Contemporary Blues Chords and Comping

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An in-depth exploration of the twelve bar blues, from classic R&R grooves to the most Modern Blues and Fusion sounds, following a journey through different comping styles and techniques. I have written this book to provide a variety of comping ideas for blues guitarists of all levels: most of the material comes from my experience in playing countless blues, jazz, and funk gigs, and hours of listening to and transcribing from the classic records, trying when applicable, to explain with simple harmonic concepts why I use a chord instead of another. The ebook is a digital download in the popular Pdf format (70 pages) and includes a recording of all examples in MP3 format. Click here to download the Contents table and a sample of the book with Mp3 recording free! Also, buy ‘Contemporary Blues Chords and Comping’ in Physical Format (yes, the old style book that you can touch!) and eBook at lulu.com, and Amazon.com (coming soon) just click on the links below!

To summarize, here he uses the minor pentatonic shape starting from the root, 2nd and 5th of the key of the moment. In the example in B he uses B, C#, F# minor pentatonics. After that he shows some polyrhythms and rhythmic ideas.

I suggest for further reading:

Contemporary blues Soloing ! click here to purchase it in our shop.

Pentatonics (Inside Improvisation Series, Volume 2) by Jerry Begonzi

Pentatonic Scales for Jazz Improvisation (The Ramon Ricker Jazz Improvisation)

Quick lesson on Minor Blues:  I play mostly on a Am blues similar to this

| Am       | Dm       | Am        |Am      |

|Dm         |               |Am         |             |

|Em          |Dm        |Am         | E7      |

The obvious  choice for soloing is the Minor Pentatonic in A…but I also add the 9th here and there (the not B in this case) and often use the Dorian modes from each single chord.

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‘THE GUITAR KIT PRO’ INCLUDES:

(in 60 JPG’s and a 71 page PDF eBook)
BLANK MUSIC PAPER TEMPLATES:
BLANK STAFF PAPER TEMPLATE
BLANK TREBLE CLEF STAFF (without Barlines)
BLANK TREBLE CLEF STAFF (with Barlines)
BLANK TREBLE CLEF STAFF+TAB (without Barlines)
BLANK TREBLE CLEF STAFF+TAB (with Barlines)
BLANK TAB ONLY (without Barlines)
BLANK TAB ONLY (with Barlines)
BLANK PAGE WITH BARLINES
BLANK GUITAR NECK BOX 6 FRETS
BLANK GUITAR NECK BOX 12 FRETS
BLANK GUITAR NECK BOX 24 FRETS
SCALES:
MAJOR/MINOR PENTATONIC SCALE/ BLUES SCALE (5 SHAPES)
MAJOR SCALES (5 SHAPES)
MAJOR SCALES 3 NOTES PER STRING (7 SHAPES)
MELODIC MINOR (5 SHAPES)
MELODIC MINOR 3 NPS (7 SHAPES)
HARMONIC MINOR (5 SHAPES)
HARMONIC MINOR 3 NPS (7 SHAPES)
WHOLE TONE SCALE
DIMINISHED SCALE
MODES OF C MAJOR
MODES OF C MAJOR, PARALLEL APPROACH
MODES OF C MELODIC MINOR
MODES OF C HARMONIC MINOR
ALL MODES – FORMULAS
CHORDS:
BASIC CHORDS CHART (Most popular open chords and Barre chords)
7TH CHORDS CHART :maj7, m7, 7, m7(b5)
CHORD VOCABULARY:
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:C)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:Db/C#)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:D)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:Eb/D#)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:E)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:F)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:Gb/F#)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:G)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:Ab/G#)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:A)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:Bb/A#)
MOST POPULAR CHORDS (TONIC:B)
ARPEGGIOS:
MAJOR/MINOR/AUG TRIADS ALL INVERSIONS
7th ARPEGGIOS ALL INVERSIONS
7th ARPEGGIOS 3 STRING SETS
MISC TEMPLATES:
12 BAR BLUES FORM (ROMAN NUMERALS)
12 BAR BLUES IN E
12 BAR BLUES IN A
12 BAR BLUES IN C
12 BAR BLUES IN G
GUITAR ANATOMY/FINGER NUMBERING
NOTE NAMES ON TREBLE STAFF/NOTE VALUES
NOTES ON GUITAR NECK
CAGED SYSTEM
STRUMMING PATTERN TEMPLATE
HARMONICS CHART
CIRCLE OF FIFTHS
MAJOR SCALES ALL KEYS
INTERVALS CHART
INTERVALS ON THE GUITAR NECK
TRIAD INVERSIONS (CLOSED)
TRIAD INVERSIONS (SPREAD)
GOALS SETTING TEMPLATE
STUDENT NOTES TEMPLATE FOR TEACHERS

