Playing blues changes.

Airmiles

@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

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

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

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

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.