Technique Fo cus

Pulling out chord tones

Integrating chord tones with scale based licks adds colour and sophistication. But, as with any powerful idea, you don’t want it to feel like, “Here come the chord tones!”; better to mix them into the stew to add flavour. The strong chord tones in b7th, a dominant blues are root, 3rd, 5th and with the 4th less so. ‘Colour’ tones and extensions like b5th, 6th, 9th are also great to experiment with. b7th Learn where root, 3rd, 5th and are in each chord in the progression, and aim to land on them on ‘down’ beats. Try this in the key of A: hit the root of the IV chord (D) on beat 1 as the chord changes; and then the 3rd of the V chord (G# in the E chord) on beat 1 of the bar as that chord changes. Cool!