Comping: Colorful Chords and Chromaticism
For all the time jazz guitarists spend learning how to solo, they should be spending 3x's as much time learning how to comp. While your own solo might take you once or twice through the form, playing chords behind others' solos will take you through the form many more times.
This is one of the many reasons I love guitar- while horn players have to just sit around and wait for everyone else to take their solo, guitars get to play the entire time, both soloing and playing the chords while comping.
Another reason why I love comping is that you play chords over single notes, which means you can texture the solo with rich harmony (though you can do the same if you're soloing with chords- aptly called "chord soloing"). When first learning how to comp, you learn all the basic chord qualities (major7, minor7, dominant7, diminished, maj/min7) and their inversions. You do this for awhile, and once your fingers have the muscle memory to know where to go, and your ears can hear the chord before you play it, then it's time to move on (cause otherwise it gets BORING!)
You can spice up your comping with colors (notes that are not chord tones) and by adding movement to a chord, introducing a little melody on a static chord.
Adding color notes can be as simple as adding the 9th to the top of your C7 chord, which is a common sound. It starts to get really interesting when you add more far out colors to your voicings, or adding common colors (like the 9th) but structured in a way that adds tension (basic chords are built by stacking minor and/or major third intervals, but by introducing color chords that are a half or whole step next to a chord tone -and not removing the chord tone- you get really interesting, sometimes tense, sounds). The half step relationship is especially tense (for example, the 9th next to the b3 in the same octave of a m7 chord, or the root and a 7th in a maj7 chord), while the whole step interval in a chord sounds modern (for example, the 5 and 13 next to each other in a dominant7 chord). There are some really cool sounds you can get on the guitar, however you must choose wisely as there is a certain "economy" inherent to the guitar (in relation to the piano). You can play max 6 notes at once (as opposed to 10 on the piano), but usually you only have the time to grab 3-4 notes. Sometimes, due to the layout of the guitar, it can be impossible to finger a certain chord more than 3 or so notes. So choose wisely.
Adding movement on the guitar can be hard (yet rewarding), again due to the layout of the guitar, the economy of fingers on the human hand, and how the hands have to finger certain chord voicings. So it's best to think of what's possible on and around a given chord shape, so you know how to navigate it and what is possible. You can do top-note movement, inner movement, or lower-voice movement.
I've been practicing these concepts lately, and instead of posting my own examples, I'm linking to three video lessons which have recently given me plenty of practice material on the subject. The creator is Jens Larsen, who I find has some of the best jazz guitar instructional videos on YouTube. They're focused, provide great examples, and are at the right skill level for me (intermediate/advanced), having already spent the years figuring out the basics. These three videos provide enough to get you started thinking about chord colors and movement within chords. It's fun to play this way and I find myself wanting to comp this stuff so much, it can be overly-busy and distracting from the soloist. So you have to practice the art of restraint. On the other hand, it shows that you only need a couple of these ideas to start playing effectively in this comping style.
This is one of the many reasons I love guitar- while horn players have to just sit around and wait for everyone else to take their solo, guitars get to play the entire time, both soloing and playing the chords while comping.
Another reason why I love comping is that you play chords over single notes, which means you can texture the solo with rich harmony (though you can do the same if you're soloing with chords- aptly called "chord soloing"). When first learning how to comp, you learn all the basic chord qualities (major7, minor7, dominant7, diminished, maj/min7) and their inversions. You do this for awhile, and once your fingers have the muscle memory to know where to go, and your ears can hear the chord before you play it, then it's time to move on (cause otherwise it gets BORING!)
You can spice up your comping with colors (notes that are not chord tones) and by adding movement to a chord, introducing a little melody on a static chord.
Adding color notes can be as simple as adding the 9th to the top of your C7 chord, which is a common sound. It starts to get really interesting when you add more far out colors to your voicings, or adding common colors (like the 9th) but structured in a way that adds tension (basic chords are built by stacking minor and/or major third intervals, but by introducing color chords that are a half or whole step next to a chord tone -and not removing the chord tone- you get really interesting, sometimes tense, sounds). The half step relationship is especially tense (for example, the 9th next to the b3 in the same octave of a m7 chord, or the root and a 7th in a maj7 chord), while the whole step interval in a chord sounds modern (for example, the 5 and 13 next to each other in a dominant7 chord). There are some really cool sounds you can get on the guitar, however you must choose wisely as there is a certain "economy" inherent to the guitar (in relation to the piano). You can play max 6 notes at once (as opposed to 10 on the piano), but usually you only have the time to grab 3-4 notes. Sometimes, due to the layout of the guitar, it can be impossible to finger a certain chord more than 3 or so notes. So choose wisely.
Adding movement on the guitar can be hard (yet rewarding), again due to the layout of the guitar, the economy of fingers on the human hand, and how the hands have to finger certain chord voicings. So it's best to think of what's possible on and around a given chord shape, so you know how to navigate it and what is possible. You can do top-note movement, inner movement, or lower-voice movement.
I've been practicing these concepts lately, and instead of posting my own examples, I'm linking to three video lessons which have recently given me plenty of practice material on the subject. The creator is Jens Larsen, who I find has some of the best jazz guitar instructional videos on YouTube. They're focused, provide great examples, and are at the right skill level for me (intermediate/advanced), having already spent the years figuring out the basics. These three videos provide enough to get you started thinking about chord colors and movement within chords. It's fun to play this way and I find myself wanting to comp this stuff so much, it can be overly-busy and distracting from the soloist. So you have to practice the art of restraint. On the other hand, it shows that you only need a couple of these ideas to start playing effectively in this comping style.
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