If you're a guitarist or pianist playing jazz you're going to want to have your comping
skills well in order so in this video I'm going to be going over four Jazz comping patterns
that you need to know coming up comping is just a way to describe what you're actually
doing when you are accompanying somebody in a jazz setting since both pianists and guitarists
are chordal instruments they are most often the ones playing chords behind the band to
provide harmonic context for what they are playing or of course they're accompanying
themselves this being said the skill of copying is difficult to learn or teach because there's
so many nuances involved that's why comping patterns can be a good starting place to get
the essence of The rhythms you can play over Jazz standards so pattern number one is the
Freddy green comping pattern so take a look at the Freddie Green comping pattern here
and you'll notice right away that it's really just quarter notes being played however there's
so much more to the Freddie Green comping pattern and how it's actually played that
is important for you to be aware now Freddie Green was the guitarist in Count Basie's Orchestra
and while he is a guitarist the art of playing quarter notes like this is equally as important
to piano players the idea behind what Freddie Green was actually playing was the rhythmic
not necessarily heard but felt aspect of playing and accompanying a band so let's take a look
at the application of the Freddie Green comping pattern as far as it goes using a jazz blues
in concert B flat so the chords for a blues and B-flat are B flat seven to an E flat seven
that's the four chord
back to the one chord to the four chord
one chord to the two chord to the V chord and back to the one chord the perhaps a five
turn back around so when playing the Freddie Green comping pattern the important thing
to remember is yes we're playing quarter notes but we want to be playing them short and even
and we don't want to be accenting any beats so it'll sound like this just on the B flat
seven [Music] foreign mistake that people will make with the Freddie Green comping pattern
is accenting B2 like this so [Music] and that's not what we're doing here that's getting closer
to the style of gypsy jazz playing short even across the board on all the quarter notes
so here's what it sounds like over a blues [Music]
thank you
[Music]
couple extra facts worth noting whether you're a guitar player or a piano player Freddie
Green actually had a much bigger guitar than I do and he actually played it more angled
so that I was angling almost more up and so the attack is much more intense with the Rhythm
when Freddie Green is actually playing so something to be aware again I mentioned earlier
it's that felt less than heard style of comping which isn't necessarily what you need to do
when you're playing especially in a small group setting but it's just something to be
aware of and the second thing to be aware of with this style is that Freddie Green played
a very sparse voicings now in the case of being a guitar player you'll notice on the
screen we have three note voicings which include the root the third and the flat seven on every
single chord these are essentially just the bare minimum most important notes that you
can play in a chord not big fat huge voicings so if you're a piano player you want to be
playing Xiao voicings or very simple thirds and sevenths which by the way Freddie Green
also played quite often is just literally the two notes
just like that
so Freddie Green comping pattern really good one to know whether you're a guitar player
like it was originally played by or a piano player comping pattern number two is called
the Charleston now taking a look at the Charleston the basic Rhythm here is a dotted quarter
note followed by an eighth note now as far as Jazz goes the important part to really
notice about this is the syncopation so that eighth note is actually landing on the end
of two and we'll talk more about that in a second in a couple of patterns later here
but syncopation and playing on offbeats is something that really happens a lot in jazz
comping and even Jazz improvisation so the basic sound of this comping pattern is this
thank you okay and this comping pattern actually is quite literally played in the tune Killer
Joe
which starts like this [Music] foreign but of course when I'm talking about the Charleston
as a comping pattern here this is just a jumping off point to go into other rhythmic ideas
and get some foundations here so let's apply this Charleston again quite literally over
top of this entire jazz blues form so want a two a one two three four
foreign [Music]
[Music]
foreign
accent that eighth note which is entirely acceptable or you can go ahead and play it
very straight and even kind of like we did with the Freddy green pattern however most
often I'm hearing the accent on the end of two here in this comping pattern now another
thing to start thinking about outside of just the pattern when you're comping is a Pianist
or guitarist is using what we call Voice leading so voice leading simply put means that when
we have a chord we're looking for minimal or more efficient movements that we can make
to connect like voices together so for example when we look at bar five and six we have an
E flat nine voicing and our e diminished voicing if you look at my hand again whether you play
guitar piano you can see the movement there is very minimal to play a voicing that creates
good voice leading movement within the chord and again in another pattern coming up here
I'll show you how we can really take this to another level and actually also move chords
melodically so when you're thinking about picking voicings again being a Pianist or
a guitarist think about how you can voice lead your chords together rather than playing
Just stock voicings which may not always connect together in a fluid motion by the way if you
