Larry Coryell Blues in C Jazz Guitar Lesson

Larry Coryell Blues in C Jazz Guitar Lesson We’ve looked at how to play in terms of scales and how to think in terms of arpeggios and modes and intervals. Now, I’m going to get more into intervals and more into use of scales by looking at simple song forms like a Blues. I'm going to take a Blues in C and start easy. And look at it. It’s a simple Blues but is not house of the rising sun type of a chord music which is basically full chords down here in the first position. We’re moving all around and I’m never really quite sure where it’s going to move to because I’m using substitutions. The first chord of any Blues in the key of C is usually going to be a C. Now, we can go from the C vanilla major chord into like at seventh chord, but we want to get some movement. We can keep the same chord but get a little movement in the base. I’m going from C in the base of sixth string and I’m going to go down to F# diminished and now some passing chords. A flat minor seven to G minor 7, again, passing through our C#7 to C7, and I’m even more and more if we want, let me see. Fret resting on F. There’s another version of F, this is literally one and five, F and C over A. So, at the beginning of whatever it is, the fourth chord, F-sharp diminished and remember I said diminished were symmetrical, you can even use a one plus two thing but that’s too complicated at this point. Going back to the F, F# diminished. I’m going to go back to C then I’m going to have a G on the bottom. Just turn around here. On the Band Stands of America, it is usually called a turn around, it’s also called a cadence. I want you to know about the cadence just for references on the location of the movement of the song. Cadence is like the end of the Blues form and looping around at the beginning again. So from the 251, I selected near the end. Here’s the cadence. Before, I played the cadence of ninth chords automatically done from E flat. There are many different options when you’re dealing with a simple form like the Blues. I’m going to do another one. It will be a little bit different again. Three-four, some similarities there, that’s now open string. That’s the cadence. Once again, I made a variation on the cadence. The cadence is basically what’s called – here are our intervals that we were talking about earlier, one-six. Even though I’m going down a minor third, it’s called the sixth because as we remember from our scales, they go on the scale; one, two, three, four, five, six. So, C is one and we will use all seven chords for these first two chords. C is one, six degrees A. And now, we’re going to do what’s called 251 and you’re going to hear a lot about 251. D minor seven to G7, or G seven sass. And it simply means we’re going to make an 11th chord or sass full. That’s a simply cadence. It’s the old Blue Moon thing. The same thing, we dressed it up a little bit. We’ll substitute. For example, we’ll substitute a three for the one. Instead of one dominant seven, we’re going to go three in minor seven, A7 raise 9, D minor 7. But instead of going to G7, I’ll go maybe to D flat nine fret for 11. A lot of options, will it utilize the open sixth string for the E instead of making it E minor 7? I’ll just go E7 with a raise 9. And then you know why it’s a raise 9, the ninth degree of the E scale and/or chord is going to be an F#. We raise it, simply means up a half step. So, here’s your E9. Go up a half step of this top note, F-sharp to G and it becomes A7 raise 9. If you want to get really interesting, we take this chord here, A flat major 7, very common jazz basic cord, string fourth through one. Drop the E flat on the fourth fret of the second string to a D first fret second string. I mean don’t play anything on the fifth string, I hit the open sixth and you have another kind of raise 9. So, here we go. There are many different variations. Again, I’ll go from the flat 7. I’ll substitute again at the three for the one. First the three minor then the three-seven raise 9. Then substitute a relative of the E7. Here’s your E7. Here’s your E9. E, F-sharp and 9 ahead of G. Raise 9 are relative of that, which is going to be what we call B flat 7, sharp 11 or flat 5. Those are essentially the same thing. I don’t want to get into the knit picking area of that. B flat 7, flat 5. Now, we’re going to go the A the sixth. At this time, I’m going to play seven raise five; one, two, three, four, say, one, two, three, four, five. Fifth is raised and then what I like to do maybe at this point is go A flat 13 that will be the substitute for the two. So, your sharp 5 interval, or I can take the sharp 13 chord, A flat 13 down a half step. So, we could have had that kind of nice, or we could go at the D flat, the D flat 9, D flat 13. It’s a nice substitute for the five.