Side Slipping Major7 Chords

Side slipping is a common comping concept that a lot of players use to make a single chord sound more interesting.  If you're not familiar with it, side slipping is simply moving a chord up or down a half-step temporarily.

If you want to be a little more clever about this concept you can get some nice chromatic, contrapuntal lines happening by shifting the voicing you're using a little.  For now I'm just posting Major 7 chords, though this concept works with any chord type.  Also, for those of you who are not familiar with jazz shorthand, the triangle in the chord symbols means "maj7".

So for example, the first chord (Bbmaj13) has the 13th on top, shifts down a half step to Amaj13, then shifts back up to Bbmaj9 while the top note continues down to the 5th.  There are a number of ways to do this.  Using these same voicings, you could use Bbmaj13, up to Bmaj9 with F# on top, then move down to Bbmaj9.  In this case the counterpoint is between the 13 of Bb moving down to the 5th of the rising Bmaj9 voicing.  Play with as many variations as you can and ultimately let your ear be the guide of what you think sounds best.  I find that I like different possibilities depending on the context.

I've included several other examples for you to explore and some suggested rhythms in case you are not familiar with this sound.  You may have to click on the image to expand it to see all the examples.

I hope you find them useful!
Eric

If you are interested in some private instruction either in Chicago or via Skype, please contact me though my website: www.klotzguitarstudio.com

Understanding Rhythm

This post will explain some basic rhythmic concepts that will need to be understood for future posts.

Music has an underlying pulse or beat. In most music it is fairly obvious and it is likely what you would tap your foot to. Rhythmic notation is a way of describing how our notes are related to that pulse. If we were to count the number of beats in a piece of music we would easily be dealing with hundreds of beats (or maybe thousands). Since this unreasonable to deal with ("on beat 256 the chord is A major" is difficult to find!) we use meter to group the number of beats into measures. The most common meter (also called "common time") is 4/4 and this simply put means that four beats create a measure.



= Common Time



In other words: measure one contains beats 1,2,3,4; measure two contains beats 5,6,7,8; measure three has beats 9,10,11,12: etc... With this system the highest we have to count to is 4.

Now that we understand the measure, we can use several types of note values to describe when a note is played (attacked) and how long the note is held (or when it's released).

A whole-note is a note that is held for 4 beats.

A whole-rest means that you don't play for the whole measure (4 beats).

A half-note means you hold the note for 2 beats.

A quarter-note is held for 1 beat.

An eighth-note equals half a beat. In other words: there are 2 eighth notes per beat.

Triplets divide the beat equally into 3.

Finally, sixteenth-notes divide the beat into 4 equal parts. In other words: 4 sixteenth-notes equal one beat.

If you develop a good understanding of these different rhythmic subdivisions and you can feel the difference between them, then it will be easier to use them in interesting combinations. You will also naturally feel faster and slower subdivisions like 32nd-notes or quarter-note triplets. I will post some different ideas for working with these subdivisions and expanding your rhythmic vocabulary soon.


Please post any questions or comments on this lesson as it will help me to make future lessons better.
Best,
Eric