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ONE WAY TO DEVELOP A UNIQUE SOLOING
voice is to invent your own scales. You can use them for
improvising, honing your chops, learning the fretboard,
and warming up your ears and fingers.
Scale construction. When building a scale, use at least
five notes. (Your creation will sound more like a lick than
a scale with less than five tones.) For instance, Ex. 1 is
a seven-note scale I created in the key of A. Its formula
is root, b3, n3, b5, n5, b7, and n7. Ive always liked the
Melodies, chords, and scales are all part of my music, but they are not the most important things. Egberto Gismonti, Nov. 78 GP
140 GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999

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Am7 or A7
B Y J A N E G E T T E R
Ex. 1
Ex. 2
Ex. 3
Ex. 4
Creating Scales
sound of playing unexpected passing tones
against the background harmony. In this
case, playing a b3 over a dominant 7 (1, 3,
5, b7), a n3 over a minor chord (1, b3, 5), and
n7 over a dominant 7 or a minor 7 (1, b3,
5, b7) produces a tart minor second be-
tween the melody and its closest chord
tone. For a little more edge, I included a b5
in this scale.
Playing patterns. I like to familiarize my-
self with a new scale by playing patterns,
as in Ex. 2. Once youve mastered the as-
cending pattern, play it descending as well.
Use alternate picking throughout. For ac-
curacy, keep time with a metronome. Start
slow, then gradually increase the tempo.
This scale lets you craft a line that works
over Am7 or A7 (Ex. 3). I use this scale main-
ly on single-chord vamps, but its also useful
for giving a more out sound to standard
progressions, such as Ex. 4s Am7-D7-Gmaj7
(IIm7-V7-Imaj7) cadence.
Tips. After youve forged a scale of your
own:
Play the scale tones ascending and de-
scending in sequence.
Set up melodic patterns to help syn-
chronize your ears and fingers.
Experiment with your scale over dif-
ferent chordsdont be afraid to try uncon-
ventional combinations. g
New Yorker Jane Getter has performed
and recorded with many stellar jazz mu-
sicians, including organist Jack McDuff,
trombonist Slide Hampton, violinist Michal
Urbank, and pianists Richie Bierach and
Kenny Barron. Hear Getter burn on her
new solo album, Jane [Lipstick Records].
OFFERING TENSION AND RESOLUTION,
the V7-I cadence is an essential harmonic move
in traditional jazz. When soloing over the V7,
its fun to increase a dominant-7th chords in-
herent tension by including altered tones in
your lines. This way, the resolution to I is even
more pronounced.
Here are three ideas for spicing up the dom-
inant-7th portion of a V7-I cadence. Well ex-
plore these techniques in the key of C, using
G7 (V7) and Cmaj7 (Imaj7) as the background
harmony. Once youve mastered each line, be
sure to transpose it to other keys. To sharpen
your picking chops, play these examples using
all downstrokes, then all upstrokes, and finally
with strict alternate picking.
Whole-tone spice. In Ex. 1, play a descend-
ing Gwhole-tone scale (G, A, B, Db, Eb, F) against
G7. We start on the G7s 3 (B) and end with a C
arpeggio resolving to Cmaj7s root. This whole-
tone scale includes three V7 chord tones (root,
3, and b7), two altered tones (b5 and #5), and
one extension (9).
Half-whole motions. Ex. 2 features a de-
scending Galtered scale (G, Ab, Bb, Bn, Db, Dn,
E, F). Notice how this scale consists of alternating
half- and whole-steps. Also called a half-whole
scale, the altered scale includes all four V7 chord
tones (root, 3, 5, b7), three altered tones (b5, b9,
and #9), and one extension (13).
Augmented fretting. Consisting of an as-
cending augmented pattern that repeats every
whole-step, Ex. 3 uses notes from a G whole-
tone scale. Start on DbG7s b5and work your
way up the neck using a fixed grip, as shown.
These examples briefly take you outside the
key. Try generating your own lines from whole-
tone and altered scales. With a little effort, you
can stretch your fingers and ears. g
Greg Cooper has studied with Ted Greene,
Jimmy Wyble, and Phil Upchurch. Cooper per-
forms and teaches in the San Francisco area.
142 GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999

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B Y G R E G C O O P E R
Ex. 2
Ex. 1
Ex. 3
Nailing theV7
Send us your candidate for Lick of the Month
(preferably notated and on cassette), along with
a brief explanation of why its cool and how to
play it. If we select your offering, youll get a funky
custom T-shirt thats available only to Lick of the
Month club members. Mail your entry to Lick
of the Month, Guitar Player, 411 Borel Ave. #100,
San Mateo, CA 94402. Include your name, ad-
dress, and phone number. Materials wont be re-
turned, and please dont call the office to check
the status of your submission. Youll get your shirt
if your lick is chosen.

