Question by Anonymous
Marc –
I just watched your Oleo video. Nice. I love playing that melody. However I loved your comping over the bridge. I would love to know what you were doing there. Can you drop me hint or perhaps give a comping lesson for Changes.
Thanks
Rich
M-A’s Answer:
Hello Rich,
Nice question and thanks for the compliment. I indeed would need to build a complete lesson on comping for “Rhythm Changes”… (-:
(Sounds like fun and hard work to have a complete section of the website dedicated to this song form, same as when I created the jazz-blues section in the winter of 2011… you know what’s bound to happen when visitors get me started!
Ok, so, to come back to your question: all I was thinking of really were the actual chords, two bars each : D7, G7, C7, F7.
I watched the video again. At certain tempos I’m also improvising a bit. Same deal: I’m thinking only of the basic chords (scales + arpeggios).
Then, there’s of course all the inherent substitutions and tricks and that can go in there:
- II-V Interpolation (playing Am7-D7 instead of D7)
- Tritone/Minor 3rd subs
- Passing Diminished
- “Walking chords” style (ala Blue Monk)
… and basically, just good rhythms will make anything quite decent sound very good. If it’s well placed in time, there’s no doubt it will vibrate with the listener.
I hope it answers your question a bit,
Thanks for the inspiration. I may start working on a whole new 5-10 page section on the website (with videos and TABS, etc) strictly about “I Got Rhythm”… Yay!
Marc-Andre Seguin
JazzGuitarLessons.net
MarcAndreSeguin.com