MATT WARNOCK GUITAR Guide Tones – 10 Essential Soloing Patterns Guide tones are tones are used by improvisers to smoothly outline chord progressions in their solos, and are often the 3rd and 7th of the underlying chord. notes in By working on guide tones in your soloing practice, you’ll learn how to target important notes in each chord. As well, you’ll develop the ability to confidently navigate chord progressions at progressions at the same time.
If you’re new to guide tones, tones, check out the background information first before moving on to the 10 patterns in this lesson. This will help clear up what guide tones are, and why you’ll want to use them in your Jazz solos and phrases. So, time to dig into these 10 guide tone ii V I patterns where patterns where you’ll learn how just two notes, the 3rd and 7th, can take your jazz guitar playing to the next level .
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Intro to Jazz Guitar Guide Tone Patterns In this lesson you’ll be focusing on one of the most important and commonly used guide tones, tones, the b7 to 3 movement between ii V I chords. step from one chord to the next. These guide tones move by half step from
This allows you to smoothly transition from the iim7 to the V7 to the Imaj7 as you build your solos over these chords.
If you look at these notes in the key of G major, which you’ll use in the following examples, you can see how this movement works .
The b7 of Am7 is G which moves to F#, the 3rd of D7. The b7 of D7 is C, which moves to B, the 3rd of Gmaj7.
You can see how these guide tones resolve down by half-step from one chord to the next, leading smoothly through the entire progression. Before moving on to the 10 patterns below, put on a ii V I backing track in G and playi the above guide tones, G to F# then C to B, to see how they sound on your instrument. Once you’ve checked out the guide tones only over these chords you’re dig into the 10 patterns below.
Guide Tones Pattern 1 The first guide tone pattern that you’ll look at involves an ascending arpeggio over the iim7 chord, followed by a descending scale pattern over the V7 chord, as well as a 3 to 9 arpeggio over the Imaj7 chord to finish the phrase.
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Guide Tones Pattern 2 In this guide tone pattern, you’re playing all of the same notes as the previous phrase, though you are introducing an Eb, b9 interval, over the D7 chord in the progression. Learning how to adapt licks and phrase by one or two notes to produce permutations of common phrases is an important skill when learning how to solo over Dominant 7th Chords , ii V I phrases, and tunes as a whole.
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Guide Tones Pattern 3 You’ll now look at altering the rhythm for the next guide tone pattern , by inserting triplets into this phrase that is based off of the same arpeggios-scale-arpeggio concept as we saw in the first phrase. Using various jazz guitar rhythms to alter your soloing lines and phrases is an easy way to extend upon any pattern, lick or phrase when soloing over jazz standards and other tunes. Because of this, it should be explored further in the woodshed as you expand upon these licks in your guitar practice routine.
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Guide Tones Pattern 4 You’ll now look at arriving at these guide tones from above, by descending down the iim7 scale, then using the arpeggio notes from V7 to resolve to the 3rd of Imaj7 in the second measure. As you can see and hear, just a slight alteration such as changing direction in your lines, can make a big difference when learning how to solo over ii V I chord changes using patterns and guide tones.
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Guide Tones Pattern 5 In this pattern, the last short ii V I progression we’ll explore, we are using mostly scale-based lines to reach each guide tone for the iim7, V7 and Imaj7 chords in the phrase.
Learning how to use jazz guitar scales to outline changes can go a long way in helping you reach these guide tones in your lines, as well as provide a second texture to your arpeggio based
phrases.
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Guide Tones Pattern 6 You’ll now look at how you can apply guide tones to your long, ii V I chord changes. Notice that I used a “ delayed resolution” in this phrase. This is where the b7 of Am7 is played on the 3rd beat of bar 1, and then there are two lower neighbor tones that resolve up to the 3, F#, of D7, which is anticipated by a half-beat as that note
falls on the & of 4 in the first measure. Once you have the basic concept of outlining b7 to 3 guide tones in your fingers, you can start to work with the placement of these notes, using anticipation and delayed resolution for example, to create more interest in your lines and build a tension-release vibe in your improvised phrases.
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Guide Tones Pattern 7
In this guide tone phrase, you’re exploring one of my favorite jazz guitar techniques, the enclosure, as it’s applied to the 3rd of the V7 and Imaj7 chord in this progression. By adding a chromatic note below the 3rd of the next chord in the progression , after playing the b7 of the underlying chord you’re on, you can delay the guide tone resolution. This brings a sense of chromaticism to your ii V I lines while sticking close to the guide tones at the same time.
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Guide Tones Pattern 8 This lick, in the style of legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino , uses chromatic notes as well as long slurs to hide the guide tones , while still maintaining the guide tone vibe throughout the pattern.
Check this lick out and then explore this idea further, of expanding upon your guide tone lines with chromatic notes, slurs and other extended guitar techniques, in order to move beyond
simply playing b7-3 in your phrases on their own.
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Guide Tones Pattern 9 You can also use chordal substitution and superimposition to apply guide tones to your lines and phrases.
In this guide tone pattern, you’re turning a ii V I progression into a iii VI ii V I progression by playing Bm7-E7 then Am7-D7 over the Am7-D7-Gmaj7 progression. This type of substitution, playing iii VI ii V over ii V chords, is a common way to create interest over ii V chords, and is something that you can explore further in the woodshed.
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Guide Tones Pattern 10 In this last lick, you’ll be looking at a more advanced substitution as we play biii bVI ii V I over the underlying ii V I chord progression. Learning how to apply various substitutions to your jazz guitar solos is an important part of
learning how to play jazz guitar. As well, using guide tones is a great way to help keep these subs from getting too outside , as the guide tones glue them together over the underlying changes.
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Jazz Guitar Guide Tone Exercises To help you get started with these 10 Guide Tone Patterns, here are 5 ways that you can expand upon these exercises in the woodshed.
Play a ii V I progression on the guitar, sing the guide tones, b7 over iim7, then 3 and b7 over V7, and finally 3 over Imaj7. Repeat in 12 keys. Pick a Jazz Standard, such as All The Things You Are, and practice just playing the guide tones for each ii V I in that tune. From there, improvise a solo based on those guide tones. Solo over Tune Up, by Miles Davis, and use one of these Guide Tone Patterns over each ii V I chord progression. Begin to alter the pattern by adding notes, taking notes away, and changing the underlying rhythm of the pattern. Write out 10 Guide Tone Patterns of your own using the building blocks discussed in this lesson. Transcribe a chorus of solo by a legendary Jazz guitaris t, analyze the lines in that chorus to discover how your favorite players use guide tones in their solos and improvised phrases.
