A Few Questions About Grippin' and Rippin'

[Bass_Machine]

Hiya Todd, how are you?

Just stopping by with a few questions about FFG (which I'm really enjoying btw!).

1. Trying to work on some of my own chord melody stuff, but had a few questions. What should I do when the melody note is such that it can't be the top note of one of the three note voicings? I've been thinking maybe grip inversions or something along those lines, but I thought it'd be a good idea to ask the master!

2. Do you have any tips about comping? Although chord melody is great fun, I find myself struggling when learning how to comp well. What's your approach, is it grip based? I know there are a couple of extra tricks and stuff for comping (e.g. playing a voice leading line with the 3 and 7 through ii-V-Is and harmonising them), could you please shed some light?

Thanks for the help,

Hector

[Todd Johnson]

Originally Posted by Bass_Machine

Hiya Todd, how are you?

Just stopping by with a few questions about FFG (which I'm really enjoying btw!).

1. Trying to work on some of my own chord melody stuff, but had a few questions. What should I do when the melody note is such that it can't be the top note of one of the three note voicings? I've been thinking maybe grip inversions or something along those lines, but I thought it'd be a good idea to ask the master!

2. Do you have any tips about comping? Although chord melody is great fun, I find myself struggling when learning how to comp well. What's your approach, is it grip based? I know there are a couple of extra tricks and stuff for comping (e.g. playing a voice leading line with the 3 and 7 through ii-V-Is and harmonising them), could you please shed some light?

Thanks for the help,

Hector

Hi Hector,

Glad that FFG is being good to you.

Please forgive me, but I'm not sure what you're asking me in your first question. Sorry.....Let me know what the melody note is and what the chord is and I can "probably" shed some light on the subject. Fair enough?? So let me know....

Comping......hmmmm......Well, there are several ways to answer that....

OK.....There are 4 basic components to rhythmic comping:
1. Legato
2. Staccato
3. Down beats
4. Up beats

Once you have a reasonable command of those 4 basic things then you have all the combination's of those 4 things.

Unfortunately that's a pretty open ended/ endless possibilities type of answer.....

Here's a better answer:

What I would recommend is listening to the great players and pay particular attention to what they do and COPY them. That's really the best way to go......FWIW that's what I've done.

The main thing to remember is that you want to play something that will COMPLEMENT the melody or the soloist. Sometimes its a simple whole note....sometimes its SILENCE....sometimes it complex.

I hope this helps......

Let me know about that first question when you get a minute.

Thanks again for your support and friendship!!!

[Bass_Machine]

Todd,

Thanks for the help so far. Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear with my question to start with!

Basically, your grip system for playing chord melodies is based off having the melody note as the top note in the voicing, right? However, is it possible to voice the chord so that the melody note isn't the top note in the chord? Say I'm playing over a C-7 chord, and the melody note is a C. Via your grip method, the voicing for this should be (top down) C, Bb, Eb. But what if I didn't want to voice this with the melody note on top, or if the melody note was an octave lower so that a voicing with it in would be in a lower position on the neck?

Hope this is a bit clearer!

Hector

[Todd Johnson]

Originally Posted by Bass_Machine

Todd,

Thanks for the help so far. Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear with my question to start with!

Basically, your grip system for playing chord melodies is based off having the melody note as the top note in the voicing, right? However, is it possible to voice the chord so that the melody note isn't the top note in the chord? Say I'm playing over a C-7 chord, and the melody note is a C. Via your grip method, the voicing for this should be (top down) C, Bb, Eb. But what if I didn't want to voice this with the melody note on top, or if the melody note was an octave lower so that a voicing with it in would be in a lower position on the neck?

Hope this is a bit clearer!

Hector

Hector,

What you're asking won't quite work. If the melody note is in the middle of the voicing, then it won't sound like "the melody"....the top note will. Remember that you don't have to harmonize EVERY note either.....

I hope this helps.....

[Bass_Machine]

Todd,

Definitely does help, a simple answer which was also a polite way of telling me not to be a dummy!

Thanks,

Hector

[Todd Johnson]

Originally Posted by Bass_Machine

Todd,

Definitely does help, a simple answer which was also a polite way of telling me not to be a dummy!

Thanks,

Hector

Happy to help......Keep grippin' and rippin'!!