Lesson 18: C Blues | Scales & Voicings – Preparatory Exercises

First of all, if you have completed all the lessons in this module and you are still here with me, you are amazing. The reason I gave you all these heavy improvisational restrictions in the previous weeks is that I know how difficult it is to improvise intelligently over chord changes. 

Suppose a student already has trouble improvising over an endless F7 chord. In that case, it will feel horrifying to improvise over chord changes where he/she has to shift scale and left-hand voicings after every 2 seconds. And above all this, you have to be aware of chords notes and tension notes. Pfff.

This is the point where many students quit learning jazz and just go back to play the same old blues scale (over every chord progression) because that always feels safe, even if it sounds wrong here and there.

And the previous weeks, you might have felt that I was going extremely slow introducing new material, but I did that for a reason… I did not want you to freak out. 

But here we are, and I assume that you followed through with every single lesson in order in this module, so I am confident that you are ready for what is coming next. 

Exercise 1-1: Connecting C7 Bebop Scale with F7 Bebop scale while playing a simple accompaniment
(I7 – IV7 – I7 – I7)

Exercise 1-2: Introducing more variations in the left-hand accompaniment (I7 – IV7 – I7 – I7)

Exercise 1-3: Improvisation with left-hand voicings

Exercise 2-1: Connecting F7 Bebop Scale with C7 Bebop scale while playing a simple accompaniment
(IV7 – IV7 – I7 – I7)

Exercise 2-2: Introducing more variations in the left-hand accompaniment (IV7 – IV7 – I7 – I7)

Exercise 3: Connecting bebop scales over the first 8 bars of a 12 bars blues while improvising a left-hand accompaniment
(I7 – IV7 – I7 – I7 – IV7 – IV7 – I7 – I7)

Exercise 4: Improvising left-hand accompaniment over a Turnaround chord progression (I7 – VI7 – ii7 – V7)

3-Notes Rootless Voicings

4-Notes Rootless Voicings

Shell Voicings

Shell Voicings + Rootless Voicings