PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[Skon]

I haven't been playing jazz-like music for long....Before that I was doing death metal and things like that. Now I don't play that; I try to play the fusion. I don't have many technique based problems, but I am running into other problems.

See, I jam with this friend of mine, and he hates jazz so we just play hard rock type crap..So today we were doing solos for this one song we made. Very simple, safe, and boring chords to solo over..He wouldn't even let me add 7ths in there.....too "weird".

Anyway, I figured I could just do what I normally do anyway, and the vague, boring 1-3-5 chords would provide many possibilities...But I ended up stuck in this mixolydian cage with a smattering of pentatonic. I just couldn't find anything that sounded very interesting. Whenever I tried stuff I would do with more complex chords, it sounded horrible. Usually when I improvise along with guitar pro or band in a box, I can get some interesting ideas with melodic minor, but that sounded absolutely terrible over these basic chords. Even my sweeping sounded bad...none of the notes seemed to fit, for example an Emaj9 arpeggio over a regular E chord..just didn't work in the context of the song.

I also found it really difficult because I couldn't discern any real rhythm to what he was doing, and since it's just us and no drummer or anything, I couldn't get a real feel for the beat of it. Even a metronome would have helped...

Basically I'm wondering, should your accompanyment matter? Should I just be able to pull off great stuff despite uninspiring rhythm and chord arrangements? Should I be able to do jazz over simple rock chord progressions?

sorry for the extra long first post...

[Guest]

Contrary to popular jazz-head belief, traids are useful in jazz. Triads are not 'more boring' than the extended chords you find in jazz - just different.

In fact a triad allows much more freedom. A power chord allows even more. See it as a challenge - how to be creative outside your usual niche.

Shh...Peaceful/In a Silent Way from In a Silent Way by Miles Davis starts with an open E chord from John McLaughlin. The next five minutes are magical, just around that simple major chord.

Miles later plays a fantastic solo using little more than the blues scale. It is fantastic becasueof his sense of poise, and rythm.

In a Silent Way is a great set of riffs for jamming - might be a little odd for your friend.

As far as wakko harmoy goes,

When sololing over triads I tend to get interested in stacking chords on top of chords. Try superimposing triad arepeggio sequences over the triad. Depending on which arpeggio you use you will get a mixture of inside and oustside sounds:

Over a C major

Am/C = C6
Em/C = C7
Bb/C = C mixolydian
D/C = C lydian (lovely effect)
F#/C = Petroushka chord (stravinsky)

I love these sounds
E/C (augmented)
Ab/C (bluesy)

Mix the inside and outside tones to get tension and release.

If you are interested in outside playing, the lesson 'take this scale and shove it' on the site is good fun.

[Skon]

Yeah, I would have thought that such simple chords would give me a lot of freedom to play jazz stuff over, but the way the whole vibe of it was going , I couldn't really think of anything. I guess you have to be interested in the song you're playing to want to do something with it...

I still wonder why my sweep picked stuff didn't sound very good over the chords? I've never really been able to put them in a place where they sound very musical....I can pull them off just fine, but no matter what they don't work...lately I've been liking M9 and Maj9 arpeggios to do that with..I don't get it! they sound so neat on their own..


"Over a C major

Am/C = C6
Em/C = C7
Bb/C = C mixolydian
D/C = C lydian (lovely effect)
F#/C = Petroushka chord (stravinsky)

I love these sounds
E/C (augmented)
Ab/C (bluesy) "

Could you explain a bit how you came up with that? I'm not totally sure how some of those relate to the C major.

[Christian]

Bear in mind the key C major is not a scale, it is a key centre. It was years before I realised this, and when I did, I came alive.

You can play any note of the chromatic scale and it will relate to C major in someway, either 'closer' or 'further' depending on what tone it is. Here's how I hear it for a static major seventh chord:

Inside
1 3 5 7

A bit further
2 #4 #5

Further still
6 b3

Tenuous
b7 b2

Outside
4

Not the notes of the major scale at all, is it?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

But the major scale is a pleasing set of tones which includes notes of various distance from a tonic major chord - that's why it's so useful an musical. But the entire chromatic scale is fair game. If you aren't sure what I mean, I urge you to check out the following musicians:

Bach
Wagner
Stravinsky
Ravel
John Coltrane

You can construct polychords which include notes of various distance. These harmonies have varying levels of tension depending on the notes that are in them.

So, for example:
A min/C maj - relaxed
E maj /C maj - very bright, rather complex
F# maj/C maj - tense

Try these out on a piano - one chord in one hand, another different chord in the other.

Here are some people who loved/love these harmonies:

Stravinsky (Symphony of Psalms)
Francis Poulenc
Dave Brubeck
McCoy Tyner
Miles Davis (In a Silent Way)
Pat Metheny
John Scofield

[bluerag]

Two things

1. If you're serious about jazz you should get some literature, some theory books, Chris's PWYH is a good thing. Joe Pass wrote a few interesting strictly theoretical books. Maybe you could learn to read or improve your note reading.


2. What you did before was really scale oriented. I suggest that you start studying and analysing harmony more, the chords. Get some real/fake books and analyse the progressions. Learn to hear.

First I'd concentrate on chords and how they move into another, I'd try to avoid scale runs or playing with licks. Play arpeggios instead.

Then, when you understand and feel harmony better, you can come back to your scales.

[CreativeUsername]

Some of my thoughts:
If your friend's playing sucked it's not going to do you any good. If his rhythm really sucks, try tapping your foot to the beat really loudly and hopefully he will fall in with it. Otherwise find someone else to play with.

Try listening to other bands using jazz ideas in a metal context. From the top of my head, I suggest Marty Friedman in Megadeth, Meshuggah and Atheist. They all use more than just minor pentatonics in their playing over E5 riffs.

Personally, I think major modes and arpeggios are not very demonic sounding played on their own, so you might find them tricky to use effectively in a metal song. Remember though that you can stick to playing in a minor key but still use the major arpeggios from that key. For example, if you're playing on an E5 chord, you can go all out for awhile with G major, but you're going to want to come back to Em after some time.

Remember also that most of the good metal guitarists in the past have preferred classical sounds to jazz sounds, so you might want to look into classical music (ie. Yngwie style) before attempting jazz.

If you want to get weird, I suggest going further than 7th chords. These will probably sound more like Duke Ellington than metal. Try stacking up horrible intervals, like just seconds or tritones. The more crazy the better. The classic, innane, but cool metal arpeggio is this (in tab):
x x 15 16 17 18

[alfonso]

Skon,
Your friend sounds like one of my friends that I used to jam with awhile back, he hated jazz as well. The truth was he didn't want to learn anything new, if he played jazz he would have to learn new chord inversions, play lead with different phrasing than he was used to etc. I gave him the boot, plain and simple we were on different pages in our music. So I now play with other jazzers, and if nobody is around I will record some jazz standards, learn the melody lines and start pivoting off of the melody, that's normally how I become able to begin improvising over songs or chord changes. Also, I started with twelve bar blues, yes the plain old I IV V, gives ya alot of ideas especially if you start using the mixolydian scale and change with the changes. hope this helps...

[Skon]