New Single: VOODOO SCIENCE

Chris Juergensen Patreon

 I've been meaning to do this for a long time. Becoming a patron will allow you access to PDFs for many of my YouTube videos, new video content, backing tracks to practice to and for those of you who become "All-access Patrons," chapters to many of my published books. The "Official Patron" tier is $5.00 per month and the "All-access Patron" is $10.00 per month. 

https://www.patreon.com/cjuergensen 

The Collective School of Music

I don't usually post about anything but guitar stuff on this blog but forgive me if I do post about a big change in my life. I've officially left my position as the Director of Education at Tokyo School of Music and relocated to New York City to work at The Collective School of Music. I will be staying on as Vice Principal at the seven music colleges in Japan but will not be involved in day to day business anymore. Most of you wouldn't know but I was born and raised in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan, so I'm thrilled to find myself back in my hometown just a stone's throw away (The Collective is located on 6th avenue and 15th street). 

The Collective is a great school with a great faculty line up. Students get to study with some of the best musicians and teachers in the world in the heart of the greatest city in the world. I personally plan on turning the guitar program into something really exciting. Besides guitar, we also offer drums, bass, keyboards and vocals. The school is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. 

The Collective School of Music >>>

Chord Shapes - Getting the Most Bang For Your Harmonic Buck

Q: Hi Chris, I am having a really hard time remembering chords. I just got into college and am playing in the Jazz orchestra. I have never really played too much Jazz and I can't come up with the chords quick enough. I got myself one of those chord books but there are too many to remember. Should I just learn one or two of them and use those all the time? Even when I do know the chord, my classmates tell me that the voicing I use isn't really right. Do you have any advice for me?

A: Yes, I totally understand where you are coming from. Your question brings back memories of my college days where I struggled with the same things. This is what I can tell you:

The chord voicings you choose depend on several different factors:

1. Situation - Playing in a Big Band is a lot different than playing with a trio, especially if there is a pianist involved. There are two approaches here. First is play super simple. Don't worry about the tops and bottoms too much, the middle is fine. Look at the example below for a ii-V-I in C, I'm just playing two notes per chord and both the notes are only the 3rds and 7ths:

    D-7  G7  Cmaj7
E|----------------
B|----------------
G|--5----4----4--
D|--3----3----2--
A|----------------
E|----------------

I'm just playing the b3 and b7 for the D-7 chord, the b7 an 3rd for the G7 chord and the 3rd and 7th for the C chord. This kind of thing will totally keep you out of trouble and out of the pianists way. The improviser is happy too because you aren't dictating what he has to play as well. If I had played a G7(#5,#9) chord here, the soloist would be stuck playing altered and if the pianist played some different chord, it would cause all sorts of chaos and you would be getting stares from him. I'm not in the way of the bassist so he is free to do whatever bass players do. 

Crazy Scales and Chords

Q: Hey Chris, Aside from the major scale, melodic minor, harmonic minor, and
harmonic major - are you aware of any scales that can be harmonized into interesting modes of unique flavor? I imagine I can come up with a few with two half steps in a row, but that seems like the middle note would just act as a passing tone, right?  Or could complex harmony exist with a scale with three notes in a row?

Thanks, Josh

A: If you mean harmonizing to chords, The half/whole diminished scale does some interesting things. It has a bunch of major triads in it so there are various slash chord things you can do. It is symmetrical so it doesn't turn into modes though. 

If you want to talk about harmonizing to chords, let's talk first about the half/whole diminished scale. It is a symmetrical scale which makes it unlike all other scales (the other symmetrical scale is the whole tone scale, all whole steps).

Here is a standard pattern for the scale:

6 Chords Explained

Q: Hey Chris, thanks for all the great content on both your blog and your site. I’m also going to get both your books as well. I have a question: I’ve been listening to and trying to play some of Brian Setzer’s big band stuff lately. What is the deal with the 6 chords? You don’t hear them so much in other genres but Brian seems to love them. Is there anything I should know about these chords? 

A: Brian is really a great musician. I have the greatest appreciation of him because he has really come a long way. I mean, he was great back with The Stray Cats but he has really stretched a lot with his big band thing and you can tell he has really been studying over the years - Pretty rare with successful musicians. Anyway, getting to your question regarding 6 chords.

