Dominant 7 blues progressions, scales and arpeggios questions about mixing it up

Phil_aka_Pip

@nickp I think extended arpeggios are just simpler ones joined together EG C13 = C7 + Dm [C E G Bb + D F A].


 For me it's the "altering" stuff that makes me think "how the hell does that work?"

nickp

@koneguitarist - your name has been mentioned in relation to major pentatonics in the context of blues n stuff!!

bingefeller

Another thing I have learned is you can play a m7b5 arpeggio from the 3rd of the chord you're playing over.  

Say you're playing over an A7 - you can play C#m7b5 arpeggio.  

Whole tone licks from the root or the 5th of the chord you're playing over.

minor 7th arp from the b5th of the chord you're playing over.  As far as I remember George Benson does this quite a lot.    

jpfamps

I tend to think more in terms of how the notes relate to the chord underneath rather than scales / modes. I like to understand what the individual notes sound like against the under lying chords allowing you to access different sounds during your playing.

The major to minor tonality when you move from the I to the IV chord becomes obvious when you look at the chord shapes, and is a classic sound in blues music.

A D9 chord contains an Am triad, so you would move from A major to A minor tonality moving from the I to the IV.

You can also use Em (9th tonality) or F# (6th tonality) arps over the A7 too. You can here this move used tons of players including Charlie Christian, and Grant Green. Lap steel players in Western Swing use this move all the time as the usual 6th tunings give you a minor triad under the bar.

Most of the more out there notes I regard more as chord extensions to the underlying chord rather than a product of some scale.

Often you are simply super imposing arps of the "wrong" chord.

A good example of this is the tri-tone sub, where you would play a Bb7 type run over the E7 (V) which resolves nicely to the A7 (I).

The notes of a typical Bb7 arp based idea and their relationship to the E7 (V) chord are Bb (b5 of E7), D (b7), F (b9), G# (maj 3rd), G (#9). So plenty of "crunchy" extentions.

Often you find that these extensions are notes from the blues scale; in fact this was how artists such a Duke Ellington harmonized the blues scale, by using the notes of the scale as chord extensions. If you listen to the Duke Ellington big band then you will often here a very simple blues scale based melody as the top note of very complex harmonic movements.

I tend to use the more dissonant notes when resolving either from the V to the I at the turn around, or on the 4th bar of the 12 bar when moving from the I to the IV (which is of course the same harmonic movement). 

From a jazz / swing perspective the V to IV movement you get in bars 9 and 10 of a lot of blues is to be avoided as there isn't the strong harmonic movement of the I to IV or V to I. Very early swing and blues would simply play 2 bars of he V on bars 9 and 10 (listen to T-Bone Walker for example), however the II chord is usually used on the 9th bar and the V on the 10th bar. The II to V movement is the same as I to IV or V to I.

Jazzers love II / V / I sequences, and it's a simple and effective way of adding some colour to your blues.

My current project is (bizarrely) to try to work the major seventh into my swing-style playing.

 

BluesyDave

I've just got Chuck D'alioa's 'Blues with Brains' series of lessons (no affiliation).  He talks about expanding Blues vocab in a lot of different ways (for me).  Well a look.

Barney

its sometimes a good idea to get a good chord book and go from there....by hearing different chord progressions you can hear the changes right there....then just follow them changes using chord tones..

another good thing before going to the IV chord is use a pentatonic a fret up before the change ...so if it A7 to D7 use A# minor pentatonic

viz

Also on IV D7, about to return to I A, try playing some A diminished 3rd (or D# diminished 3rd) arpeggi.

newi123

Carl Verheyen explains it well here:

http://www.guitarplayer.com/guitar-player-101/1025/the-four-levels-of-the-blues/49191

Great player, and if you want more from him his `swat blues` course on truefire is really, really good!

nickp

Ta newi123!