CHAPTER 3 • Spelling Chord Changes continued .

Chromatic Approach Notes

We have already encountered chromatic approach notes
])J'aet.ieq_ up #s
when we were discussing bebop scales. Taken together with More Tools
For anything that you are working
arpeggios and scales, they round out pretty much everyth ing
on, you always have several different
that it is possible to play in a solo. tools to explore it. To bring a more
ear-oriented approach to the prob-
lem, try singing. For non-horn play-
Chromatic approach notes were an important bebop ers, sing the 7th chord as you play it,
innovation. They inject a strong element of chromaticism into note by note up the arpeggio. (Horn
players: imagine each note before
change playing. That's one of the things that made bebop so
you play it). Play the chord and then
foreign to older musicians of the time. Chromatic approach listen internally as you sing it silently
notes give us a way to bring all12 pitches to any tonal in your head. Or just look at your
instrument and imagine the sound
situation. By using chromatic approach notes, you can play a C clearly and then play it and see if
natural on a Bmajor 7th chord as well as other notes that take you were correct. If when you play
you outside of the chord scale, while still playing "inside" the the sound it differs from what you
imagined it would sound like, figure
chord changes. Chromatic approach notes are short visits to out what it was that you heard and
sounds outside of the chord scale, that resolve back to notes in analyze it. Maybe you missed an in-
terval of a 4th and sang the 5th in-
the given chord scale.
stead. Note the mistake and practice
the same intervals over each chord
My first sense of the importance of these notes to the bebop change. This is important. One of
the problems with working on ear
vocabulary came when I was in junior high school. I was training is that it is often presented
torn between playing folk guitar and jazz piano. I was more as a kind of a test. What is this chord?
Right! What is this interval? Wrong!
developed as a pianist (I didn't even read music on guitar
Repeat. Testing yourself over and
and couldn't tell you the notes of the fingerboard without over in this fashion doesn't really
doing considerable thinking about it-1 read tablature), but constitute practicing. It is practicing
of a sort, but it is not a very clear or
socially and politically I liked where folk music was coming organized way to develop your ears.
from. (I was listen ing to people like Stefan Grossman, Rev. Integrating ear training into your 4
practice offers another way to work 4
Gary Davis and Pete Seeger). So I played guitar for a few years,
on your ears-a way that allows you
but as I became more serious about piano and jazz, my guitar to find another avenue for practicing t
playing atrophied. Occasionally, I would pick up the guitar this "hard-to-practice" thing. One of
the most common melodic ear train-
4
and try to play something jazz-like on it. When I tried to solo ing mistakes comes from confusion 4
over changes, my lack of familiarity with the fingerboard about whether the sound that you
would mess me up, and so I was always missing the note I are hearing is over one chord in a 4
progression or the key that you are
wanted by a half step or a whole step and correcting it by ear. playing in. If you are playing a blues
4
Listening to these lines with their mistakes and fixes, I noticed and you are on the 5th bar and you
that they sounded a lot more bebop-like than my piano
soloing, which was pretty diatonic at the time. Aha! This was
hear a minor third in the line that
you want to play, is it the minor third
of the key or the minor 3rd of the IV
'
4

interesting. For me, studying jazz has been filled with these
sorts of d iscoveries, and the first time I came across chromatic
chord? As the chords become more
complex, these mistakes become
more common. So let's say you are
'
4
approach notes was one such epiphany. (There were a lot of
other epiphanies along the way, like the first time I figured
imagining the notes of a chord and
you make a mistake, meaning that '
out that a 13 b9 voicing - E/G7-was a sound I knew from
the sound that you imagined isn't
what you hea r when you play the '
an Oscar Peterson record, the first time someone showed arpeggio. What was the note that
'
me a 4th voicing or left hand 3-note voicings, the first time
you heard? Let's say you were hear-
ing these pitches in an arpeggio: '
I learned what a diminished scale was. I guess these things the 9th, the b7th and 13th. When
'
'
44
'
 '' ~:'," Spelling Chord Changes continued • CHAPTER 3

