======================

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A
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Am7

D7

Gmaj7

1

1

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4

ONE WAY TO DEVELOP A UNIQUE SOLOING
voice is to invent your own scales. You can use them for
improvising, honing your chops, learning the fretboard,
and warming up your ears and fingers.

S

Sc

ca

alle

e c

co

on

nssttrru

uc

cttiio

on

n.. When building a scale, use at least

five notes. (Your creation will sound more like a lick than
a scale with less than five tones.) For instance, E

Ex

x.. 1

1 is

a seven-note scale I created in the key of

A. Its formula

is root, b3, n3, b5, n5, b7, and n7. I’ve always liked the

“Melodies, chords, and scales are all part of my music, but they are not the most important things.” —Egberto Gismonti, Nov. ’78 GP

1 4 0

GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999

=======================

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(

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============

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5

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R 3 3 5 5 7 7 R

b n b

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n

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============

=

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ö

5

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7

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b

n

b b

b b

b

n

n

1

3

1

2

2 1

3

3

2

1

Am7 or A7

B Y J A N E G E T T E R

Ex. 1

Ex. 2

Ex. 3

Ex. 4

Creating Scales

sound of playing unexpected passing tones
against the background harmony. In this
case, playing a b3 over a dominant 7 (1, 3,
5, b7), a n3 over a minor chord (1, b3, 5), and
n7 over a dominant 7 or a minor 7 (1, b3,
5, b7) produces a tart minor second be-
tween the melody and its closest chord
tone. For a little more edge, I included a b5
in this scale.

P

Plla

ay

yiin

ng

g p

pa

atttte

errn

nss.. I like to familiarize my-

self with a new scale by playing patterns,
as in E

Ex

x.. 2

2. Once you’ve mastered the as-

cending pattern, play it descending as well.

Use alternate picking throughout. For ac-
curacy, keep time with a metronome. Start
slow, then gradually increase the tempo.

This scale lets you craft a line that works

over

Am7 or A7 (E

Ex

x.. 3

3). I use this scale main-

ly on single-chord vamps, but it’s also useful
for giving a more “out” sound to standard
progressions, such as E

Ex

x.. 4

4’s Am7-D7-Gmaj7

(IIm7-V7-Imaj7) cadence.

T

Tiip

pss.. After you’ve forged a scale of your

own:

• Play the scale tones ascending and de-

scending in sequence.

• Set up melodic patterns to help syn-

chronize your ears and fingers.

• Experiment with your scale over dif-

ferent chords—don’t be afraid to try uncon-
ventional combinations. g

New Yorker Jane Getter has performed

and recorded with many stellar jazz mu-
sicians, including organist Jack McDuff,
trombonist Slide Hampton, violinist Michal
Urbank, and pianists Richie Bierach and
Kenny Barron. Hear Getter burn on her
new solo album,

Jane [Lipstick Records].

OFFERING TENSION AND RESOLUTION,
the V7-I cadence is an essential harmonic move
in traditional jazz. When soloing over the V7,
it’s fun to increase a dominant-7th chord’s in-
herent tension by including altered tones in
your lines. This way, the resolution to I is even
more pronounced.

Here are three ideas for spicing up the dom-

inant-7th portion of a V7-I cadence. We’ll ex-
plore these techniques in the key of

C, using

G7 (V7) and Cmaj7 (Imaj7) as the background
harmony. Once you’ve mastered each line, be

sure to transpose it to other keys. To sharpen
your picking chops, play these examples using
all downstrokes, then all upstrokes, and finally
with strict alternate picking.

W

Wh

ho

olle

e--tto

on

ne

e ssp

piic

ce

e.. In E

Ex

x.. 1

1, play a descend-

ing

G whole-tone scale (G, A, B, Db, Eb, F) against

G7. We start on the G7’s 3 (B) and end with a C
arpeggio resolving to

Cmaj7’s root. This whole-

tone scale includes three V7 chord tones (root,
3, and b7), two altered tones (b5 and #5), and
one extension (9).

H

Ha

allff--w

wh

ho

olle

e m

mo

ottiio

on

nss.. E

Ex

x.. 2

2 features a de-

scending

G altered scale (G, Ab, Bb, Bn, Db, Dn,

E, F). Notice how this scale consists of alternating
half- and whole-steps. Also called a half-whole
scale, the altered scale includes all four V7 chord
tones (root, 3, 5, b7), three altered tones (b5, b9,
and #9), and one extension (13).

