A Simple Way To Play Over Any Chord Changes

in this lesson I'll show you the important first step to playing solos that outline the chord changes I'll show you how to Target the notes that really matter and how this applies to a variety of musical styles my name is Jack Roush welcome to my channel let's get into it [Music] the idea of playing over changes or playing through changes really gets talked about a lot in reference to playing Straight Ahead Jazz that's because it's necessary to play This Way in order to navigate through the complex chord changes of many Jazz standards but this approach to playing applies to a wide variety of musical styles and today we're going to go over a super simple approach to get you started to demonstrate I'm going to play over the popular Jazz standard all the things you are I'm just going to play the melody over the first 16 measures and you can hear how every note of the melody really fits perfectly inside the chord changes [Music] thank you [Music] okay so you may have noticed that every one of these notes in the melody fits the underlying chord that's because these notes are chord tones meaning each note in the melody is taken from the underlying chord and more specifically the notes in this melody are all the third of the chord right so for example when it plays F minor the melody plays the note a flat which is the minor third of an F minor chord as it goes to B flat minor the melody moves up to d flat which is the minor third of B flat minor and as it goes to E flat seven the melody plays the note G which is the major third of an E flat seven and it continues on throughout the progression there's the Third the third the third and then a third of C major right so this entire Melody is made up of just playing the third of the chord right and so this method of using the third of the chord to outline the sound of that chord can be really effective in creating these melodic phrases that really fit the chord changes and the big reason for that is the third is one of the main notes that really defines the quality of the chord right whether it's a major third or a minor third is going to determine whether that chord is a major chord or a minor chord so this is a really strong note to targeting your solos if you really want to outline the sounds of these chords right now this method can be taken and expanded upon and brought to a variety of different musical styles so in this next little playing example I'm just going to play over a very simple straightforward three chord 12 Bar Blues in the key of C with the chord C7 F7 and G7 and I'm going to do this exact same thing of targeting the third over each chord to outline the sound of these different chord changes and you can hear how this really brings the harmony of the chord changes into the soloing so we're not just pacing through minor Blues Licks or pentatonic licks but really addressing each chord and using this chord tone approach of playing the major third to have our solo really fit the chord progression [Music] foreign [Music] now let's try this over a blues with a few more chords thrown in this is more of a jazz style Blues with a 6-2-5-1 turnaround but I'm going to use this exact same approach of just targeting the third over each chord and this will give my solo a real melodic sound and it helps me as a player break out of these boxes and scale shapes that we get stuck in and I'm really addressing each chord individually and playing melodically the note that I want to Target to outline that chord okay so once again I'll put the chord chart up on the screen so you can follow along but check out how this sounds [Music] foreign [Music] okay so let's do one more example we're going to do something totally different we'll take a common pop song chord progression this is going to be the chord progression to the first section of the song Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder and the chords are C sharp minor F7 B7 to E major and I'm going to do the same approach of targeting the third over the chord and you can see how even in a you know not Jazz not in blues context something more straightforward common kind of Pop tune this approach is still incredibly effective to navigate over these chords and really play a solo that sounds like the underlying Harmony so check this out [Music] foreign foreign [Music] how to find these notes all over the fretboard all you have to really understand is that the third of the chord is always going to be the third note of that chord scale so if we're playing over an E major chord and we play an E major scale the third note of that scale the note G sharp is e Major's third it's the major third of e major right so then if we go to the chord c sharp minor right from our Isn't She Lovely progression and we play a C sharp minor scale we go up to the third note one two three the node is e so e is the minor third of C sharp minor if we go to F sharp we can go one two three the note a sharp is the third if F sharp and then we go to B we go one two three right up the scale we have the note D sharp right so there's all of our thirds right and the better we know the fretboard by practicing our arpeggios our Triads our scales or chord inversions all of that stuff the easier it is to find this stuff but for now let's just pick one spot locate all these notes and figure out how to navigate through these scores just in one spot so if I play the note E right here right the minor third of the C sharp minor shape then I just have to see where the nearest third is to the next chord so I can go right there for f f sharp right and then I can go here for my B chord and then there for my e so just by targeting that I can play right I can play this melodic little phrase that really outlines the sound of those chords and is giving me a real inside approach to soloing over changes right so I want to thank you guys for watching I hope this was helpful for you please check out the links down in the description join me on patreon subscribe if you haven't already um I really can't thank you guys enough for watching my channel and I hope this helps so happy practicing guys and I will catch you next time take care

Channel: Jack Ruch

Views: 215,237

Keywords:

Id: u5Htz4xdRQ0

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 25 2022