# Suggest some good jazz sequences to practice



## distressed_romeo (Jun 5, 2007)

At the moment I'm broadening my vocabulary of chord voicings, and working at comping through standards. I know working through a fakebook is important, but can people suggest some typical jazz changes to work at, the kind that are the building blocks of most standards?

So far I'm working at...

2-5-1
3-6-2-5-1
'Coltrane Changes'
Blues changes


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## SevenDeadly (Jun 5, 2007)

listen to some bitches brew and try to emulate miles, even though it's beyond "jazz".


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## telecaster90 (Jun 5, 2007)

2-5-1's, Coltranes, and the 12 bar blues is all I can think of.


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## Drew (Jun 5, 2007)

distressed_romeo said:


> 2-5-1
> 3-6-2-5-1



Note that the 3-6 is, relative to the 2, just another 2-5-1. In other words, practice your 2-5-1's.  

also, whether the chords are major or minor matters a lot here - verbally, they're called "2-5-1's," but written out you usually follow jazz notational standards and call them ii-V-I's. Which leads me to wonder if the 3-6-2-5-1 really isn't a iii-VI-II-ii-V-I. Otherwise, I suppose a iii-vi-ii-V-I would be harmonically correct, even if the former is more in keeping with my understanding of jazz harmony (it works by treating a chord other than the tonic as, temporarily, the tonic - a sub-tonic, if you will). 

Somewhere I've got a notebook with some good jazz excersizes in it for comping. I'll try to dig it up tonight or tomorrow - there's a great ii-V-I that I should probably type up and powertab, as if nothing else it's a great crash course in 3- and 4-note 7th chords.


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 5, 2007)

Drew said:


> Note that the 3-6 is, relative to the 2, just another 2-5-1. In other words, practice your 2-5-1's.
> 
> also, whether the chords are major or minor matters a lot here - verbally, they're called "2-5-1's," but written out you usually follow jazz notational standards and call them ii-V-I's. Which leads me to wonder if the 3-6-2-5-1 really isn't a iii-VI-II-ii-V-I. Otherwise, I suppose a iii-vi-ii-V-I would be harmonically correct, even if the former is more in keeping with my understanding of jazz harmony (it works by treating a chord other than the tonic as, temporarily, the tonic - a sub-tonic, if you will).
> 
> Somewhere I've got a notebook with some good jazz excersizes in it for comping. I'll try to dig it up tonight or tomorrow - there's a great ii-V-I that I should probably type up and powertab, as if nothing else it's a great crash course in 3- and 4-note 7th chords.



Thanks!

I'm already practicing them in minor and major keys, and in all keys and positions, with a mix of all the different voicings (close voicings, drop 2s and drop 3s).

I know the iii-vi-ii-V-I's actually a regular ii-V-I with an extra ii-V at the beginning, especially given that the iii is usually a iii7 secondary dominant, but most jazzers recommend practicing that sequence anyway.

Oh, I've found 'rhythm changes' (I-VI-ii-V) are another one to practice as they crop up everywhere.


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## jacksonplayer (Jun 5, 2007)

SevenDeadly said:


> listen to some bitches brew and try to emulate miles, even though it's beyond "jazz".



Does that even have "changes" as such? I love Electric-era Miles, but a lot of it always seemed to be random electronic soup over an ostinato bass line.


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 5, 2007)

Drew said:


> Which leads me to wonder if the 3-6-2-5-1 really isn't a iii-VI-II-ii-V-I. Otherwise, I suppose a iii-vi-ii-V-I would be harmonically correct, even if the former is more in keeping with my understanding of jazz harmony (it works by treating a chord other than the tonic as, temporarily, the tonic - a sub-tonic, if you will).



You know, I didn't realise that when writing Roman numerals for chord symbols, that upper-case numerals are major, and lower-case ones minor. I learnt something tonight!


