Hi, LWM blog readers. Lyman Lipke here, and it’s been a while! This week, I’m beginning a series for the Jazzandgrass instagram going over two choruses of the chord changes to “I Got Rhythm”, by George Gershwin. Many different bebop melodies have been written over these chord changes. Oleo (Sonny Rollins), Rhythm-a-ning (Theolonius Monk), Cotton Tail (Duke Ellington), and Anthropology (Charlie Parker) are just a few examples of tunes that use these chords. With the ubiquity of these changes, it would be a good idea to take a look at the framework, and some different ways we can approach these chords.
jazz and grass
Lyman Lipke here, again. Today we’re going to be looking at a few dominant chords that pair well with the minor 7 chords we looked at last time. If you need a reminder on what those chords are and how they can be used, feel free to refer to my last post. If you feel comfortable with those chords, we can move on. Now, the reason we’re looking at dominant chords today, is so we can contextualize them in a ii-V-I. In my post “Easy Chord Voicings for Jazz Guitar”…
Lyman Lipke here, once again, with an article pertaining to jazz. Is it time to learn the scales and the notes and how to shred? Not quite yet. Apologies for dangling the soloing carrot in front of you, but trust me, as someone who learned the scales and the notes before learning how to play the chords and connect them, you’ll be far more valuable (and employable) as a jazz guitarist. I’d like to talk a little bit about drop voicings, constructing a minor 7 chord, and…
Lyman Lipke from Jazz and Grass here again. I wrote an article a couple weeks ago giving an introduction to jazz. I’m going to talk about common chord types in jazz and how you can voice them simply on the guitar. Yeah, we all want to play the scales and the notes, but we need a solid grasp of the harmony before we can play super sick solos.
I know this is a big hurdle for bluegrass guitar players. We learn our first fiddle tune melodies, our first licks, our first runs and our first breaks in first position. So how do we demystify the rest of the neck so we can ascend and descend it freely? The good news is you probably don’t need to memorize every note on the fretboard. In fact, most guitar players are visualizing much smaller frameworks as they travel the neck.
Do you follow Jazz and Grass on instagram? If so, I’m Lyman Lipke, the other half that isn’t Marcel. If you don’t follow Jazz and Grass, then I’m just some guy with a few opinions on guitar and music related things. Marcel and I have played in groups before, including a bluegrass band! I want to make something clear though, I am NOT a bluegrass guitar player. I bow to The Billy Goat in that respect.
You know me from YouTube right? I’m a bluegrass guy. What am I doing writing about electric country licks? Well my bluegrass friends recently got together and decided to start a honky-tonk band. That meant I was going to be getting my tele out of the case and I needed to know some more country language. So I got online and I started poking around but like always, the good information I needed was behind a pay wall.