Music Lesson: Chord Progressions and Improvisation

Okay. So if you listen to any popular song, you're likely going to hear that there is more than one chord featured underneath a melody or an improvised section. This is really important. We need to be comfortable playing over more than one chord, not just one chord at a time.

Introduction to Chord Tone Ideas

We're going to tackle that now using the chord tone idea. Let's take a look at Example 1 on the PDF. This is a four-chord, four-bar chord progression in the key of C major, featuring the chords:

• C
• A minor
• F
• G

And we're just going to loop that around.

Playing the C Major Scale

To start with, I'm going to play the C major scale over that chord progression so you can hear how that scale works at some points and not at others. Then I'm going to play a melody that targets specific chord tones in those chords.

This is a really great exercise that you can do. Let's have a go at it now. So let me just lay down the chords for you.

Count In: 2, 3, 4.

Okay, so there's our loop going. Now, I'll start by playing the C major scale for you.

Count In Again: 1, 2, 3.

Targeting Specific Chord Tones

Here's Chord 1. We can definitely hear that this scale is the correct choice for that progression.

Now, let's play a little melody targeting specific notes of the chord. Remember, we have three notes in each chord:

• For a major chord: Root, Third, and Fifth.
• For the A minor chord: Root, Flattened Third, and Fifth.

So I'm just going to play some really simple melodies here.

What I've done is improvise a really simple melody using arpeggios. If the term 'arpeggio' is new to you, it simply means playing the notes of a chord individually.

Understanding Arpeggios

This connects to everything we've been discussing with chord tones. If we join chord tones together, we are playing arpeggios. It's an excellent approach to improvisation because you can't fail to play fantastic notes over the chord.

Since you're only playing notes that feature in that chord, you can't really go wrong.

Important Note: Arpeggios are tool number two that is extremely useful to you.

Exploring Arpeggio Shapes

At the early grades, you might not have access to arpeggio shapes in your curriculum, but it's well worth exploring these tools. They are just as useful as scales.

Try playing arpeggio shapes over each bar to reflect the chord you're playing over, and it'll sound really great. Let's pop that loop back on and have a little jam.

The Importance of Repetition in Improvisation

Just towards the end, I wanted to demonstrate that you don't need to come up with new ideas for every single bar. A lot of these chords belong in a diatonic chord progression, meaning they all come from the same scale.

Key Insight: All these chords will feature the same notes, so you can play the same notes over different chords, and the relationships will change as the chords change.

Demonstrating Note Relationships

Let me demonstrate that for you. I'll play a C note over this chord progression, and you'll see how the sound of that C has a different relationship as the chords go by underneath.

Count In: 3, 4.

Hopefully, you heard that when I played the C over every chord. For me, over chords 1, 2, and 3 (C, A minor, and F), the C worked great.

Note Relationships:

• In the C major chord, it's the Root note.
• In the A minor chord, it's the Flattened Third.
• In the F major chord, it's the Fifth.

Reflection on the G chord:

While it didn't necessarily sound bad over the G chord, it had more of a pensive, tense sound because it's not a chord tone of G; it's the fourth degree of G. I thought it sounded cool, actually.

Introducing Notes for Resolution

On the repeat, I lowered the C note to a B, which is a chord tone of G. It's the Third in the key of G, maintaining that resolved sound.

This is another example of not having to get too technical with your improvisation.

Experimenting with Octave Shapes

Let's apply some restrictions and say: we are going to improvise using octave chords over the chord progression. This can be interesting.

Okay, so that's just me using one technique, the octave shape, to come up with a melody. There may be a few fluffs in there, but that's part of improvisation, you just move on and keep going.

Exploring Single String Play

Now, I would like to talk about playing in that manner on a single string. If you're new to the theory behind scales, it can be tricky to visualize where the notes are within a particular scale shape.

A great technique is to pick any string on the guitar and play in that direction along the string rather than across. This gives you a better sense of the distances between the notes in the scale.

Practicing the C Major Scale on the B String

Let's pop that loop back on and play the C major scale up the B string. We'll start down here on the C, and if we do it right, we'll end up an octave higher on the 13th fret of the B string.

Count In: Let's try that out.

As we play, we can start to experiment with slidy melodies. This is another approach to creating melodies along a single string, and you have the added bonus of sliding in and out of those notes.

Conclusion

This technique sounds really cool, and I hope that was useful. Let's check out another idea!