[telecaster90]

Hey guys, I have an audition at Belmont University coming up pretty soon, and I took a lesson from this local college teacher today that said that learning how to nagivate ii-V's, major and minor, will help out alot in the improvising I'm doing for the audition. What are some good guidelines for playing over ii-V's?

Thanks in advance!

[Luan]

Learn the arpeggios
Major and minor, minor 7 and 7th arpeggios.

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by Luan

Learn the arpeggios
Major and minor, minor 7 and 7th arpeggios.

+1. Playing through the arps is a great way to start. Also, make sure you practice comping through the changes in as many different ways as you can (different positions, different voicings, maybe adding extensions to the chords...).
In terms of phrasing, generally try and land chord tones on the one and the three, and chromatic or scale tones on the 2 and the 4, as this is important for authentic jazz phrasing.

One thing, for the V chord in the major ii-V, if it's a resolving dominant seven (i.e. it resolves to a chord a fifth lower) then altered sounds are generally the way to go over it, whereas for a non-resolving dominant, like a II-V repeating vamp, Lydian Dominant sounds will be quite effective.

For minor ii-Vs I like the sound of different melodic minor modes; try Aeolian b5 over the ii chord (sounds more melodic than the Locrian, although that's good too) and Mixolydian b6 (or every metal-head's favourite Phrygian Dominant scale) over the V chord for instance.

A good way of thinking about it is to focus on the arpeggios, and getting the chord tones in the right place, and treating all the other notes (chromatic notes, scale notes) as ways of getting from one chord to another. After a while you won't really have to think in terms of modes or scales at all; you can see each note on the fretboard as having an individual identity over each chord, rather than relying on scale shapes. It's hard work, but it'll really open up your improvising once you start to get a handle on it.

For an example, of what I mean, over the ii chord in the minor ii-V, I'd treat the arpeggio as my 'meat', and might happily mix up locrian, locrian natural 2, and whole-half diminished ideas over the whole thing, making sure the chord tones were always in the right place.

Hope all that makes sense!

[Drew]

DR kind of touched upon this, but remember that the ii-V is a resolving cadence, so it's all about tension and release. If you're going ii-V-I, then that V chord is where all the action is going to be - you can go way outside on that chord as long as you resolve it to something consonant (bonus points if you can do it in a half-step move) on the I.