V-IV Blues Transitions

Uberaba86

I’ve been listening to a lot of Robben Ford and learned how to improvise over the V chord and the IV chord in a Blues progression. Check out the video!!!

viz

Nice lick! Can I check - what do you mean by tension exactly and where do you hear it? 

Lewy

This may come across as being overly critical or discouraging but if you are going to present yourself as an educator, which is what you're doing on your channel, you shouldn't be chucking out things like "it's basically a mini scale within the pentatonic series" and jumbling up terms like scales, notes and arpeggios and seemingly using them interchangeably. And incorrectly using terms like tension when you're actually playing the chord tones of the chords you're playing over.

The key piece of information that you need to impart about this lick is that it's simply playing the arpeggio of the chord you're on, and it's easy to visualise because it's only adding two notes to the 9th chord shape you already know. Your commentary implies the lick is made up of different pentatonics and it isn't. 

Perhaps just be like a regular guitar player and say "hey friends, I learned this cool lick, it goes like this" without making it a lesson with confusing content. There's still much value in that. I do mean this constructively.

jpfamps

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Keefy

jpfamps said:

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Many rock'n'roll numbers use 2 bars of the V. One of my pet hates is covers bands playing the V-IV change in every song, regardless of the construction of the original. 

jpfamps

Keefy said:

jpfamps said:

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Many rock'n'roll numbers use 2 bars of the V. One of my pet hates is covers bands playing the V-IV change in every song, regardless of the construction of the original. 

Indeed.

HAL9000

Keefy said:

jpfamps said:

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Many rock'n'roll numbers use 2 bars of the V. One of my pet hates is covers bands playing the V-IV change in every song, regardless of the construction of the original. 

Johnny B Goode being the obvious one. Bars 9 - 12 should be 5511, yet nearly everybody plays 5415 - please guys, just listen to the original.

joeW

viz said:

Nice lick! Can I check - what do you mean by tension exactly and where do you hear it? 

Sounded entirely diatonic to me too - not that there’s a problem with that but just not as described.  

CaseOfAce

HAL9000 said:

Keefy said:

jpfamps said:

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Many rock'n'roll numbers use 2 bars of the V. One of my pet hates is covers bands playing the V-IV change in every song, regardless of the construction of the original. 

Johnny B Goode being the obvious one. Bars 9 - 12 should be 5511, yet nearly everybody plays 5415 - please guys, just listen to the original.

Yep - Chuck Berry did that a lot - staying on a chord for more than one bar when you'd expect otherwise...(Brown Eyed Handsome Man for starters)

... hey it's a 12 bar blues and they all go like that etc.. and ...they don't.

HAL9000

My previous band was a blues outfit, so learnt a number of variations for bars 9 and 10 such as 55, 54, 25, 65, 45, etc. There certainly seem to be bands that, @CaseOfAce points out, say Hey it’s a 12 bar - they all go like that. No, they all have their own nuances which is what makes them different.

guitars4you

https://www.jazzguitar.be/blog/jazz-blues-chord-progressions/

some useful stuff here - I've used them at times but forget more than I remember

joeW

Blues for Alice - all you need right there. 

Lewy

Agree the V IV is waaay overused and not present in an awful lot of classic blues. 

The same goes for the quick change to the IV in bar 2. 

kelpbeds

jpfamps said:

The V to IV change in blues is a real harmonic speed bump.

It's not a great resolution, and rarely occurs in other styles of music.

Jazz blues and swing avoid this change by, in it's simplest form, playing 2 bars of the V chord.

This has several advantages, including preserving a V to I change (the strongest musical resolution), and also allowing the introduction of a ii V chord sub (1st rule of jazz: when there are two consecutive bars of the V chord the first bar shall be made a ii / II chord).

It's interesting once I became aware of this, how much it starts to grate when you here the V to IV change in songs that you think work better without it. eg Route 66.

Well put, I mention this quite a bit in my lessons.

A blues chord progression i've always been quite fond of is the 'proper version' of Stormy Monday. There is tons of stuff going on there! i.e. this one

G7/ C9 / G7 Ab7 / G7

C9/ Dbdim / G7 Am7 / Bm7 Bbm7

 Am7 / Cm7 / G7 C9 / G7 Daug

You've got an augmented Vth, you've got the IV minor thing going on, tritone sub, diminished etc... and it sounds gorgeous!