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## SevenDeadly (Jun 6, 2007)

jacksonplayer said:


> Does that even have "changes" as such? I love Electric-era Miles, but a lot of it always seemed to be random electronic soup over an ostinato bass line.



are you peaking through the cut out corners of your cardboard box?


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 6, 2007)

SevenDeadly said:


> are you peaking through the cut out corners of your cardboard box?



 What the fuck?

He's right you know...that era of Miles' music was based more on vamps than changes.


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## Drew (Jun 6, 2007)

SevenDeadly said:


> are you peaking through the cut out corners of your cardboard box?



I'm not sure if you two know each other and are just doing some friendly ball-busting, or if you're trying to be a dick. If it's the later, I wouldn't really recommend it.


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## Bartok (Jun 8, 2007)

OK, confessions time. Having a weird schooling of rock, then jazz, then classical theory, no one ever told me what a vamp is and most of the definitions I can find through google are 'an improvised musical accompaniment' (yeah, thanks  ) so can someone help me out?
Also, what are Coltrane changes? I've never really studied what he is doing. I guess I've never really paid much attention to 'formal' playing and just pinched the stuff I wanted at the time which in some ways is good, but also means there are lots of gaps in my theory.


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## telecaster90 (Jun 9, 2007)

A coltrane change is a series of ii-V-I's that modulate up a major third.

Coltrane changes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Giant Steps, it goes like this.

Fm7-Bb7-Eb, then it modulates to Am7-D7-G, then modulates to C#m7-F#7-B, and ends up back at the Fm7-Bb7-Eb.

It doesn't work the same way as moving a diminished chord up a minor third and having a different voicing of the same chord, but that's what it reminds me of somehow. 

And I think a vamp is just playing the chords in the background while somebody solos over it.


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## jacksonplayer (Jun 11, 2007)

telecaster90 said:


> And I think a vamp is just playing the chords in the background while somebody solos over it.



I usually think of it as playing just a single chord or maybe a two-chord progression in the background. Think of the classic Santana vi-II progression that he used in just about every solo.


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## telecaster90 (Jun 11, 2007)

jacksonplayer said:


> I usually think of it as playing just a single chord or maybe a two-chord progression in the background. Think of the classic Santana vi-II progression that he used in just about every solo.



Yeah, you can use the same diatonic scale over them. You could even use the same lick for the changes itself, just modulate up a major 3rd


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## cvinos (Jun 12, 2007)

IIm7(9) V7(13) Imaj7 VI7(b13) is a basic and nice one.

Also try to combine different voicings of the chords.

Note the dominant at VI instead of a VIm7 that
the major scale (based at the I) would provide.
This way, when repeating the sequence, it gravitates
back to the II much stronger.


Also, when you have any progression, try some ruled
reharmonization, tritone substitution for dominants
for example, to explore other variants.
IIm7(9) bII7(#9) Imaj7 bIII7(9)

Or throw in an extra dominant at the
perfect fifth of the following chord.
IIm7 V7 Imaj7 III7 VI7
Here it could be quite usual to play the first three chords
for half a bar each, and the last two for a quarter, to get
an even number of bars and keep the harmonic flow in line.

Another way to change a progression is to replace
a chord by another one that is in the same "group"
(I don't know the correct English expression for this),
the possible groups here being the tonic, the sub-dominant
or the dominant-like chords. This is when relating to an
underlying scale. For example for a major scale, the chords
in the tonic-like-group are Imaj7, IIIm7 and VIm7.
So you could try to use those interchangeably.

Well, these are of course just a few possibilities,
shortly mentioned, that occur in standards.
I think those are worth to give a try and
play a bit with basic progressions.


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## JBroll (Jun 17, 2007)

Take Five.

Jeff


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 18, 2007)

cvinos said:


> IIm7(9) V7(13) Imaj7 VI7(b13) is a basic and nice one.
> 
> Also try to combine different voicings of the chords.
> 
> ...



Cheers man! E-rep for you! This is exactly the sort of stuff I'm exploring at the moment...


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