Below you’ll find the TAB, notation & video for my Jazz Blues Etude in G.

Each of the 3 choruses has a loose theme.

  1. Enclosures. I’ve been working on enclosures for the last 2 years after studying with Mike Stern. They really helped to advance my use of scales in the jazz idiom. The concept is in the mixing of targeting chord tones from the appropriate chord scale with scale tones and chromatic approach notes. The correct chord scale reaffirms the harmony whilst the chromatic approach notes add the dissonances associated with Jazz melodic vocabulary.

  2. Intervalic sequences. Throughout the 2nd chorus I mix different ascending and descending intervalic sequences from appropriate chord scales (often with enclosures) such as 6ths, 4ths and 3rds. Barry Finnerty has an exhaustive book on this topic.

  3. Triads. In the 3rd chorus I play around with triads from appropriate chord scales but I do so using just the first 3 strings moving laterally along the fretboard. This is a concept Mick Goodrick talks about in his book 'The Advancing Guitarist'. I also copped the specific concept from Pat Metheny’s live solo on Cantaloupe Island.

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