavros · August 2023

EricTheWeary said:

An early exercise I give students about playing over the V chord on bar 8 is to bend up from F# to the G# (2nd string 7th fret 3rd finger) and then back to the F# and then down to the E (2nd string 5th fret, 1st finger), then slide the whole thing down 2 frets to play over the IV chord and play a similar line but instead of bending up a tone just bend up a semitone (from E to F)

I'll record a version of this a bit later and post it.
You can clearly hear the chord change outlined just playing single notes.

Now do it again but this time instead of bending From F# to G# just bend up to G.
Technically you are playing a dissonant note- the G over the the E7 but that tension is a big part of playing blues and it can sound good, esp if you slightly overbend the G.

Jeepers, devil is in the detail there as it the bending exercise sounded like arse. BUT you are using an E7 chord rather than Em7 as I’d assumed/ not read properly. Aha! Well, I suppose it proves the importance of target notes. And reading stuff.

Ah, that explains it - I made the same mistake this morning, and it did sound rubbish which I thought was my crappy bending technique. Will have another go tomorrow and then get onto the other stuff.

Thanks James @octatonic for doing this, just what I needed to get me going again.

Roland · August 2023

octatonic said:

Thanks for responding. I wasn't sure if people were still with me.

Don’t worry about that. You will have lots of silent readers. It’s one of the things we notice with build threads too.

Cranky · August 2023

octatonic said:

Paul_C said:

octatonic said:

In my longer post above what I am trying to illustrate is the mindset of playing changes more than anything.

If you have only ever noodled over a progression with the minor pentatonic you might find you are having to do a lot more thinking.
It will get easier.

In the early stages you may have to actively think about what the chord tones//target notes are for each chord.
Once you've been doing it for a while you will just know it- like you do the alphabet which allows you to read this text as complete sentences with meaning.

Y O U D O N T H A V E TO R E A D E A C H L E T T E R one by one.

You get me?

I watched a YouTube video about playing where it was suggested that rather than playing random notes from a scale like single letters from an alphabet it would be better to learn and put together phrases/licks which would better represent words.

I haven't done anything with that statement yet, but I do like the idea of it.

This is an interesting point .

And yes, learning licks is an essential part of the process but with a HUUUUGE caveat which should be printed in 50 ft high neon letters, which is this:

Learning licks by rote without understanding how they fit into the chord, chord progression and key is only half the job,
It is a bit like learning to speak without learning to read- although I am sure someone will object to that phrasing.

This is to distinguish between 'copping licks' and 'transcribing'.
The former is a form of imitation, a sort of musical echolalia.
There is nothing wrong with it in principle but taking the next step to understand what the lick is doing allows you to do several things.
Firstly you can repurpose it in different contexts, over different chords.

In the long post on the first page I say this:

'An early exercise I give students about playing over the V chord on bar 8 is to bend up from F# to the G# (2nd string 7th fret 3rd finger) and then back to the F# and then down to the E (2nd string 5th fret, 1st finger), then slide the whole thing down 2 frets to play over the IV chord and play a similar line but instead of bending up a tone just bend up a semitone (from E to F)'

That is what I am doing there (and why I chose it).
You have a tone bend over the (V) dominant chord and then a semitone bend over the (IV) minor 7 chord, so that the same melodic/rhythmic pattern can be repurposed but still fit into the key.

When people just cop licks they sometimes don't understand how a line fits harmonically and then when they reuse them in the wrong context they sound... wrong.

It also helps fill in your knowledge of harmony, scales and the fretboard.

An exercise:
Here is a diagram of 4 notes placed on the fretboard.
Playing them ascending might be a way to start a blues solo, especially if you bend D up at the end to Eb.

Figure out a few lines that you like using just those 4 notes.
Try to come up with 5-10 variations.

(You could also try to find other places on the fingerboard to play them in different octaves.)

The question I have for people is if you play a line using just these notes over the I chord in a minor blues in A how many of these 4 notes are target notes of the I chord?

To know this you need to know what are the notes of Am7, what are the scale degrees and to know what scale degrees are target notes (I said it on the post on the first page).

Do that and I'll comment a bit later on it.

Second thing to consider.
What relationship do these 4 notes have to the IV chord (Dm7) in our A minor blues?

You should hopefully all have access to a backing track (if not google there are thousands out there) or create yourself a backing track of a minor blues and play lines using just these 4 notes over the I and then the IV chord.

Repeating an almost identical line over the I and IV chord is a great way to establish a melodic pattern that the audience can hook into. I think of it as 'blues cliche #1'. The difference between playing them over the I or IV chord is, at this stage, where you land your phrase. Think back to target notes, each chord has different notes that you want to land on so you alter your phrase slightly to land on a target note specific to each chord.