Download PDF file

If this style of playing interests you, you want to check out my guitar method ‘Contemporary Blues Soloing‘. Check it out in the Products page.

Advanced pentatonic stuff.

There are when times you can get bored of playing just the pentatonic on a blues, or maybe you’ve heard more contemporary blues players like Robben Ford, or blues influenced jazz guys like John Scofield and Scott Henderson. Well, here I come to help you out with a couple of tips: first I go over the ‘blues scale’, still quite a basic concept. Just add the b5 to a minor pentatonic and there you go, you have the ‘blues scale’.

A much more interesting thing happens when you start mixing up the H-W Diminished scale with a minor or major pentatonic scale. This will give you a few nice tensions:

Half step – Whole step Diminished scale in C:

C  Db  Eb  Fb  Gb  G  A   Bb
T  b2   b3  3    b5  5 13  b7

C minor pentatonic:

C  Eb  F  G  Bb
T  b3  4  5  b7

C major Pentatonic:

C  D  E  G  A
T  2   3  5  6

Well, mix and match tastefully and you’ll get some new flavors, guaranteed. Listen to some of the examples I play in the video. Good luck!

Basic Pentatonic stuff

I will not get too much into pentatonics as you can find stuff all over the net. Too

much has been said and done on the famous ‘pentatonic box’…As I say in the video, a

major pentatonic is a major scale without the 4thand 7th degree.

So C major pentatonic is: C D E G A

These are the 5 positions for the major pentatonic, in the example in G major (but

valid for all keys). Of course, remember that if you start from the 6th (the 5th note of the

pentatonic – also ‘box’ N.5) you will have the relative minor. In the example in G the

minor pentatonic will be E, just like E minor is the relative minor of a G major scale.

The last box at the bottom right is the famous ‘blues scale’…a minor pentatonic with an

added b5. Try and learn them just like we did for the major scale…all keys, down every

single string, from lowest note to highest note on the fretboard and so on. Find the ’5 boxes’ position fingerings below:

Printable PDF: Pentatonic Fingerings

I am quite a big fan of the blues, and I definitely advice studying no matter if you like it or not, as the majority of modern music originates or relates to this genre.

The most popular blues form is based around 12 bars. The first four are usually filled by the I7 chord. So this is the first characteristic of the blues: when we talk about a ‘blues in C’ we don’t strictly mean C major. The center of gravity of the whole structure is based around a Dominant 7th chord (the chord that sits on the 5th degree of the Harmonized Major Scale, so to speak) instead of a major7th chord. The following two bars are filled by another Dominant 7th chord, but this time on the fourth degree (IV7). Two bars of I7 follow. The last four bars are made up by one bar of V7 (the dominant chord on the 5th degree), one bar of IV7, one of I7 and finally another bar of V7 to ‘turnaround’ back to the top.

| I7     |         |        |         |

| IV7   |          |I7    |         |

|V7     |IV7    | I7    |V7      |

In the video I suggest two more advanced forms. Just download and print out the PDF file, learn the chords and go to the next step, the pentatonic.

Printable PDF: Three Basic 12 Bar Blues Forms