Blues Comping Lesson

Blues Comping with Two Notes

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  • Hi guys Joe here, today I wanna show how to effectively comping a blues with just two notes.


    Blues Comping with Two Notes

    • G Major blues
    • 90 Bmp

    The whole study is a classical dominant 7th blues progression in G with an added bar of D7 at the end:

    G7 - % - % - %

    C7 - % - G7 - %

    D7 - C7 - G7 - D7

    D7 - G7



    Theory Focus


    The two notes used are a tritone (three tone apart) interval and are respectively 3rd and dominant 7th of each chord. Third and seventh are the only notes that cannot be ommited from any chords without lose it's quality: major, minor, dominat etc.


    Techniques Focus

    Try to mute the other strings with the underside of left hand fingers and with the thumb over the neck, specially for bass notes.


    Pro Tips

    Dominant seventh chords are usually altered with flat or sharp tensions and/or fifth to create interest and add more need of resolution, like G7#5#13. Playing only 3rd and dominant 7th will leave more space to the soloist or the pianist to chose with one to alter.

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