Final question for this post.
What target notes do the I and IV chord have in common, if any?

I just wanted to venture a guess for this last question.

The minor 3rd of i is the dominant 7 of iv.

The bent D is interesting because you’re either playing with the A minor’s flat 5 or natural 5 depending on the bend. You could be descending down to the root of D minor, or you could descend down into the minor 3rd of A (aka the C). Seems like you could also strategically play with the Am’s flat 5 via some walk up into the Dm’s minor 3rd (aka the F). So that’s an opportunity for a chromatic walk up from D to F, but I don’t know how that would actually sound.

paulnb57 · August 2023

@octatonic ;Great idea, following

Acdeezee86 · August 2023

@octatonic this is a great thread - definitely following even if as the "silent reader" type

EricTheWeary · August 2023

octatonic said:

OK, here is a small exercise to get people playing the notes of the progression as single notes (arpeggios).

If you play them ascending and descending then it turns into a 6 note pattern, which with a triplet feel will fit nicely.
It might take a little while to get them under the fingers.
When moving from C to E on the Am7 arpeggio roll your first finger and roll with your 3rd finger when moving from E to G# on the E7 chord.

If it is hard to change positions then SLOOOOOOOW DOWN.

I like teaching these arpeggio fragments, rather than using all 6 strings because people can learn them easier and you can start moving about.
There is another version of the E7 arpeggio I will post later and another version of all of them starting on the lower strings.

Something to think about whilst you are doing it.

Hopefully people should know the A minor pentatonic scale shapes.
Have a look at the arpeggios and think about what notes are in common for each chord with that scale and which ones are not.
It should be fairly obvious on the Am7 and Dm7.

Any questions, please ask.

The first three notes of the Dm7 arpeggio are the Otis Rush/ Clapton shape that I like to sprinkle liberally about. Move it up and down the neck, let the notes ring out and add gentle vibrato to pretend you are on the south side of Chicago in 1959.

I was sort of jumping to the E shape so I then started to put in a little slide to connect from the Am. Tend to end up using three fingers on the E shape doing that although two with the roll are fine otherwise.

octatonic · August 2023

Thanks chaps.

I've got a busy day today so might not post but should tomorrow.

Airmiles · August 2023

@octatonic - "thank you" wouldn't do this justice - I'd been groping in a similar direction myself but without the knowledge to get it right.

One question though - what software are you using for the fretboard diagrams? Various freeware I tried was... laborious.

guitarjack66 · August 2023

The terminology gets me more confused than the applied theory,once I am taught it of course. I also find written explanations more difficult to take in than visual ones. I don't even understand why it's called playing 'over' the changes as this evokes two people playing with one playing the actual chords and another playing riffs or individual notes or even double stops.

Brad · August 2023

guitarjack66 said:

The terminology gets me more confused than the applied theory,once I am taught it of course. I also find written explanations more difficult to take in than visual ones. I don't even understand why it's called playing 'over' the changes as this evokes two people playing with one playing the actual chords and another playing riffs or individual notes or even double stops.

In a nutshell, it's to do with acknowledging the harmony in ones melodic playing. The concept being that if I were to take a solo, without any accompaniment, could you still hear that I'm playing say, the 12 bar blues? If you can, then I'd be "playing the changes".

There's a bit of conjecture and possibly misunderstanding between what playing "over" the changes and what playing "through" the changes means.

So to take the minor blues example used as per the starting point in this thread:

1. Playing over the changes - playing things each chord at a time. An Am thing on Am, a Dm thing on Dm and an E7 thing for E7. It can also be loosely seen as kind of completely disregarding the chords somewhat, so just playing an Am type scale over the whole progression.

2. Playing through the changes - Is taking the above point, but playing smoothly between the chord changes so there are seamless connections. This doesn't need to be a constant stream of notes, it can be playing a short phrase in the final two beats of Am that connects smoothly into the sound of either the Dm or E7 (or any chord for that matter). Targeting chord tones is key to this. The point being that the melodic idea doesn't get interrupted by the chord "change", we play "through" them.

I'm not saying either is better than the other, the greatest improvisors do all of it.

Ddigger · August 2023

Airmiles said:

@octatonic - "thank you" wouldn't do this justice - I'd been groping in a similar direction myself but without the knowledge to get it right.

One question though - what software are you using for the fretboard diagrams? Various freeware I tried was... laborious.

The man himself can confirm, but is looks like the "Neck Diagrams 2" software.
https://www.neckdiagrams.com/

octatonic · August 2023

Yes it is neck diagrams.

Sorry I’ve been absent, I’ve been unwell. I’ll get back on it as soon as I can.

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Playing blues changes.

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