Building a Part From Scratch

Everything so far has been one idea at a time. This lesson puts them together on a track you have not played, the way you would at a rehearsal.

Work through it in order and do not skip ahead.

First, listen once through without the guitar and find where the bar starts. Watch the changes as they scroll and count.

Second, choose voicings. Minor sevenths and ninths from lessons two and three, kept to four strings, kept in the middle of the neck.

Third, invent one rhythmic figure — one bar long, two or three pressed hits, at least one of them off the downbeat — and play only that figure for a full chorus. Not variations on it. That one figure.

Fourth, vary it, but only once per section. A part that changes constantly sounds like someone practising. A part that stays put and shifts at the section boundary sounds like an arrangement.

Gm7

Gm7 — the same movable grip from lesson four.

Gm7 to C7 to Dm7 at 87 BPM. Build the part in the four steps above.

Then do the same thing again somewhere less comfortable.

This second track vamps Em7 to Dmaj7 — a major chord on the seventh degree, which is Dorian's fingerprint yet again — before moving to a section over A7 and E minor. The change of section is your cue to vary the figure.

If you can walk into this one cold and have a part that sits in the pocket inside two choruses, the path has done its job.

Em7 to Dmaj7, then a section change. Same four steps, no preparation.