A

Au

ug

gm

me

en

ntte

ed

d ffrre

ettttiin

ng

g.. Consisting of an as-

cending augmented pattern that repeats every
whole-step, E

Ex

x.. 3

3 uses notes from a

G whole-

tone scale. Start on

Db—G7’s b5—and work your

way up the neck using a fixed grip, as shown.

These examples briefly take you outside the

key. Try generating your own lines from whole-
tone and altered scales. With a little effort, you
can stretch your fingers

and ears. g

Greg Cooper has studied with Ted Greene,

Jimmy Wyble, and Phil Upchurch. Cooper per-
forms and teaches in the San Francisco area.

1 4 2

GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999

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Cmaj7

G7 alt

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==================

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Cmaj7

öb

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G7 alt

Cmaj7

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11

9

12

10

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8

7

10

B Y G R E G C O O P E R

Ex. 2

Ex. 1

Ex. 3

Nailing the V7

Send us your candidate for Lick of the Month

(preferably notated

and on cassette), along with

a brief explanation of why it’s cool and how to

play it. If we select your offering, you’ll get a funky

custom T-shirt that’s available

only to Lick of the

Month club members. Mail your entry to Lick

of the Month,

Guitar Player, 411 Borel Ave. #100,

San Mateo, CA 94402. Include your name, ad-

dress, and phone number. Materials won’t be re-

turned, and please don’t call the office to check

the status of your submission. You’ll get your shirt

if your lick is chosen.

==================================

T
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= 108-138

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sim.

Z I P P Y T R I P L E T S

L i c k

o f

t h e

M o n t h

OUR AUGUST LICK COMES FROM
Jason Rosen of Remich, Luxembourg. He
writes, “This lick is cool because it will
help you develop speed picking. Carefully
follow the picking indications—play each

triplet using downstroke, downstroke,
upstroke. For extra drive, palm-mute the
sixth and fifth strings, and accent the first
note in each beat.”

The consecutive downstrokes occur

when you play adjacent strings. This
economy of motion promotes clean,
quick picking. The repeating four-bar
phrase sounds great with some slow, res-
onant flange. g

“I PLUCK STRINGS USING A COMBINATION OF
fingertip and fingernail. Contrary to the way traditional classi-
cal guitar is taught, speed can be gained when the string is
picked

without follow through. I can play much faster using

this picking technique.

“I play the same guitar in concert as in the studio. It was

made in 1969 by Mario Martello of Concord, California. It’s a
classical guitar with a piece of plastic on the top, as if it were a
flamenco guitar. Sometimes I tune my sixth string to

D and

my fifth string to

G. For some tunes, I tune my sixth string to

F, or my fifth to G and my first to D.

“In 1971, I recorded

Shebaba, an album inspired by the

folk music of Brazil—songs I heard played in the street fairs. I
played the ‘lutar,’ which is my own name for the instrument I
designed based on an old Brazilian folk instrument called the
alaude. The alaude has ten strings grouped in five sets of dou-
ble strings. My lutar has 13 strings—six sets of double strings
and a single string.” g

Bola Sete on
Fingerpicking
& Hybrid
Instruments

F L A S H B A C K :

A P R I L ’6 7 & J U L Y ’ 7 4

AUGUST 1999 GUITAR PLAYER

1 4 3

“Your enthusiasm can frequently get to the point where you’re overpowering the person you’re playing with.” —David Bromberg, July ’76 GP

1 4 4

GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999

STARTING WITH THE JAN.
’99 issue, we’ve explored a variety
of topics (many of which were
prompted by readers’ suggestions),
including playing major scales,
mapping triads, linking arpeggios,
morphing major-7th chords, and
generating open voicings. This
time, thanks to Brock Whatley of
Longview, Texas, we’ll examine a
few easy ways to spice up the har-
mony in a 12-bar blues progres-
sion. He writes, “I’d like to see you
cover harmony and progressions.
Can you help us build bluesy har-
mony that sounds a little jazzy?”

There are many ways to add

chords to a blues without spoiling
its essential character. This lesson’s
12-bar blues in

F (E

Ex

x.. 1

1) incorpo-

rates three techniques that you can
use individually or in combination.

First, let’s agree on the struc-

ture of a standard 12-bar blues. It

helps to think of a blues progres-
sion as composed of three sets of
four-bar phrases. Perhaps the most
popular scheme looks like this:

I7-IV7-I7-I7
IV7-IV7-I7-I7
V7-IV7-I7-V7
So far, so good. Now let’s hot-

rod this harmony.

T

Th

he

e ##IIV

Vd

diim

m7

7 tto

o II7

7 m

mo

ov

ve

e.. To

add cool color to a IV7, simply
raise its root a half-step. This cre-
ates a diminished-7th passing
chord that works nicely to draw
the ear back to the I7. The #IVdim7
appears twice in this progres-
sion—in the second half of bar 2
and throughout bar 6.

