Matt Warnock Guitar: Your Online Guide To Playing Better Jazz Guitar
Matt Warnock Guitar: Your Online Guide To Playing Better Jazz Guitar
Matt Warnock Guitar: Your Online Guide To Playing Better Jazz Guitar
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Your Online Guide to Playing Better Jazz Guitar
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o Jazz Scales App101 Licks Appii V I Chord
When learning how to play jazz guitar, many players study this
scale, they often practice it descending only, or with its related
Dominant 7th Arpeggio ascending on the front end, but few people
work this scale with patterns and phrases as they would the
Pentatonic Scale or Major Scale.
For this reason, I’ve compiled 21 different patterns that you can
use to practice Bebop Scale fingerings on the guitar, most of which
come from David Baker’s Bebop books, and all of which come from
the jazz tradition and can be found in the solos of greats such as
Wes Montgomery, Johnny Smith, Charlie Parker and many more.
Before you dive in to these patterns, check out my article on Bebop
Scale fingerings.
If you find that this approach to fingering the Bebop Scale is not
your cup of tea, you can apply all of these patterns to any Bebop
Scale fingering that you currently know or that you are working
on in the practice room.
Just grab the pattern or classic Bebop Jazz Guitar Lick that is
unique to any particular example below and insert it into these
other, lesser used, Bebop Scales and you’ll be able to expand your
improvisations exponentially.
Learn Jazz Guitar Scales and Scale Patterns with the Matt
Warnock Guitar Jazz Scales App
Have any questions or comments about this lesson? Visit the 21
Bebop Scale Lick thread at the MWG Forum.
1: Enclosed Root
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
In this first example you are going to use a very popular Bebop
technique called an “enclosure.”
An enclosure is when you take a note (in this case the root) and
play one note above that note, then one below, before finally
settling on the note you were targeting in the first place.
There are several common notes that you can enclose so we’ll start
on the root and explore more as you go.
Read more about this technique in my article “Bebop Vocabulary:
Enclosures”
2: Enclosed Fifth
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
You can now take the same approach and enclose the fifth of the
scale.
The enclosure technique works particularly well with the root and
5th of any chord.
You can also use this approach on any note of the arpeggio or scale
in your playing, but this is a good place to start.
As well, there are specific patterns that can only be applied to the
3rd and 7th, that we’ll see below, so enclosing the root and 5th is a
great place to start at this point in time.
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Since you’ve enclosed the root and 5th separately, you can now
enclose both of them together.
This is a great way to get more mileage out of any scale you are
working on because all of a sudden 7 notes becomes 10 or 12 or
more, allowing you to cover more ground with a simple scale or
arpeggio fingering than you normally would without the pattern.
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Now you can add a pattern to the third note of the scale, in this
case a Diminished 7th arpeggio off of the third of the chord.
Notice how by doing so, you are essentially “resetting” the scale
back to the top of the fingering, allowing you to start over again
and extend your melodic idea even further.
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Up to this point, you’ve been enclosing the root and the fifth with
one note above and one below each target note. Now, you can add
one more note to that equation and do a double chromatic
approach enclosure, this time with the third of the chord.
Here you have one note above, F, your target note, E, and two
notes below, D and D#. Again, you are adding a simple melodic
device to extend your scale, allowing you to cover more ground
without getting too fancy melodically or moving into outside
harmonic areas.
7: Enclosed 3rd with Double
Chromatic Approach and 3 to b9
Arpeggio
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Here you are going to mix our double enclosure with the
diminished arpeggio from the previous example to produce a
longer melodic idea. This practice, of combining any or all of these
patterns in your playing is totally acceptable.
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Since you’ve been pairing it up with the enclosures, let’s just take a
look at how the diminished arpeggio off of the third of the scale
sounds on its own, with other melodic device used in the scale.
Again, this is a great way to “reset” the scale back to the top, as
well as accent the b9 of the chord, in this case Db, since that is the
landing note at the top of the arpeggio.
9: 7(b9/b13) With b7 to b13
Arpeggio
Click to view the YouTube video for this Bebop Scale Pattern
Since you’ve been looking at straight 8th-note patterns so far, let’s
expand your rhythmic vocabulary by adding in a triplet at the
start of the scale, then descending the fingering with an enclosed
root for adding spice to the line.
You will have to alter your normal Bebop Scale fingering to get at
the notes in the triplet, which extend above the upper tonic, so feel
free to move your hand around on this lick. I would try to play the
C with my middle finger, the D with my pinky, then jump back into
the normal Bebop Scale fingering we have been using up until this
point.
Up to this point you’ve descended the scale from the top note on
down. Now, let’s add a little melodic twist by starting on the b7 of
the scale and then ascend up to the root chromatically, before
descending the scale to the lowest note.
This is a cool way to play the Bebop Scale without adding or
altering any diatonic notes, just starting on a note that isn’t the
tonic and adding a change in direction to our melodic phrase.
Here is one of the most popular Bebop Scale patterns in any jazz
guitarist’s vocabulary. Great players such as Joe Pass, Wes
Montgomery and Pat Martino have used this idea countless times
in their solos over the decades.
14: Deflection
Notice how the added note, the F#, functions as both an alteration,
the #11 of the chord, as well as the lower-neighbor of the fifth, G,
that you are using to deflect your line. Adding a harmonic color to
your melodic phrase in this instance.
15: Chromatic Down from Third
Here, you are adding two more chromatic notes, between the 3rd
and 2nd notes as well as between the 2nd and 1st notes of the scale.