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sim.
Z I P P Y T R I P L E T S
L i c k o f t h e M o n t h
OUR AUGUST LICK COMES FROM
Jason Rosen of Remich, Luxembourg. He
writes, This lick is cool because it will
help you develop speed picking. Carefully
follow the picking indicationsplay each
triplet using downstroke, downstroke,
upstroke. For extra drive, palm-mute the
sixth and fifth strings, and accent the first
note in each beat.
The consecutive downstrokes occur
when you play adjacent strings. This
economy of motion promotes clean,
quick picking. The repeating four-bar
phrase sounds great with some slow, res-
onant flange. g
I PLUCK STRINGS USING A COMBINATION OF
fingertip and fingernail. Contrary to the way traditional classi-
cal guitar is taught, speed can be gained when the string is
picked without follow through. I can play much faster using
this picking technique.
I play the same guitar in concert as in the studio. It was
made in 1969 by Mario Martello of Concord, California. Its a
classical guitar with a piece of plastic on the top, as if it were a
flamenco guitar. Sometimes I tune my sixth string to Dand
my fifth string to G. For some tunes, I tune my sixth string to
F, or my fifth to G and my first to D.
In 1971, I recorded Shebaba, an album inspired by the
folk music of Brazilsongs I heard played in the street fairs. I
played the lutar, which is my own name for the instrument I
designed based on an old Brazilian folk instrument called the
alaude. The alaude has ten strings grouped in five sets of dou-
ble strings. My lutar has 13 stringssix sets of double strings
and a single string. g
Bola Sete on
Fingerpicking
& Hybrid
Instruments
F L A S H B A C K : A P R I L 6 7 & J U L Y 7 4
AUGUST 1999 GUITAR PLAYER 143
Your enthusiasm can frequently get to the point where youre overpowering the person youre playing with. David Bromberg, July 76 GP
144 GUITAR PLAYER AUGUST 1999
STARTING WITH THE JAN.
99 issue, weve explored a variety
of topics (many of which were
prompted by readers suggestions),
including playing major scales,
mapping triads, linking arpeggios,
morphing major-7th chords, and
generating open voicings. This
time, thanks to Brock Whatley of
Longview, Texas, well examine a
few easy ways to spice up the har-
mony in a 12-bar blues progres-
sion. He writes, Id like to see you
cover harmony and progressions.
Can you help us build bluesy har-
mony that sounds a little jazzy?
There are many ways to add
chords to a blues without spoiling
its essential character. This lessons
12-bar blues in F (Ex. 1) incorpo-
rates three techniques that you can
use individually or in combination.
First, lets agree on the struc-
ture of a standard 12-bar blues. It
helps to think of a blues progres-
sion as composed of three sets of
four-bar phrases. Perhaps the most
popular scheme looks like this:
I7-IV7-I7-I7
IV7-IV7-I7-I7
V7-IV7-I7-V7
So far, so good. Now lets hot-
rod this harmony.
The #IVdim7 to I7 move. To
add cool color to a IV7, simply
raise its root a half-step. This cre-
ates a diminished-7th passing
chord that works nicely to draw
the ear back to the I7. The #IVdim7
appears twice in this progres-
sionin the second half of bar 2
and throughout bar 6.
The IIm7-V7 to IV7 move. This
technique fills bar 4normally the
second of two I7 measureswith
a splash of tension and release. Hey,
why play F7 for two bars? Boring!
The key here, as with most har-
monic substitutions, is to look
ahead to the immediate destina-
tion. By working backward from
this arrival point, you can construct
B A C K T R A C K

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Easy swing

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Jazzin the Blues
B Y A N D Y E L L I S
C
G F
D
B
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A E
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E A
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B D
b
G
b
F
#
4ths
5ths
Ex. 1
The Cycle Chart
Youve got to be a quick thinker and drop in a hot lick where its needed. Cornell Dupree on session work, June 76 GP AUGUST 1999 GUITAR PLAYER 145
an intriguing path into the target
chord. In this case, the target is
bar 5s IV7 or Bb7. If we momen-
tarily treat the chord rootBb
as a I, we can call on a classic
cadence to lead us to this tem-
porary tonic. This cadence is
IIm7-V7-I, a move thats integral
to swing, bebop, Dixieland, and
all other forms of traditional jazz.
Heres a foolproof way to quickly
determine the IIm7-V7-I ca-
dence in any key:
On the cycle of fourths
and fifths chart (this handy tool
is often simply called the cycle
chart), locate the root for the
target I chord. In this instance,
thats Bbremember?
From this target note,
jump two clicks clockwise.
Now move counterclock-
wise back to the target, stop-
ping at each tone along the way.
This establishes the root mo-
tion for our IIm7-V7-I cadence.
Here, were moving from C to
F to Bb.
Now harmonize these
notes: The two clicks note
hosts a minor 7, the one click
note hosts a dominant 7, and
the last note is our destina-
tionthe I chord. In our pro-
gression, this translates to Cm7,
F7, and Bb.
Once you arrive at Bb, how-
ever, play the chord as a IV7
and continue with the progres-
sion. As you recall, the Bb was
only a temporary tonic. In the
context of this 12-bar blues, Bb
is the root of our subdominant
chord, the IV7. Therefore,
rather than stopping at Bb, we
keep trucking toward the real
tonicF7.
With practice, youll be able
to precede any IV7 with its own
IIm7-V7. Use this move in bar 5,
and always check your roots
against the cycle chart.
Backcycling to I7. Our third
technique also involves the cy-
cle chart. The game here is to
construct an alternative har-
monic pathway to bar 11s I7.
Why? By the time weve reached
the end of a standard 12-bar
blues, weve heard the I7 and
IV7 an awful lot. New sounds
are suddenly welcome. Heres
the recipe:
On the cycle chart, find the
root for bar 11s I7 chord. Thats
F, in this instance.
From this target note (F),
jump three clicks clockwise.
Next move counterclock-
wise back to the target note, vis-
iting every tone along the way
(D, G, C, F). Make each note the
root of a dominant 7. For our
blues in F, this yields D7, G7,
C7, and F7.
Plug these dominant 7s
into the progression by playing
one per measure. We know bar
11 is the destination I7 (F7), so
that gives us bars 8, 9, and 10 to
fill with the other three chords
D7, G7, and C7.
There are several ways aca-
demics analyze the harmony
we just createdin fact, some
theory books devote chapters
to the subjectbut the simplest
approach is to visualize the root
motion using the cycle chart. To
reach the I7, were ratcheting
backwards in fourthshence
the term backcycling.
Use it or lose it. To own
these three techniques, you
need to apply them to many
songs. It wont take long, how-
ever, to begin to hear these
changes, especially if you
record yourself playing them in
different keys. g