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This basic, but cheerful blues progression tips its hat to the late, great BB King and his beautiful guitar Lucille. Try following the chords playing 7th arpeggios: D7 (D-F#-A-C), G7 (G-B-D-F) and A7 (A-C#-E-G). The track is in D major, so in terms of scales I suggest starting with D major Pentatonic (D-E-F#-A-B), mixing in some D minor Pentatonic (D-F-G-A-C) for extra blues colouring. Rest in Peace BB, and thanks for all the inspiration! Here’s a slow blues jam in G minor with a bit of a Gary Moore vibe going on. For scales, I’d start with G minor Pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F) and the blues scale (G-Bb-C-C#D-F), and then move on to the G minor scale (G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F). For the D (V) chords, think G Harmonic minor scale (G-A-Bb-CD-Eb-F#) to get that all-important F# ‘leading note’ into the mix. You can also outline the triads: Gm (G-Bb-D), Cm (C-Eb-G), D (D-F#-A) and Eb (Eb-G-Bb). This one’s an easy-to-approach jazz practice backing track made for improvising on the classic 2-5-1 jazz progression in D minor. Chords are Em7b5 (1 bar), A7 (1 bar) and Dm7 (2 bars). On the track, you will hear extensions of these chords - as is common in jazz. Use D Minor scale (D-E-F-GA-Bb-C) for the Em7b5 and Dm7 chords - and D Harmonic minor (D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C#) for the A7 chords. Also, try the arpeggios in order to really ‘paint’ the colours of the progression: Em7b5 (E-G-Bb-D), A7 (A-C#-E-G) and Dm7 (D-F-A-C). This one is a fairly challenging groove driven 9/8 jam track, based around Bb Dorian mode. The subdivisions are 2+2+2+3 (three bars) and 3+3+3 (one bar). If you count that way, you may find it easier to get into this odd meter groove. Harmonically, I would recommend starting with Bb Dorian mode (Bb-C-Db-Eb-FG-Ab) and Bb minor Pentatonic (Bb-Db-Eb-F-Ab) for your improvisation. Jam tracks by Quist. For free scale maps and hundreds more tracks, visit www.quistorama.com. You can also subscribe to www. youtube.com/QuistTV to get all the latest free jam tracks and licks. Finally, you can also find Quist and his jam tracks on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
igf SummER School: 10Th-16Th auguST IGF returns to Shrewsbury school for a six-day summer school and festival. Courses include Blues, Funk, Jazz, Acoustic, Rock and Classical and a busy concert schedule. Tutors/performers include Dario Cortese, Jason Sidwell, Tolis Zavaliaris, Gary Ryan, Carlos Bonell, Gianluca Corona and Craig Ogden. Visit www.igf.org.uk/summer-school for further info.