•• Tip #8 continued

' were epiphanies because I had been listening to a lot of jazz

you went to play this fragment, you
played something else. Okay, now

•.,
t
but didn't really understand it. When someone showed me
something, or when I figured out something that I had heard, a
play the root to each chord change
and imagine the 9th, b7th and 13th
of the new chord. Change the 9th,
7th and 13th to fit the chord scale
lot of times it hit me with a revelatory force. Aha! So that's what you are using for each chord, so
that sound is. In these days of jazz education where students maybe you missed a natural 9th,
t b7th and natural 13th on the IV?
read jazz books and get a lot of resources handed to them, I chord but in bar 8 you are trying to
t wonder if these epiphanies still occur). hea r the b9, b7th and b13th over
t the Vl7(altered) chord. Once you
have gone through these problem-
t Anyway, to get back to my second chromatic-approach-related atic notes with each chord, your
epiphany, I went to Berklee music school for a couple of ears will feel sharper, and you've
t escaped from the ear training test
semesters, and the first assignment my piano teacher gave me
t mode and have actually practiced
., was to transcribe a Bud Powell solo by ear in the library (away
from the piano), sitting at an old Wollensack reel-to-reel tape
working on these problematic
sounds for you on different chords.

•t recorder. It had half speed, which helped a lot, but as I listened

to the solo I had the sense that Bud was playing notes that
]Jtaeiiet?. iip #g
Meet the Composer
•• weren't on the piano-that he had found notes that were in
the cracks. I had heard this music before then, of course, but
somehow I hadn't quite figured out what was essential to the
Another tool is composition. Af-
ter working on the scale exercise or
the displaced diatonic 7th chords
t sound I was hearing. Once again, it was the chromaticism that
above, you could compose a chorus

t
• I hadn't really"heard"before.
where you try to create the most
interesting combination of chord
scale and chromatic note choices, or

•
the most interesting displacements.
To repeat something that we talked about earlier in relation Composing helps you glimpse your
to bebop scales, chromatic approach notes give directionality soloing years in the future when you
t have a better handle on the things

••
to a solo. They also are essential rhythmically, creating accent
that you are working on now (when
patterns by putting important target notes on the downbeat food will come in little pill forms and
(or upbeats if you so choose) of a measure. Perhaps on an we'll all be driving hover crafts to the

•• even more basic level, they create accent patterns by creating

a hierarchy of note values-by which I mean, they create a
gig. Unfortunately, when you play at
a gig that includes dinner, the little
food pills they serve the band will

•
not be the same little food pills
sense of certain notes in the line being more important than
that are on the regular menu, but
others-some notes becoming the target or destination of I digress.) In that way, it helps you
t the line. They also give the soloist a lot of material because, to solidify your sense of what you

•• combined with scales or arpeggios, they generate countless

variations and lines over a given chord.
like and what direction you want
to go in. Use any of the exercises
in this book, or better yet, ideas of

•• Let's take a line by Bud Powell from the same solo that I had to
your own, as a jumping off place
for a composition. (For an example
of this, see the chorus of blues solo
that utilizes 8th note displacements
t transcribe in the library that I spoke about earlier:
as an organizing feature on the top

•• of page 38.)

C-' F7 gvn7
t
•• JJrJJ liEE'f rkl iJI E'Eit'r cf f~l Qr ET [f c! I ~ J II
t 45
t
 CHAPTER 3 • S ellin Chord Changes continued ~.',_ ~-}

This line shows a skillful blending of chromatic approach notes, scales and arpeggios.
It starts with a Bb Pentatonic scale with one note added above and below the first
target note. This pattern delays the arrival of the 3rd until beat 3 in the measure. Then
we get an unusual arpeggiation from the 3rd to the #11 (a piece of our big arpeggio),
a scale fragment (which could also be considered a chromatic approach note pattern,
1 to 7 to 1), an arpeggio to the 7th, and then a single chromatic approach note that
leads to the 5th of the new chord change on beat 1 of the next measure. Next, an
arpeggiation that outlines the guide tone (7 to 3 in a ii-V), and then a 3-note chromatic
approach note pattern (one half step above, two below) that leads to the 5th of the
next chord in beat 1 of the next measure.

