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Techniques
Jazz guitar comping is an art form in its own right. The comping rhythms, melodies,
and voicings of the greatest Jazz guitarists are delightful to listen to, with or without a
soloist present.
But how is it that some players manage to create such captivating comping ideas,
while others fade into the background?
A great accompanist can create motifs, melodies and rhythms that work with the
ensemble without being overbearing, but that are still interesting on their own.
The techniques and approaches for captivating Jazz guitar comping are scattered
throughout recordings of the Jazz greats.
Sometimes it only takes a few bars from a recording to learn truly unique
comping techniques that you can use right away.
In this lesson, you’ll play through a Jim Hall comping example inspired by the
Autumn Leaves recording from Ron Carter and Jim Hall on the Alone Together album.
Using this comping example and the Jim Hall chords contained within, you’ll derive 5
different concepts that you can immediately apply to your own playing in countless
ways.
Below is the Jim Hall comping example itself. Included with the music and tab notation
are the recorded audio example and a backing track to help you practice.
Each new musical exercise in this lesson will contain both audio and backing tracks to
aid you in learning.
Start off by playing and getting familiar with this Jim Hall comping example, then you
can move on to the techniques required to comp like this.
Here’s a menu that will allow you to jump to the different topics contained in the lesson.
Harmonic Analysis
Chord Splitting
Triad Substitution
Melodic Comping
Harmonic Analysis
After playing through the Jim Hall comping example, the first step is to take a look at
the individual chords and identify them.
Breaking down the chords found in the excerpt will provide you with an opportunity to
add them to your own playing and chordal vocabulary.
Bar 1 – Cm9/C9 (iim7)
Over the Cm7, two chords are featured. The first chord is a fragment of a Cm9 chord
and the second chord is a fragment of a C9 chord.
In many comping examples that feature bass and guitar, the root is excluded from the
chord. Jazz guitarists often exclude the root in favour of more colourful tones,
especially due to the fact that the bass player will be covering the root note.
As these chords exist in the lower register of the guitar, you’ll immediately generate a
darker, more unique sound – this is especially true when extensions are present
(such as the 9th).
Bar 2 – F9 (V7)
In bar 2, a single F9 chord is broken up into two chords, providing a sense of harmonic
movement. Having the ability to play two chords in one shape is also very easy on the
hands!
Why F major and Dm triads? Take a look at how each triad corresponds to the chord
tones in a Bbmaj9 chord.
Bbmaj9 Bb D F A C
Dm Triad – R b3 5 –
F Triad – – R 3 5
The Dm can be found starting on the chord 3rd of Bbmaj9, and the F major triad
starts from the 5th of the Bbmaj9 chord.
Bar 4 – Ebmaj7, Ebmaj13 (IVmaj7)
In the last bar of the Jim Hall comping example, an Ebmaj7 chord is featured on the
‘and’ of beat 1.
If you look closely at the Jim Hall comping excerpt you’ll notice that both chords are
based off of the chord shape above. The only difference between the two Eb chords is
that 1 string is left out of the complete chord shape in both chords.
This chord splitting technique will be looked at in depth later in the lesson.
If you’re having trouble forming any of the chord shapes in the lesson, be sure to check
out this guide on how to play chords faster.
Learning through Rhythm
Your first step to improvising and implementing new material into your playing should
be experimenting with rhythms.
Changing the rhythm even slightly gives the music a completely different feel.
Adjusting the rhythm also helps you to develop a deeper relationship with the musical
content by creating new associations for your mind and hands to work over.
Here are a few rhythms using the exact same chords as the Jim Hall comping excerpt to
help you get started.
Charleston Rhythm
The first example you’ll play through involves implementing the Charleston rhythm.
The Charleston rhythm, as you may know, is played on beat 1 and the ‘and’ of 2.
Listen to how the comping example takes on a completely different vibe when using a
different rhythm.
Again, you’ll use the same chords as in the Jim Hall comping example, but this time
you’ll play quarter notes throughout.
As you can see and hear, shifting the rhythm only slightly creates a completely different
comping feel.
Now, take this concept further but thinking up as many new rhythms as possible and
applying the Jim Hall chords to it.
For even more rhythmic comping ideas, be sure to check out this essential Jazz guitar
comping rhythms lesson here.
After working with altering the rhythm, the next step is to take a deeper look at what’s
going on harmonically.
In just the 4 bars of the original Jim Hall comping example, a number of musical devices
are used that you can incorporate into your comping.
The first technique you’ll find in the Jim Hall lick is the usage of the secondary
dominant.
Keeping that definition in mind, take a look at bar 1 in the original Jim Hall comping
example.
You’ll notice that the Cm9 chord fragment becomes a C7 chord in bar 1, which resolves
to the F7 chord in bar 2.
In this chord progression, the F7 is a V7 chord and not a I chord, therefore making the
C7 a secondary dominant.
First, play through the same II – V – I – IV chord progression using typical Drop chord
style voicings. Get familiar with these chords as the next step will introduce the
secondary dominants.
The reason the Cm7 can be converted to a secondary dominant is because the
proceeding chord, F7, is not a I chord. Also, the F is a 4th above the C, which satisfies
both conditions for a secondary dominant chord.
The Bbmaj7 can be converted to a secondary dominant for the same reasons.
The I7 (Bb7) in the place of the Imaj7 (Bbmaj7) is considered a secondary dominant due
th
to the fact that the Ebmaj7 is not the tonic and that Eb is a perfect 4 above Bb.