Soloing Like a Pro

Q: I've come to realize that playing a good solo isn't really so much about technique but a bunch of other factors. I just haven't figured it out exactly. I've been working on scales and arpeggios but I'm not sure that my guitar solos are interesting at all. Is there some sort of moment when all this work I've been doing will pay off and my solos are going to start sounding great?

A: Because I teach, I think about these things all the time. I sort of traced my career backwards and looked at the way I progressed as a soloist to the point I am today. These are the things I think one has to do to become a really good soloist:

Guitar and Singing?

Q: Hey Chris, What's your opinion about the importance of singing as well as playing? I know besides playing guitar, you sing too. Did you start singing when you started paying guitar or did that come about somewhere down the line? I'm wondering because I want to sing as well and think I could broaden my horizons, so to speak doing more than just playing guitar. What are your thoughts?

A: I started singing after the fact. I actually began by singing chorus in my band, they made me do it. I think you have a better chance at getting a gig if you can sing as well as play. Things I've learned about singing from singing myself and watching students at college: 

Pitch - Singers who can play an instrument have good pitch. There are things you can do to change your singing voice to some extent but, I don't know, some singers just have great tone. Pitch more so than tone can certainly be developed and having a good relationship with an instrument is sort of a short cut. So if you play guitar already, you'll have a decent shot at singing as well. 

Scale Patterns

Q: I was wondering about scale patterns. Looking through your chrisjuergensen.com lessons, I notice that the major scale patterns that you use are unlike the ones that my teacher showed me. He seems to think that the 3-note per string patterns are the best ones to use. The problem is that there are 7 different patterns to remember while the ones that you refer to have only 5. What is your opinion?

A: The ones that I generally refer to are sort of the standard patterns for teaching. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best but they are the more or less, generic (for the lack of better words). They are just simple to play and remember, and as you said, there are only five. 

In truth, there are countless ways to play any one scale. Take a C major scale for example. It is just a C-D-E-F-G-A-B note scale. We, as guitar players, tend to think in physical patterns but it doesn't have to be so. Just play every C-D-E-F-G-A-B note on your fretboard, and you will be playing a C major scale regardless of where you start or finish. I can play it from my open 6th string (which is an E note) all the way to the 22nd fret on my first string bent up to E hitting every diatonic note in-between.  I can shift strings here and there to get up there, and by my calculations, from E to E, makes it a four octave major scale (technically E phrygian, a C major scale mode). 

Dominant 11 vs. 9sus4 Chords

Dear Chris: downloaded your book today and I'm really enjoying it. The way you explain where the altered chords come from scale wise, I feel is really going to open a lot of doors for me. So thanks.

Q: I've found your explanation of sus4 chords and 11 chords quite new. I got stuck with the idea in Mark Levine's books. I've been having to read a lot of Top 40, pop and rock in a cruise band and I'm finding many 11 chords which (I'm pretty certain) are looking for a F/G voicing. I'm gleamed from this that its all context based. The wikipedia article says similar things to your book...

Vision

Q: I just went over your minor pentatonic lesson, and never have I seen anyone explain chord/scale theory in such a straight forward no BS manner. I am an advanced intermediate level guitarist, with big expectations. I have a day gig and a family and want to know how to get the most out of the little time I have to practice everyday. Can you give me some pointers?

A: Expectations should be big my friend. Good for you. I talk a bunch about practice routines in this lesson on my site and in THE INFINITE GUITAR. It's hard to give specific advice without listening to you play and getting a handle on who you want to become, in other words, your vision. I can tell you though, this vision is almost everything. 

Finding The Right Chord

Q: One of my biggest songwriting problems is when I have a song in my head, and I'm figuring it out on guitar, and I tend to get a few chords into it and inevitably, it seems, there is an "elusive" chord that I can hear in my head but just can't seem to work out on the fretboard. Do you ever have this problem, and what do you do/how do you find it?

A: Theory will help you immensely in these situations. As I describe in chapter 18 of THE INFINITE GUITAR, composition is a matter of finding a chord for your melody note. There are basically two ways to do this (at least for me). The first is working with diatonic harmony. When we work with diatonic harmony, we basically are working within the chords in one key (sometimes using secondary dominant or borrowed chords). If you aren't getting this, start over here >>. If you understand intervals and chords this is actually pretty easy. Let's say you are writing in the key of C. The chords in the key of C are: C - Dmin - Emin - F - G - Amin - Bdim.