So now you have three added chromatic notes in your Bebop Scale,
extending it even further than the normal 8 notes of the original
form.
16: Ascending IIm7 Arpeggio
Since you apply the Bebop Scale to a 7th chord, the V7 chord in any
key, you can also pair it up with its popular cousin the iim7 chord.
So, in this case you will ascend a iim7 chord, Gm7, before
beginning our descending Bebop Scale idea. You can also spice this
idea up by adding in any of the scale patterns that we have learned
up to this point in order to extent this ii-V idea even further.
17: Descending IIm7 Arpeggio
This pattern features the same idea, adding in a iim7 chord to the
Bebop Scale, but this time you will descend the iim7 arpeggio
before jumping into the Bebop scale.
What you are doing here, is adding in a iim7 chord at the start of
the phrase. But, instead of playing the iim7 arpeggio from the root
to the 7th of the chord, you are leaving the root out and playing the
arpeggio from the 3rd to the 9th of the chord.
To take the idea even further, you are using an alteration of the 3
to 9 concept here by using the 1-2-3-5 arpeggio pattern, something
that John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner both favored in their soloing.
21. Honeysuckle
To finish off our 21 Bebop Scale Patterns you will apply a variation
of the melody to “Honeysuckle Rose” to the Bebop scale. The idea is
to take a four note chromatic pattern, C-B-Bb-A, and use an triad
starting on the 9th, Dm, to break up that pattern and extend your
melodic idea from four notes to six.
Do you have a favorite Bebop Scale Fingering or Bebop Scale
Pattern? If so, please share it in the comments section below.
Click any link below for answers to the 9 most frequently asked questions that I receive from readers, students, workshop participants
What Are The Essential Beginning Guitar Chords, Scales and Arpeggios?
Do you have a question about playing jazz guitar? Post it in the comments section below.</P< font>
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Thanks Drew, yeah once you get the fingering down for the
scale you can apply them right away, or you can apply each
little pattern to any bebop scale fingering, or any scale
fingering like the major modes if you want, they’re good all
around
3. Olmon says:
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Hey,
You can technically use Cmajor over any minor chord in the
key, so Dm7 (iim7), Em7 (iiim7) and Am7 (vim7), and vice
versa, you can use D Dorian, E Phrygian and A Aeolian over
Cmajor7 if you want, they all share the same notes and key
centers. What I would probably do though, is focus on
outlining the arpeggio for each chord, and then add bebop
lines in using arpeggios, and the bebop scale over the iim7
and V7 chord. Check out this lesson on arpeggios with bebop
vocabulary, might help out as well:
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/instant-bebop-adding-
chromatics-to-basic-arpeggios
1. Ben says:
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Ben,
Modes are good for adding colors to chords, yes
you can play Cmajor over any chord in the C
major scale, Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7 etc, but the cool
stuff happens when you play different modes
over each chord, like C Lydian over Cmaj7, or C
phrygian over Cm7 instead of Dorian, that sort of
coloring can be a very cool way to extend ideas
and add different colors to one’s playing.
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is there a link somewhere to Jon Bremen’s Bebop scale
fingerings?
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Yeah you can find them here for major, dominant and
minor
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/guitar-
resources/scales/bebop-scale
6. magerlab says:
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For sure! I talk about this in my article on Tritone Division
Soloing, check it out.
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/modern-jazz-guitar-
techniques-tritone-division-soloing
7. Taura says:
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Great article Matt. I really like the way you introduce just one
concept at a time. I haven’t had any Jazz Guitar students for
over five years so I haven’t stayed current with the genre,
especially bebop (which my lids replaced with hip-hop in our
house). Your step by step illustration of Bebop conventions is
excellent Matt. In this lesson, bebop is a great way to
incrementally melodize scales where rhythm is relatively
predictable if not constant and contours are relatively uniform.
I did some bebop workshops with David Baker years ago. This
has been a great updater. Thanks for all your work. (BTW, it
would be cool if I could not just LIKE your article but also post
a comment to my FB wall)
Thanks Taura, glad you liked the article. Yeah I feel that
breaking things down and working on them step by step
is the easiest and best way to internalize these, or any
musical concepts.
8. Russell says:
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thanks a million for this Matt,it cleared up a lot for me,it’s a lot
of info so it’ll take a while to sink in,but thanks for this!!!!!.
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9. Eric says:
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Great set of exercises Matt. It’s nice to have these written out
rather than trying to reinvent the wheel with my students. I
have a few that I am going to direct here.
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Thanks Eric, glad you’re able to use the licks with your
students, thanks for checking out the article!
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Matt,
Jeff
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For sure, you can add as many of these into your lines
as you want, when I’m blowing over tunes I combine
any/all of them throughout my solos. These exercises
are just to separate them to practice, once you get them
down go for it, mix and match as your ears please. It’s all
good!
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1. Tom L says:
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That’s right. After you get them under your fingers, you
can apply them ascending as well as descending. But to
start off, working on each pattern descending gets the
right sound and feel of each line under your fingers and
into your ears.
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Matt,
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HI Bill, thanks for checking out the site. I am adding
more videos to this page so stay tuned for future links as
I post them.
Cheers.
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I was looking for some patterns and licks with the bebop scale
and ran into your website. I’m a piano player, but couldn’t find
what I was looking for on any piano sights. Most of their stuff
is geared for the beginner. I like your explanations, not too
long or too short, just right! Examples are great! I’ve had
problems playing a tune like Speak Low but I think this page is
the answer I’ve been looking for. Thanks Matt
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1. David says:
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