CH~OMATI AP~OCHES CH~OMATI AP~OCHES

CHm1ATIC AP~OCHES

1~0 3 ~1

S FLAT PEIIITATOIIIIC SCALE F~A

~UIOE TOIIIE 7 TO 3

So this is how chromatic approach notes get used in an actual solo-these are
chromatic approach notes in action.

Chromatic Approach Notes in 6 Steps

How do we work on integrating them into our playing and practice?
The best distillation of chromatic approach notes that I have seen is from Charlie
Banacos, the legendary Boston teacher and pianist. He starts with the 12 combinations
of 1 and 2 notes approaching a target pitch.

Please notice that there are other possible combinations of these pitches-for
example, B, Bb, C-but in this case the chromatic pitches aren't all moving by half step
in the direction of the target note. All the examples above move by half step in the
direction of middle C.

46
 ~-Ff:i _ Spelling Chord Changes continued • CHAPTER 3

1. Practice the above patterns and then learn them transposed to each of the 12
tones. You should be able to play each of the 12 patterns aiming at any target note.

2. This step is where things get interesting. How do chromatic approach note patterns
function? In the Bud Powell example above, Bud builds his solo from common
elements- scale fragments and arpeggios- and then adds chromatic approach notes
to create interest and stress certain notes and to cause those notes to fall on strong
beats. (Bud does these things simultaneously, of course. In order to take these sorts of
lines apart and understand what is going on, though, it is helpful to think of chromatic
approach note patterns as something that is added to the other harmonic material).

So: let's take the scale fragment 1 2 3 5. Insert an approach note pattern before each
note. Try all of the different possible patterns. Maybe you get something like this:

IF II
Work with it a little more. Try leaving some of the tones "unapproached:' Keep a record
of some of your favorite lines that you derive this way. Practice them over different
chords. (The above scale 1 2 3 5 fragment can be part of a Bb major scale and it also
could be part of any of the modes of that scale: C Dorian, D Phrygian, etc. It also could
be part of the F and Eb scales and their modes and Eb melodic minor and its modes
among others, so you can see that familiarity with this small scale fragment could have
applications over a lot of different chords).

3. Try building lines using patterns other than 1 2 3 5. Try 1 3 5 7. Try using the chord
tones of"difficult chords"-chords you are less familiar with. For example, work out the
patterns to chord tones of a Ab-7b5, or B-Ma7. Here are a few more examples to help
you on your way with this.

g_c.7

~ po,u~J 4 J,it@lw 1 w,a31Jf 1 J0 1 wp1 1 wa~o 1 ;w,~Jp1

5

I
~ ]tJ J tJ ijR tW
I

47
 CHAPTER 3 • Spelling Chord Changes continued --:$

4. Okay, back to chromatic approach notes. One of the great

things about chromatic approach notes is that they give you a
lot of ammunition. I can keep adding approach note patterns
to scale fragments and arpeggios, and this will generate lots
of lines over any chord. CD EXAMPLE 5 (chromatic approach
note patterns, scale fragments and arpeggios over G-7)

