Description
Continuing on with jazz guitar in the style of the great Joe Pass!
We are learning here to orchestrate on the guitar; to simultaneously play or suggest more than one part at a time. This style of playing is called playing chords using Drop 2 Voicings. This is because if you "drop" or avoid playing the second chord voice you can more clearly separate and hear the distance and distinguish between the bass note and the upper register notes of a chord.
Notice that this is essentially a simple "blues". But we are making it sound much more sophisticated by "approaching" the chords. For example, rather than simply changing from I to IV we "approach" the IV chord (F7) by playing (in the 4th measure) a Gmin7, then a C7, then a G flat7. This is typical jazz voice leading.
Rather than simply play a C7 then move directly to an F7, we played a series of chords that make the music sound like the key of F is a temporary goal unto itself, even though the overall piece is in C.
To prepare for the arrival of the F, the Gmin7 is a ii of F, the C7 is a V of F & finally the G flat7 is a tritone substitution for C7. All of which makes the music SOUND like it WANTS to go from C to F!
The rest of the arrangement has similar voice leading in the amazing style of Joe Pass! Good stuff!
Lesson Info
