P REMIERCLINIC
J AZZ
Mimi Fox’s GraduatedSolos
Standard in C, Revisited
In our second solo over our standard in C, we’ve taken the basic
melody from last month’s lesson and have used motific development
to strengthen and embellish it, specifically through the use of repeat-
ing phrases and lines. You’ll find that a lot of the ideas have become
more intricate, both harmonically and chop-wise, so you’ll want to
take your time and play everything slowly to ensure your phrase is
correct. Remember that a strong melody will sound great played at
any tempo.
This time around we’re trying to play off the same ideas, but with
more complexity. For instance, the first eight bars are essentially
the same arpeggios we used last month, except we’re going to play
denser lines over them. The first arpeggio is basically a C major, with
an added sixth, which is an A. In measure three, we find ourselves
working over an E7 arpeggio, and it’s moving from a lower note, the
G, all the way up to the high F on the E string. It’s moving farther than
we did last month, and again, you’ll want to begin slowly.
In measure six, we leave the A7 arpeggio and move into the D minor
– it’s basically a Dm9, as the only note that’s not in a D minor arpeg-
gio is E (which happens to be a nice modal note). By the time we
arrive at measure nine, I’ve got a lick over those two measures that
I just repeat – it’s a motif, and you can develop any lick you like into
this. When you find a lick you like, a really great thing to do is play
it in different areas of the neck, because that will allow you to play it
over different songs.
In measure 11, we begin developing a line off the A minor pentatonic
scale – it’s right off scale, except for the very last set of triplets, which
are passing tones into the D7 line. What’s happening here is just a
basic arpeggio, to which we’re adding passing tones to before play-
ing a quick cluster of the D7b5 arpeggio. The next two lines over the
Dm7 and the G7 are pretty dense, and the last line over the G7 is just
a G7#5 arpeggio. For reference, this is also an augmented arpeggio,
which moves in major thirds up the guitar neck.
In measures 17 through 20 we encounter a tricky line, but all we’re
doing is playing a pattern. We’re playing our pattern, consisting of the
C major arpeggio with a few passing tones, before making an inter-
esting move – I go down to Bb and play the same thing, only it’s over
the E7 chord. The reason this works is because of the tritone theory
of substitution – I am playing the same thing a flatted fifth away. So
instead of playing E7 I’m playing Bb7, and it works because they’re
related by the tritone theory.
In measure 21 we’re back to the blues. I round out the tune at the
very end with a little jazz humor, by working in a quote from a famous
tune in the last two measures. Hopefully you can identify the song.
Standard in C 2
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PREMIER GUI TAR FEBRUAR Y 2008 111