Amps and Other Things

Q: I know you love Marshalls, and I am looking at building a JTM45 head from parts. There is so much to love about Marshalls BUT they are SO loud - and that's the 45, forget the 50s and 100 super leads. What head and cabs do you use, and how do you tame them for say recording? Do you use a hotplate or something? And how do you find the lack of reverb? (I notice you mostly seem to run some delay though).
 

A: Regarding Marshalls, I definitely like the 100 watts the best. The best thing about Marshalls is that they are easy to rent for a gig, meaning I don’t have to cart my own, I can just rent one and the production company will have it on stage for me when I get there. 

Playing Over Dominant Chords

Q: Like your style.  I need some review of scales to play with regards to how the Dominant Seventh Chord is resolving...functioning as a V chord or just a secondary Dominant (which I would play Mixo or Lydian b7).  If it is resolving to minor I'd play harmonic minor of the letter name of the chord it's going too.

A: here is the basic overview of the dominant scales. Let's take it by how the dominant chord is functioning. When I say functioning, I mean resolving to a I or i chord as in V-I or V-i or G7 - C or G7 - C-7. Non-Functioning means resolving somewhere else or possibly not resolving, as in G7 - F#maj7 or just a static G7 jam. Keep in mind, secondary dominants are for the most part functioning.

More on Minor Blues

 

Q: I was just watching the video of you doing the minor blues for the Australian movie soundtrack. I have a few questions about it. I can tell it's a minor blues but what is that chord that pops up in the 3rd bar? And what else is going on in the progression. What are some of the things you are plying in the solo? Especially the pentatonic scale things that you are doing. Great song!!

A: Thanks! Glad you like the tune. Your ears do not deceive you my friend, it is pretty much a minor blues with a few twists. The song is for a movie with some underworld type characters so I wanted it to be creepy. That's where that strange chord comes in to play in the 3rd bar. I've always liked tritones (diminished 5th intervals) and that is exactly what I have going on here.

More on Modes

Q: Great dorian lesson, thanks. But when we see a Dmin7 on a chart while jamming, and thinking whether we should play a pentatonic a mode or whatever, isn't that decision should be strictly related on the KEY of the song? Aren't we risking playing notes completely out of key when we use modes?

A: Great question. It's all about musical context. There are two kinds of harmony and for the lack of better words let's say that one is functional harmony and the other is non-fuctional, modal or maybe static harmony (for lack of better words). When we talk about functional, we are talking about chords that work together inside of a particular key. So a Dmin7 chord inside of a Cmaj7-Fmaj7-Dmin7-G7 progression is functioning as a "ii" chord. As you know the "ii" chord is the dorian chord. If you tried to play one of the other minor modal scales it would sound wrong. You don't even really want to be thinking modes in this case anyways, I mean it's just a C major progression and that's all you really to know or consider. We hear the tonal center of this progression as C major.

Footprints

Q: I've been working on "Footprints" lately. How can I solo over the changes? I sound pretty boring. Do you have any suggestions? I know it is just a minor blues for the most part but I sound lame.

A: "Footprints" is a great tune. It is actually one of the first standards that I played as well. It was written by Wayne Shorter and first appeared on his own record, "Adam's Apple" before being released on Miles Davis' "Miles Smiles" record in 1967. What a year, we get "Miles Smiles" and Jimi Hendrix' "Are You Experienced" at the same time. Not to mention "Sgt. Peppers." I was three, so I don't remember any of this.

Getting the Blues Together

Q: Been trying to learn a lot more of the Stevie Ray Vaughan blues style. Kind of plateaued. What would you recommend I do to be able to improvise like SRV and all of the Blues greats??

A: First of all, let me start with what we all do at first and how eventually we have to outgrow it. We generally start off by playing the minor pentatonic scale over the whole thing. I think this is OK when we start but you realize that this method won't work too well the first time you have to play the Blues for anything longer than ten minutes. I have to usually play two or three sets of the Blues on my Blues gig and let me tell you, your audience starts to get this glazed over look after a couple songs if you just keep regurgitating the same tired pentatonic scale licks.

Melodic or Harmonic Minor

Q: I'm enjoying your Infinite Guitar book very much lately but I'm wondering why you dedicate so much time to Melodic Minor and not so much to Harmonic Minor. Why is Melodic Minor more important?