T

Th

he

e IIIIm

m7

7--V

V7

7 tto

o IIV

V7

7 m

mo

ov

ve

e.. This

technique fills bar 4—normally the
second of two I7 measures—with
a splash of tension and release. Hey,
why play

F7 for two bars? Boring!

The key here, as with most har-

monic substitutions, is to look
ahead to the immediate destina-

tion. By working

backward from

this arrival point, you can construct

B A C K T R A C K

==================================

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B 7(IV7)

B°7

F7(I7)

Cm7

F7

b

B 7(IV7)

b

B°7

8

8

7

7

6

6

6

7

7

1

1

2

8

8

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6

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1

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Easy swing

==================================

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(

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www

wwb

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D7(VI7)

G7(II7)

C7(V7)

F7(I7)

C7(V7)

2

1

1

5

5

4

4

3

3

3

3

2

2

1

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Jazzin’ the Blues

B Y A N D Y E L L I S

C

G

F

D

B

b

A

E

b

E

A

b

B

D

b

G

b

F

#

4

ths

5

ths

Ex. 1

The Cycle Chart

“You’ve got to be a quick thinker and drop in a hot lick where it’s needed.” —Cornell Dupree on session work, June ’76 GP

AUGUST 1999 GUITAR PLAYER

1 4 5

an intriguing path into the target
chord. In this case, the target is
bar 5’s IV7 or

Bb7. If we momen-

tarily treat the chord root—Bb—
as a I, we can call on a classic
cadence to lead us to this tem-
porary tonic. This cadence is
IIm7-V7-I, a move that’s integral
to swing, bebop, Dixieland, and
all other forms of traditional jazz.
Here’s a foolproof way to quickly
determine the IIm7-V7-I ca-
dence in any key:

• On the cycle of fourths

and fifths chart (this handy tool
is often simply called “the cycle
chart”), locate the root for the
target I chord. In this instance,
that’s

Bb—remember?

• From this target note,

jump two “clicks” clockwise.

• Now move counterclock-

wise back to the target, stop-
ping at each tone along the way.
This establishes the root mo-

tion for our IIm7-V7-I cadence.
Here, we’re moving from

C to

F to Bb.

• Now harmonize these

notes: The “two clicks” note
hosts a minor 7, the “one click”
note hosts a dominant 7, and
the last note is our destina-
tion—the I chord. In our pro-
gression, this translates to

Cm7,

F7, and Bb.

Once you arrive at

Bb, how-

ever, play the chord as a IV7
and continue with the progres-
sion. As you recall, the

Bb was

only a

temporary tonic. In the

context of this 12-bar blues,

Bb

is the root of our subdominant
chord, the IV7. Therefore,
rather than stopping at

Bb, we

keep trucking toward the real
tonic—

F7.

With practice, you’ll be able

to precede any IV7 with its own
IIm7-V7. Use this move in bar 5,

and always check your roots
against the cycle chart.

B

Ba

ac

ck

kc

cy

yc

clliin

ng

g tto

o II7

7.. Our third

technique also involves the cy-
cle chart. The game here is to
construct an alternative har-
monic pathway to bar 11’s I7.
Why? By the time we’ve reached
the end of a standard 12-bar
blues, we’ve heard the I7 and
IV7 an awful lot. New sounds
are suddenly welcome. Here’s
the recipe:

• On the cycle chart, find the

root for bar 11’s I7 chord. That’s
F, in this instance.

• From this target note (

F),

jump three clicks clockwise.

• Next move counterclock-

wise back to the target note, vis-
iting every tone along the way
(

D, G, C, F). Make each note the

root of a dominant 7. For our
blues in

F, this yields D7, G7,

C7, and F7.

• Plug these dominant 7s

into the progression by playing
one per measure. We know bar
11 is the destination I7 (

F7), so

that gives us bars 8, 9, and 10 to
fill with the other three chords—
D7, G7, and C7.

There are several ways aca-

demics analyze the harmony
we just created—in fact, some
theory books devote chapters
to the subject—but the simplest
approach is to visualize the root
motion using the cycle chart. To
reach the I7, we’re ratcheting
backwards in fourths—hence
the term “backcycling.”

U

Usse

e iitt o

orr llo

osse

e iitt.. To

own

these three techniques, you
need to apply them to many
songs. It won’t take long, how-
ever, to begin to hear these
changes, especially if you
record yourself playing them in
different keys. g