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Standard in C, Revisited
from Mimi Fox’s Graduated Solos
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 repeating 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 arpeggio 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 playing 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 interesting 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.
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