Exploring a variety of sounds.

In the 2nd bar of Summertime, there are several choices we can make as far a harmonizing goes. I only show three here, I could probably come up with many more. What works best in these situations is to explore new sounds. Try odd fingerings, chords that have nothing to do with the harmony or the key, look and listen for what sounds good.

En el segundo compás de Summertime, hay varias posibilidades para armonizar la melodía. Aquí indico solamente tres, hay muchas. Lo que mejor funciona es explorar sonidos nuevos, prueba digitaciones inusuales, acordes que no tienen nada que ver con la armonía o tonalidad.

The second bar of Summertime is all Dm7. To harmonize the melody with Dm of one kind or another would work fine but by introducing other ideas, we can make it much more interesting.

El 2º compás es Dm7. Usando un tipo de Dm u otro para armonizar la melodía funcionaría perfectamente, pero si usamos otras ideas los sonidos resultantes serán más interesantes.

In the first example I liked the descending bass line by half step. Many times when I arrange a tune I'll link one chord with another by descending bass lines moving by half step and then try all the possible combinations of chords with the melody and see what interesting sounds I come up with.

En este 1er ejemplo me gusta usar la línea descendiente por semitono del bajo. Es una técnica que uso a menudo para ir de un acorde a otro. Después pruebo diferentes cualidades de acordes con la melodía con esa línea descendiente por semitono del bajo.



In this example we introduce the A7 which is the dominant 7th of Dm7. This produces a strong V7-i progression throughout the measure.

En este ejemplo uso A7 que es el dominante de Dm7. Esto produce una progresión fuerte de V7-i en el compás.


This last example takes the above concept one step further in that it introduces the iim7b5 chord of Dm7. This gives us a iim7b5-V7alt-im7 progression.

Este último ejemplo lleva el concepto de arriba un paso más en que introducimos el acorde iim7b5 de Dm7 que es Em7b5 seguido de A7 alt. Por lo tanto tenemos una progresión iim7b5-V7alt-im7.

Exploring a variety of sounds.

When doing an arrangement of a tune, don't settle for the harmony that is indicated on the lead sheet. Try different chords. For example in "Summertime" the first chord is a Dm7 but there's nothing stopping us from trying other forms of Dm. Let's try several variations of a Dm chord and see what results we get. Many times you'll come up with some very interesting sounds that can be used in a 2nd or 3rd chorus or a chord solo and that way you won't make your arrangement too repetitive.

Cuando hagas un arreglo de cualquier tema, prueba diferentes formas del acorde. Por ejemplo en el tema "Summertime" el primer acorde es un Dm7, pero no hay nada que nos prohiba probar otras formas de Dm. Vamos a probar diferentes formas del Dm a ver que resultados obtenemos. Muchas veces los resultados son interesantes y se pueden usar en una 2ª o 3ª vuelta del tema y así no se hace repetitivo.

Let's start with the Dm triad. Empezamos con la tríada de Dm.



Now we'll introduce the major 7th. Ahora introducimos la 7ª mayor.


A complete Dm7 chord. El acorde completo de Dm7.


And, a Dm6 chord. Y un acorde de Dm6.


Each one has it's own sound and provides a different emotion. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Cada uno aporta su propio sonido y emoción. No tengas miedo a probar sonidos nuevos.

Chromatic passing chords

Here's a little article from a Spanish "Guitar Player" magazine from many years ago. It really helped me in my arrangements and comping. Chromatic passing chords add alot of color and interest to your arrangements and comping.

Este artículo es de una antigua edición de la revista "Guitar Player" sobre acordes cromáticos de paso. Éstos añaden mucho color e interés a arreglos y acompañamientos.

Walking bass for guitar (9)

Here's a walking bass line with the melody to "All the things you are". This style with just walking and melody is great if you want to play a melody solo at an up tempo.

Aquí hay una línea de "walking" con la melodía de "All the things you are". Este estilo de caminar y tocar melodía a la vez viene muy bien si quieres tocar un solo de melodía a un tempo rápido.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (6)

Now that we've seen (and heard) how a walking bass line sounds with only melody and bass, the next logical step is to add some harmony.

Listen carefully to how a piano or guitar accompanies a soloist (sax, trumpet...) in medium to up tempo tunes. Most of the time the chords played are very short in duration. We call this way of accompniment or comping, "hits" or "stabs" and what's most important about this is not the harmony itself because it's so short that at times you barely perceive it, IT'S THE RHYTHM. Notice that these harmonic "hits" rarely are played on strong beats but are played on weaker upbeats. If you play to much harmony on strong beats then the tune gets sluggish like a car trying to get out of deep mud. But if upeats are the focus of where you place your chords then the tune is a Ferrari.

So with that in mind here's walking bass, harmonic "stabs" and melody. (Note: In jazz all upbeat quarter notes are always played short unless noted otherwise)



This is pretty tricky fingerwise. Practice two notes at a time and go slowly. I recommend Tuck Andress' DVD "Fingerstyle Mastery".

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (5)

Let's continue with our arrangement of All the things you are. I'm going to introduce a walking bass line at this point. I was debating whether to temporarily stop the arrangement lessons of this tune and do several on guitar walking bass or continue with the arrangement and at a later date do the walking bass lessons. I've opted to continue with the arrangement for the sake of continuity. So I'm going to write out the walking bass part and explain later how to construct one and how it works.

