Low Eh!

Sometimes as my students get comfortable arpeggiating chord changes, their solos become very vertical – they end up relying on the arpeggios in root position as THE tool to build their solos on. This leads to lots of roots on beat one, and also starting their phrases on beat one.

One of the exercises that I give them is to find common tones, or a smooth line between each of the chords – voice leading! I like this approach, because even if they play on the downbeat the inversion is always changing the order of the notes, and they start to use the top note as a melodic guide.

In the first example, I’ve written the inversions over the changes to The Days Of Wine and Roses. This example uses the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th. We’re not using any extensions, even if they are written into the chord change – this comes later.

After this becomes internalised in quarter and eighth notes, we rhythmically vary it and add passing tones. In the example below, I’ve put all of that together, and I’ve made a point of starting and landing roots, 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths on strong beats, and have used anything else as a passing tone. There is also a PDF example below of where the voice leading takes us.