Here’s what playing the II – V – I – IV progression sounds like with the inclusion of
secondary dominants. Play the example using the notation below to familiarize yourself
with the secondary dominant concept.
But hold on a moment, this example sounds different than the Jim Hall excerpt. Why is
that?
The chords you just played in the secondary dominant example are voiced in a
brighter manner. In order to get the same darker quality as in the Jim Hall example,
try playing the same chord progression using both secondary dominants and
th
inversions of 7 chords, instead of root position 7th chords.
Using inversions of 7th chords can open the doors to both brighter and darker
sounding versions of the same chord.
The inversions and secondary dominants sound great, but there’s more you can do to
emulate Jim Hall’s approach.
You can lose the Drop chord sound all together by simply removing a single note in
each of the chords in the above example.
Many of the smaller chord fragments Jim Hall and other great Jazz guitarists played can
be derived as sections of larger Drop chords.
In bars 3-4, the lowest chord tone in each Drop chord shape was removed to add some
variety.
Chord Splitting
As Jazz guitarists it’s important to know how to get the most sound and playing ideas
from even the simplest chords.
In Bar 2 and 4 of the original comping example (seen below), a technique seen in
countless Jazz guitar solos is used – taking a single chord and playing different parts of
it at different times.
In the excerpt above, the F9 and Ebmaj13 chords are broken up into two chord
fragments.
Breaking up larger chords into fragments creates movement and allows you to highlight
specific chord tones without having to lift a finger.
In order to work this chord splitting concept out for yourself, check out the following
exercise.
Now, using the same 4 chords as above, you’ll play through the following comping
example.
This time, instead of playing the complete chord all at once, you’ll break up each chord
into 2 parts.
The technique works for any chord shapes you can think of. In fact, you can even break
the chord up into 2-string fragments or non-adjacent string fragments.
Experiment with the number of ways you can break a single chord up. This kind of
experimentation will quickly add variety to your comping and chord soloing.
Triad Substitution
Moving on, in bar 3 of the Jim Hall comping example, triad chord substitutions are
featured.
Building triads off of the chord 3rd and 5th allows you to play specific chord tones in a
given chord.
Triad substitutions often exclude the root of the chord in favor of the upper structure
chord tones or extensions.
In each substitution in the below chart, the triad built from the chord 3rd produces the
3rd, 5th and 7th of the given chord. The only chord tone excluded with the chord 3rd
triad sub is the root.
Chord
1 3 5 7
Tones
Eb over
– Eb G Bb
Cm7
Adim over
– A C Eb
F7
Dm over
– D F A
Bbmaj7
Gm over
– G Bb D
Ebmaj7
Play through the chord 3rd triad substitution below and listen to the audio example to
develop a feel for this substitution.
Next, play through the complete II – V – I – IV progressions again, but this time using
triads built from the 5th of each chord tone.
Remember that triads built from the 5th omit the 3rd and add the 9th of each chord tone.
As you can see in the chart below, when using a triad built from scale degree 5 of a
given 7th chord, the root and 3rd are excluded. Often the 3rd is kept in a substitution
voicing because of how it helps to define the chord.
However, without the chord 3rd, triads built from the chord 5th of a 7th chord produce a
unique sound that can bring variety and color to your comping.
Chord
1 3 5 7 9
Tones
Gm over
– – G Bb D
Cm7
Cm over
– – C Eb G
F7
F over
– – F A C
Bbmaj7
Bb over
– – Bb D F
Ebmaj7
Take a listen to the audio example below, then play through the example to hear the
effect that chord 5th triad substitutions have on 7th chords.
Melodic Comping
The final, and possibly trickiest element to the Jim Hall comping excerpt is the concept
of melodic comping.
In order to create interest and variety when comping, it’s important not to forget about
one of the most important elements to music – melody.
Starting in bar 2 of the Jim hall example, a melodic line can be heard moving through
the top voice of the chords.
Listen to the original Jim Hall comping example again and listen closely for the top voice
throughout the excerpt.
Starting in bar 2, the top voice of each chord starts moving in a consistent pattern. In
bar’s 2 and 3 the top voice moves in 3rds and in the last bar, the top voice jumps by a
fourth.
Having control over both the chords and melody of a tune or progression can be
challenging, but here’s an exercise to help you get started.
Before trying to create a melody with leaps and patterns as in the example above, work
on playing stepwise melodies through the chord progression.
In this melodic comping example, the G in the top voice of the Cm7 in bar 1 moves by
step throughout the progression. So, the notes in the melody starting in bar 1 are as
follows: G, A, Bb, C.
A trick to finding melodic limitations within each chord voicing is by playing the root
note of a given chord then reaching for every available tone in the highest voice by
step.
Depending on your hand position relative to the root note, the basic chord shape may
change as well.
Now, play through the same chords as above, but this time in reverse.
Working with each chord like this will immediately allow you to find out the melodic
limitations of the given chord shape.
Chord Splitting – Comp through any tunes you know already, but
this time split each chord into sections.
Maintain the same shapes you normally play and strum the chord in
sections on different beats, rather than as a whole.
Triads – In order to really hear the color of the triads you use as
substitutions in your playing, start out with a backing track or loop
of a chord progression or tune. This way, you’ll be able to hear the
color of the triad substitution much easier.
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