Not just what, but HOW
Everyone gets in a rut at some point, and starts looking for a way to make the familiar sound new and fun again. If you feel like your minor blues playing need a reboot, it makes sense to think about learning some new chords, licks and more. But it's not enough to just get a few new chord shapes or scale patterns under your fingers – you need to learn how to use them, too. Blues-oriented jazz guitarists like Freddie Green, Herb Ellis and Duke Robillard rely on just a handful of chord shapes and some relatively familar scales, yet manage to spin out seemingly endless rounds of blues comping with the conversational variety of a great improvised solo, and chorus after chorus of inspired, inventive and musical blues licks. With the right ideas and information, you can too.
A Three-Step Method to Upgrade your Minor Blues Game
Know The Jazz Roadmap
Learning chords and licks go hand in hand. When it comes to the twelve-bar minor blues progression, jazz musicians pick up where Delta and Chicago blues leaves off. Understand how jazz musicians comp on the blues, and your licks will follow.
Right Groove, Right Voicings, Right Scales
Plenty of blues-based jazz guitar is based on surprisingly few chord shapes and scales, played in very specific ways. You can use these building blocks to emulate classic swing and bebop styles, or repurpose them to your own creative ends.
Build a Vocabulary of Moves
Chord substitutions resolve – and so do the best blues and jazz licks. Start putting together a vocabulary of chord moves and phrases that resolve, and your comping and soloing will finally start to sound like the real deal.
Getting That Sound Shouldn't Feel Mysterious
Learning new chords and licks and how to put them together does take time and practice, but what to work on and how to get there shouldn't be a big mystery or take the rest of your life to accomplish. From the outside, getting a jazzier sound on the blues can look hard to decipher, but it's really just based on a handful of key chord shapes, which in turn help tell you what scales and sounds to play where. There is a logic to how guitarists put together those random-seeming sequences of voicings, and how they choose when to play exotic-sounding things like altered and diminished licks.
In these three workshops, I'll distill that logic down to the essentials, to show you how jazz musicians think about the minor blues form, the specific chord shapes you need to play both minor blues progressions and chord-melody licks, a simple, hands-on way to add altered and diminished licks into your blues, how to put chords and solos together in the most musical, intuitive way possible, and the best ways to practice your new vocabulary.
HOW IT WORKS
Sign Up
Use the secure form below to sign up for and attend the live online workshops (or watch the replays later).
Take The Workshops
Learn the most essential new chord voicings and licks and how to apply them to the minor blues.
Transform Your Minor Blues
Watch the replay for an entire year, organize your practice plan, and transform your minor blues comping and soloing.
How is Minor Blues Chord Substitutions different from last April's Freddie Green Chords?
Do I need to have taken Freddie Green Chords to take Minor Blues Chord Substitutions?
Are these workshops for electric or acoustic guitar players?
Are these workshops part of the Fingerstyle Five membership?
Do I need to sign up for all three workshops?
How much does it cost?
$79 09/23/23 MINOR BLUES CHORD SUBSTITUTIONS
Freddie Green voicings and chord substitutions for 8- and 12-bar minor blues progressions
$79 10/21/23 MINOR BLUES & BEBOP
Add altered and diminished sounds to the minor blues progression
$79 11/11/23 KENNY BURRELL CHORDS
Create chord-melody licks and comp for yourself while soloing on minor blues progressions
Sign Up Now!
Get a year's access to Minor Blues Chord Substitutions, Minor Blues & Bebop Kenny Burrell Chords for $197.
(Note: Minor Blues & Bebop will not live stream until October, and Kenny Burrell Chords will live stream in November.)
Get All Three Workshops For $197:
Minor Blues Chord Substitutions • Minor Blues & Bebop • Kenny Burrell Chords
Please read if purchasing the entire series:
Your total of $197 will be processed now. Workshops will live stream on the following Saturdays at 10:30am Central Time:
Minor Blues Chord Substitutions: September 23
Minor Blues & Bebop: October 21
Kenny Burrell Chords: November 11.
You do not need to attend the live stream; the entire workshop will be archived immediately after. Each workshop will be available to watch on demand for an entire year from the date that it airs.
