Chord Shapes: Jazz Guitar Improvisation

Video Transcript

"CASEY CORMIER: Okay. So, there are ways that we can combine the melody and the chord changes to create chordal melodies, which will be great if we wanted to play something solo, for example, or just even if we are playing with the group and we wanted to, basically take the "head," which is called basically playing the melody ourselves. It'll be more interesting if we're not just playing it with all this open space. We can fill the chords in too at the same time. This might require sometimes changing the chords around and also moving fingerings within. So let's look. We know our first melody note, we played an octave up here 'cause that's the best way to do it if we're going to put it on top to play an octave higher than what's written is the B flat on the E string. Okay? Now, we know that that's going to be end up on the bottom here of an E flat. So we--and we know also that we don't--we might strum this chord on the first beat, but we'd pick on the upbeat. So, look I did all that around the E flat. I played [PLAYS E FLAT MAJOR 7 CHORD] I strummed down to the B string; did not pick that E string with the B flat on it; and with our pinky have to play the C, the 8th fret of the E-string, pick it up to play back here, then I'd pick the 8th fret of the B string; pick that up and play in the 6th fret, and the B and then the 8th fret of the G."