Jazzcomputer.org

Here’s another lick to climb up and down a tonality without using scale or arpeggios : it’s a repetitive pattern of 3 notes, very easy to notice for the listener. It’s important in an improvisation to provide the listener with such rythmic and melodic patterns, instead of scales and scales and scales…

Here’s a very common lick in fourth, which can be used in a wide range of contexts. It has a very modern and modal color, you can hear for example Alain Caron (Uzeb’s bass player) use it a lot. The final notes are reversed to end the phrase on a D as it started on G.

Here’s a good pratice, for both hands : start playing the first G with the litlle finger, and take care with the right hand’s down-up movement. You can alternate the three last notes to end the phrase with a D (a nineth on C minor) for a more rich color.

On the guitar’s neck :

In jazz, most people use 4 notes chords, also the six strings are not used very often for polyphony. But there are big chords which, quickly played as arpeggios, may sound really well.

For exemple, listen to this one, in E Dorian (second mode in D major):

On the guitar’s neck :

It’s possible to build complete scales using this type of chords, maybe for a next post .