~-7 P7 P7 1

~ 2EEiE r'J'j 3&31;,; M1f.l JP I J3& 3 \ 3 ~r E1Erlb@E g\u~r

After working on a few hard keys, take a particular chord
quality (for example, minor 7ths), and spend a long time J>,-aetietl tip #10
playing scale fragments and scales and combining these with
Hard keys
different chromatic approach note patterns. Do it slowly, Playing in hard or unfamiliar keys
letting your ear help you make meaningful choices. Go around is extremely useful. For one thing,
the circle of fifths or randomly from key to key. Then move to your hand hasn't been habituated
to playing in these keys so you can
another quality and start going around to different keys again, use them as ear-training aids. Your
until you have worked on Major 7ths in all keys. Try all of the ears have to tell your fingers what
to play, since muscle memory isn't
different chord qualities: Major 7, minor 7ths, dominant 7ths,
working for you. When trying to get
minor? bS, diminished 7ths, dominant 7sus4 chords, minor greater fluency in these keys, chro-
Major 7ths. matic approach notes are helpful
because the problem isn't always
that you don't know the scale of a
5. After you have spent a fair amount of time on this, try difficult key, sometimes the prob-
lem is that you don't the notes that
writing down a few lines over each chord type. Try to use all of
AREN'T in the scale in that key. That
the different chromatic approach note patterns at some point sounds complicated. What I mean
in these lines. is, if you are playing a Ab-7b5 it's as
important to know what to do with
notes like Eb, F natural and G natu-
6. Then transpose the line by ear into all twelve keys. ral as it is to know the notes of the
Ab Locrian scale. Getting to know
the "wrong notes" in the scale is
actually a little easier than getting
to know the "right notes" because
there are less of them. There are usu-
ally 5. And of course, some are more
wrong than others. Perhaps most
importantly, knowing what notes
aren't in the scale helps you to take
in the harmonic universe of this less
familiar key. It's a little bit like that
Star Trek sensor shirt-you have to
have a sense of how all twelve notes
function in the key even if you aren't
using all of them all the time.
So I sometimes tell my students
that pianists are lucky that the keys
look so different as you go around
the circle of Sths. (Lucky us that Gb
and B are hard to play in! Students,

48
 ::.-·-· Spelling Chord Changes continued • CHAPTER 3

Pr~ctie,h12ombnas off:and 2 approach notes to a target note in all keys

Practice (start very slowly and 0\.Jt of time)'~dng
9
the above approach note
combinations to scale fragments: 1 2 3 5 in a few keys
3 Practice adding approach note patterns to the chord tones (1 3 5 7) of a few
different sevenths
4 For step 3, use some very familiar chords, and some less familiar chords in
harder keys
5 Write down some of your favorite patterns, to make 2- or 4-bar licks constructed of
chord tones and the chromatic patterns that can precede them.
6 Construct such a lick for each chord quality. Write it down and transpose around to
all of the keys

Guide Tones
Tip # 70 continued
There is one more approach that I want to talk about before
of course, tend not to see it that
moving on to work on some specific tunes. Guide tones are way). It lets you put your ears to
lines of longer rhythmic values (usually half notes or whole work in a very direct way. I am told
notes) that outline the harmony of a chord progression. The that Jim Hall sometimes tunes his
guitar randomly to break up finger-
most common sort of guide tone line is one that follows a ii-7 ing patterns and to force himself to
V7 progression, moving from the 7th on the ii chord to a 3rd examine how much of his playing is
ear driven and how much is derived
on V chord. But I want to talk about guide tone lines in a more
from muscle memory. In the same
general sense than this, meaning any longer, slower line that way, we can switch to Gb or A major
moves predominantly by half or whole steps through a set of and be on more unfamiliar terrain.

chord changes. This goes back to something we talked about

a bit earlier-that the sound of outlining or spelling the basic
harmony of the tune comes from paying attention to the
notes that change moving from chord to chord. Focusing on
common tone relationships (meaning the notes that are the
same between chords) tends to erase the sense of difference
between chords and as such can be extremely useful. It is
impossible to do entirely one thing or the other; every guide
tone line tends to be a mix of notes that change chord to
chord and notes that don't change, but at least in the early
stages of working on improvising over chord changes, I think it
is probably most useful to seek out new notes as they become
available on a new chord change.

t
I Guide tone lines can be used in several ways:
I 1. As a way of practicing at faster tempos. If I want to practice playing over"Giant Steps" at a fast
tempo, I can still keep the tempo up if I play fewer, longer notes. This is more useful than it sounds.

•
What's the problem with "Giant Steps"? Switching chords quickly. If I am playing half notes I am still

I 49
I