# Suggestions for soloing over Little Sunflower?



## Charles

Anyone hear of this song before?

I'm playing it with a jazz combo on Friday night, and despite the fact that we've been rehearsing it for a long time, I still don't like my solo ideas.

The D minor 7 part isn't too bad, but the modulation between Eb major and D major kills my soul. I'm not too good at moving around in major keys.

Primarily, I find I have a problem having anything meaningful to say over my solos, and it's annunciated by this track, the long vamp combined with the meandering feel means my solo feels...well, meandering.

Here's a backing track:
Little Sunflower: modes and scales


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## jacksonplayer

I don't know the tune, but I've occasionally dealt with that issue when coming up with chord progressions that sound killer on their own but prove to be a bitch to solo over.

My first step is usually to focus on the aeolian position and play from the related minor perspective--that way, it puts me more in my comfort zone. That way, you can almost forget that you are playing over a major chord. 

Next, I identify the notes that both scales have in common. Using the tips on that linked web page, you're talking about moving between F# min and G min scales. They do have notes in common (though only a couple). These are your "safe notes." As long as you land on them with conviction, anything else you do will probably be ok.  Just kidding--actually, I use those as 'anchor notes' to transition between the two scales.

I'm sure every jazz teacher out there would cringe at my approach, but it's always worked for me. The key to making yourself more comfortable is relating this back to the things you already know. Another tip: keep it simple and focus on basic phrases, rather than trying to get all tricky.


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## Charles

As you can hear, it's like a 16 bar vamp of Dmin7 that's repeated twice, then it goes to eight of Ebmaj7, eight of Dbmaj7, repeated, then back to the 16 bar vamp.


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## All_¥our_Bass

What's the chord progression for the whole tune?


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## Charles

I stated it in the post above; it's really pretty much that simple.


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## Trespass

jacksonplayer said:


> I don't know the tune, but I've occasionally dealt with that issue when coming up with chord progressions that sound killer on their own but prove to be a bitch to solo over.
> 
> My first step is usually to focus on the aeolian position and play from the related minor perspective--that way, it puts me more in my comfort zone. That way, you can almost forget that you are playing over a major chord.
> 
> Next, I identify the notes that both scales have in common. Using the tips on that linked web page, you're talking about moving between F# min and G min scales. They do have notes in common (though only a couple). These are your "safe notes." As long as you land on them with conviction, anything else you do will probably be ok.  Just kidding--actually, I use those as 'anchor notes' to transition between the two scales.
> 
> I'm sure every jazz teacher out there would cringe at my approach, but it's always worked for me. The key to making yourself more comfortable is relating this back to the things you already know. Another tip: keep it simple and focus on basic phrases, rather than trying to get all tricky.



I actually jump to the phrygian shape on major chords. I'm incredibly natural in phrygian, and my phrases resolve to the 3rd and 7th when I play the phrygian root and fifth. Playing phrygian over a ii7-V7, I get a full ii9 when resolving to the phrygian root.

For example. In a ii7-V7 vamp, Gm7-C7, I can play A phrygian and get nice access to a large number of shapes and arpeggios that work well.

Root - A (The 9th over Gm7)
Third - C (Root of C7)
Fourth - D (Fifth of Gm7, 9th of C7)
Fifth - E (Third of C7)
Seventh- G (Root of Gm7, Fifth of Cmaj)

Naturally, you have to phrase the tension and resolution properly.

Coincidentally, I'm doing Little Sunflower with my ensemble this year, and I'm comping on keys and soloing over the vamp right before the outro.


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## jacksonplayer

Trespass said:


> I actually jump to the phrygian shape on major chords. I'm incredibly natural in phrygian, and my phrases resolve to the 3rd and 7th when I play the phrygian root and fifth. Playing phrygian over a ii7-V7, I get a full ii9 when resolving to the phrygian root.



That's good advice. But then I love playing with the phrygian, period.


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