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Guitar Styles:
Jazz Blues Soloing
             


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JAZZ BLUES SOLOING

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Q: Hi Andrew, I greatly enjoy your YouTube channel for its info. and not jut showing how to play something. I was wondering if you could do a video on Jazz soloing that uses a simple progression like a blues and shows some scales to use and ideas about how to play through the chord changes.
- Tyler, Vancouver, Canada

A: Soloing over a Blues progression and making it sound like jazz, involves using a number of scale, arpeggio, extension and altered tones. This might seem quite daunting at the start, however if you follow my instructions in the video lesson, and learn the line I have created, you will begin getting this stuff. Trust Me!

Thanks for your question!

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THE JAZZ BLUES PROGRESSION:
Blues is a favorite of mine for getting players started with improvising. It has a common repetitive sound that is easy to recall when building lines. And, when jumping into the world of jazz, the jazz blues progression is the place to start since it is more or less the exact same as a typical 12-Bar Blues progression.

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JAZZ BLUES PROGRESSION Cont.:
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The most obvious difference with the jazz blues is the I, VI, II, V and the appearance of the diminished 7th substitute. As well, there is a secondary dominant applied upon the VI chord. There are plenty of variations on this progression. However, playing over the changes involves the same approach. We need to build lines which target into chord tones. This can be done in several ways using scales and arpeggios. My suggestion is to learn the line I've written for this lesson, then develop your own passages. In time your ear will guide you toward the resolutions you hear in your head. Have fun.

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The downloads below contain a handout with the melody and chord progression from the video.
Select from either Power Tab Editor or Adobe PDF file formats (it is the same document).

Jazz Blues Tab Chart
powertab
(Power Tab editor document)		 Jazz Blues Tab Chart
pdf
(Adobe PDF format)

To Download > Left Click > Save

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