Again there are several ways of combining the three elements (bass/harmony/melody). I'll go from simple to complex.

This first version contains just bass and melody. It lends itself to speed since at any given moment you're only playing two strings or just one if the melody is resting or has a long note value as in the first bar of this tune. It can be used as a nice interlude, solo break, intro, use your imagination.



There is no actual harmony as you can see. It is implied by the relationship between the bass and the melody. Keep the melody sounding for the duration of its notes!

Some of the fingerings are real stretchers but are doable. Don't force your fingers if they won't stretch, you can end up hurting yourself. It might take some players a little longer to achieve this. That's OK, it took me quite some time. Here's a good video on how to do this. I'll write out in a post some of the excercises I've used (see the post above this one titled "Left hand finger stretching exercise").

A word on bass lines. Bass is one of the least understood and most important instrumnets in any group. Bass lines create smoothness and a firm foundation on which everyone else in the band builds their creation. If the bass lines are not working the whole band sounds like muck. So, it is very important to keep the bass sounding for the full length of its value. Avoid short bass notes (in this style) and keep the transition from one to the next as smooth and uniform as possible.

Listen to Tuck Andress, Martin Taylor, Joe Pass, etc..... they are masters at it and it gives the music so much movement.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (4)

At this stage it's important to say that the melody is first and foremost. If you start to get so complex in the bass and/or harmony areas that the melody is now choppy, indistiguishable, weak, or any other thing that makes it not clear, then you need to back off on bass and/or harmony. Keep that melody strong, clear, full, make the notes last their full value, etc..... Remember: bass and piano accompany the melody player.

There's nothing worse than somebody saying "Nice, what tune was it?" and you say all proud "Autumn Leaves" and they respond, "Oh, it sounded like ............." Get the picture? Listen to the great solo jazz guitar players (Joe Pass for example) and that melody is ever present.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (3)

Now that we have the bass giving us some movement we'll look at some ways whereby we can get the harmony to move and fill in some of the blank spaces that are not taken up by bass or melody. The example I'm going to show you here is used alot by Martin Taylor. It reminds me of a more classical approach in which you arpegiate instead of playing block style.



This is a little more complex and requires some studying of fingerings to get it to sound fluid and uniform so take your time. Often when I come across a hard passage I'll learn it just two notes at a time and repeat it over and over, then take the next note and add it in. Go slow, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (2)

The arrangement up to now is starting to sound decent. Played as written however it sounds a little "classical". Not to put classical music or guitarrists down...maybe I should say it doesn't sound like jazz. Let's look at different ways to make this sound hipper. We'll work on the bass part first because bass players (good ones) add alot of movement and interest to any musical piece.

The most basic bass part, like the one that's in the previous arrangement, plays the root (or tonic note) on beat one of every new bar. A more interesting bass line would have the bassist playing on beats one and three of every bar. On beat one the bass would play the root and on beat three (for now) the note played will be the 5th of the chord being played at that moment. (The 5th of a chord is determined by counting up 5 notes from the root which is 1. So, for the first chord of our arrangement, which is Fm7, the root is "F", which is played on the fifth string. The 5th of "F" is "C". (F=1 [Root]; G=2; Ab=3; Bb=4; C=5; etc...). Now I'll show you how the 5th of each chord is played in the arrangement we've done so far.



Take care to hold each note and give it its full value. Notice that in some chords you're holding down notes while others are being played. Here is where you need to work on finger independance if you don't have that down yet.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (1)

I've always liked solo guitar chord melody playing. It's like a puzzle that has several different pieces that fit to make the big picture and depending on what pieces you choose, your big picture will look a little different than if the same puzzle was done by another guitarrist.

I'm going to do a step by step arrangement of the jazz standard "All the things you are". I'll try to make it progressive, from beginner to advanced. Remember if you have questions send them to me. I might take some concepts for granted and assume that you know them and that's wrong.

I'm going to start with the first four bars (measures) of the tune. The way the tune appears in fake books is like this (click on the image to make it bigger):



Since guitar is a transposable instrument (like trumpets and saxes) if we played what is written above then it sounds too low, so the first thing we need to do when making an arrangement for guitar is transpose the melody up an octave. That gives us:



So far we don't have anything that resembles a chord melody, that's the next step. When doing chord melodies you must keep in mind the chord that's supposed to be sounding at the moment the melody is being played. Think of the guitar as being a bass (low end), piano (harmony), and sax (melody) players all in one. That's quite a challenge! So, we want the root (tonic) of the chord on the 5th or 6th string (because they sound the lowest), the melody on the 1st or 2nd string (they sound the highest and best bring out the melody) and the harmony somewhere in the middle. These are guidelines that can change depending on the arrangement or effect desired. Nothing in music is written in stone.
You will soon find out that there are several ways to harmonize bass, chords and melody. I'll do one, which is usually the one I use the most, but that doesn't mean it's the "best" or the "right" way. Farther on down the line I'll go into variations on harmonizations. Do whatever works and sounds best to you.



The above arrangement is made to be played with all 5 fingers of the right hand, in other words without a pick (plectrum). If you're using a pick, then the Bbm7 in the second bar can't be played completely, you'd have to leave out a string in the middle. Don't let this discourage you, experiment, the arrangement will still sound good!