A: Good question. There isn't anything wrong with Harmonic Minor so to speak but Melodic Minor has more applications. Only one mode of Harmonic Minor is exclusively used and that mode is the 5th one, sometimes named the Phrygian Dominant mode. As an example, E to E in the A Harmonic Minor scale: E-F-G#-A-B-C-D. You would play it over an E7 or E7b9 chord and more often than not, it would get used over a V chord in a minor progression. For example in a rock application: Amin-G-F-E, you would want to play A natural minor over the first three chords and A Harmonic Minor over the final E chord. In a Jazz application, you would play it over a iio-V7 in A minor, as in Bmin7b5-E7b9-Amin7 (over the last chord, you wouldn't generally play A harmonic minor but A natural minor or A dorian. You can use Harmonic Minor over a i chord (as in A Harmonic Minor over an Amin chord) but it sounds like you are playing Mexican or Middle Eastern music.

Pentatonic Scales

Q: The way you use pentatonic scales fascinates me. Not only does it sound cool, it is easy since most of us already know the patterns. In your book and on your site lesson: superimposing pentatonic scales, you describe the guidelines perfectly well (as in "play a minor pentatonic scale on the 3rd, 6th and 7th of any major chord") but what is the theory behind this? How and why does it work?

A: Good question. I suppose you are at the point in your studies where you need to question these things. I did the same thing a long time ago. I learned about the concept of superimposing minor pentatonic scales years ago and by simply memorizing the rules I could apply the concept any time I saw fit. Let's review the basic rules:

For a major chord:

Play a minor pentatonic scale on the 3rd, 6th and/or 7th degree of the chord

Let's try it. Record yourself a long Cmaj7 or Cmaj9 vamp. What is the 3rd, 6th and 7th of this chord? The 3rd is E, the 6th is A and the 7th is B. If you can't understand this yet, this lesson is too much for you so you should go back and study theory starting with scales, chords and intervals. Go here for that lesson >>>

It doesn't matter what scale pattern you play as long as you play the proper pentatonic scales. E is the 3rd of the C chord so you can play an E minor pentatonic scale. Try it and you'll see. Be a little careful though because the usual lines you play might not work as well but in general all the notes are OK. 

Why does it work? Well, the best way to figure that out is by comparing the chord to the scale. Let's see, the scale looks like this:

E-G-A-B-D and compared to the chord, these notes are the 3-5-6-7-2 of the C major chord. These are all very consonant tones and match the chord with little rubbing or grinding. it actually looks like a C69 chord if you place all the notes on top of each other.

Next, let's look at the minor pentatonic scale from the 6th. The 6th of C is A so an A minor pentatonic scale is what we are looking for. The A minor pentatonic scale looks like this:

A-C-D-E-G and compared to the C chord: 6-1-2-3-5. All perfectly nice sounding notes over the C major chord. I bet someone out there figured this out already but what we have created is simply the C major pentatonic scale with here. Right? A minor pentatonic and C major pentatonic are the same scales.

Next up, the minor pentatonic scale on the 7th. The 7th of C is B so B minor pentatonic is what we're looking for: B-D-E-F#-A or 7-2-3-#4-6. Now this looks very lydian to me because of the #4 (or #11 if you prefer).

All three of these scales combined give you the C lydian scale. Check it out yourself. C lydian: C-D-E-F#-G-A-B or 1-2-3-#4-5-6-7. 

Now, go on, get to work. Over your Cmaj9 vamp, try all three of these scales. 

The pentatonic scales always intrigue me because by simply taking 2 notes away from the 7 note scale you get something that actually has more personality. Less is more sometimes.

The next thing I did is look for the minor pentatonic scale patterns inside the scale itself. I mean, if all three pentatonic scale combined look like the lydian scale, all three must be inside somewhere. Take a look:

C lydian

Look, here is an E minor pentatonic scale:

And an A minor pentatonic scale:

And finally a B minor pentatonic scale:

Can you see that they are all inside the lydian scale?


We used our ears to make sure these scales work right? Next we used our eyes by looking inside the lydian scale and finding the three minor pentatonic scales. 

Now we'll use our brain. You can see this one more way. Remembering that there is a major pentatonic scale for every minor pentatonic scale:

E minor = G major 
A minor = C major and 
B minor = D major. 

Now look at the diatonic chords in the key of G major (G major is the same as C lydian):

G - Amin - Bmin - C - D - Emin- F#dim


Are you getting my point here? The three diatonic minor and the three diatonic major chords = the same three minor and major pentatonic scales that work over our C chord.


I've basically examined the minor pentatonic scales that work over major family chords. If you want to investigate more, go to the original lesson >>>