Tim Lerch’s On Location: Jazz Blues Foundations TUTORIAL
Two-Note Chord Punches for Jazz Comping and Improvisation
Shot on location at Tim Lerch’s West Coast studio, Jazz Blues Foundation is an exploration of very simple and very effective ways to frame your jazz solos and improvisations with hip sounding chord punches. Players like Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel, Hollywood Fats and all the great B3 players incorporate this creative approach into their playing all of the time.
”As guitarists, we’re lucky to play a polyphonic instrument that is not only capable of playing expressive solos, but also the harmony and rhythm as well. Often we think of melodies and chords as two different things: “Now I’m taking a solo”, “Now I’m playing chords”, but it doesn’t need to be that way!
I’ve designed this course to help you blur the lines between soloing and rhythm by integrating small harmonic punctuations into your solos that spell out the harmony, adding context and form to your lines. You’ll play your way through the course right along with me – just like we’re working on a lesson together in person!”
Tim organized Jazz Blues Foundation into six progressive lesson sets. Each set begins with a simple harmonic & rhythmic workout and then you’ll put those skills to use in a jazz blues etude to help you better understand how to apply the concepts in your own ways.
”In the first set I’ll explain the “Two-Note Magic” principle – paring down the chords to just two essential notes that lie right under our fingers and creating a rhythmic template with space to add simple melodies. Then we’ll apply that approach to a very basic medium tempo swing Blues in A.
Set two continues with this theme of simple melodies with harmonic support. We’ll expand the harmonic palette with a quick IV in bar two, and a I VI II V turnaround.
Our third set changes the key and we move up the neck to discover that the “Two Note Magic” principle is available to us up there as well. Set 4 changes things up a bit more with a Gospel inspired Minor study that opens up possibilities in both the melodic and harmonic areas.
In set 5, we widen the scope harmonically by introducing suspended sounds on a Funky Rumba groove while keeping the melodies simple and to the point. And in the final set, we take on a classic 8 bar blues inspired by Ray Charles that puts all of the elements together in a smoky, slow-burn, 12/8 groove.”
Tim will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.
Grab your guitar and let’s dig in with Tim Lerch!