are a Pianist or guitarist and you need help with learning more voicings and more stuff
along these lines we do have a jazz guitar and a jazz piano accelerator course in my
inner circle membership so I'll leave a link in the description down below to that if that
sounds like something that would be of interest to you so that's number two the Charleston
copying pattern number three is the basic Bossa Nova comping pattern so Bossa Nova is
a straight eighth important style within Jazz lots of songs that we consider Jazz standards
are Bossa novas like the Girl from Ipanema how insensitive wave Quirk of Auto and on
goes the list so having a basic understanding of how to play this style is an important
thing to have under your belt and really when it comes to Bossa Nova there are underlying
patterns or rhythms that help build it now I am a professional jazz musician I played
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gigs and I've definitely had to play Bossa novas
and get by playing them that being said I am not an expert Bossa Nova player and the
pattern I'm about to show you is again like the other patterns a great jumping off point
to go further with this style it's not necessarily exclusively what you hear great Brazilian
bossa nova guitar players playing or even American ones like Charlie bird so taking
a look at this basic Bossa Nova comping pattern here we can see it all here lying out in the
first two measures and it sounds like this [Music]
so you'll notice a lot of syncopation going over the beat again all like right here all
this is happening tied notes together and so it creates this really floating kind of
feeling as you're moving forward so here's actually the chord changes to Blue basa and
here's what the copying pattern sounds like over top of the whole form one two one two
three four
[Music] foreign
[Music] [Laughter] [Music] so by all means use this as a great jumping off point and
then go out and study other great guitarists that played Bossa Nova and see what they're
doing rhythmically copying pattern number four is accenting offbeats I mentioned this
earlier in the video that playing syncopations and offbeats are really important to the style
of jazz and so essentially in this one I'm actually not only talking about one comping
pattern but I'm talking about many different comping patterns so for example take a look
at this ascending offbeats comping exercise and let's discuss what exactly is an offbeat
so we know the strong beats are one two three and four at least when we're in four four
time and the offbeats are one and two and three and four and as if we're breaking those
quarter notes up into eighth notes and the second eighth note is the offbeat so when
you listen to really great Compares like Bill Evans red Garland Wes Montgomery Joe Pass
like you're hearing them all the time using offbeats in their comping anticipating beats
and so on so what are the options for the offbeats we can play taking a look at this
first measure here we see that we can play the and of one again this first eighth note
rest here is the one and the and is this second eighth note right here that happens to be
tied to a quarter note so if we were to go through an entire blues and just play this
measure of Rhythm over the entire Blues it would sound like this oh one two one two three
four one and two three four one and two three four one and two three four one and two three
four and two three four one and two three four one and two three four one and two three
four one ten two three four and two three four one and two three four one and two three
four but we can do the exact same if we look over and measure two with the end of two and
that would sound like this one two three four one two and three four one two and three four
one two and three four and so on and so forth the other two options here are the and of
three and the and of four so getting good at playing offbeats and feeling the strong
beats within yourself is a really good skill to have as a copper now if you want to get
really creative and really test yourself you could play something like this ascending Off
beats copying exercise which essentially is every bar is moving up so first it's the end
of one and bar one the end of two the end of three the end of four and then we start
over here in bar six at the end of one again so let's give this a listen and see what it
sounds like one two one two three four one and two three four one two and three four
one two three and four one two three four and one two three four one two three four
one two and three four one two three and four one two three four and one two three three
one two three four one two and three four now one other thing to mention is again I
talked about voice leading earlier and so even if you're not a guitar player here and
you're a piano player just understand the essence of this exercise which is ascending
so essentially what I'm thinking about with my voicing is what is the top note in this
case it's this note right here okay and then what I'm going to do is think of the next
Melody note I could play but fit an E flat voicing underneath it and then the next note
I can play but still fit a B flat voicing underneath it and then the next one I can
play E flat but here's the melody note and then I'm gonna leave that Melody note there
and play the E diminished seventh and then bring that Melody note up half step play another
B flat seven voicing and then let's actually keep that Melody note the same and play a
G7 flat nine and then we'll skip the C Minor 7 for the sake of the offbeat part of the
exercise and then F7 on the melody note up a half
one more step there one whole step for the B flat nine so the essence of it is think
melodically when you're thinking about creating great comping so instead of thinking about
what voicing can I possibly play think about what Melody am I playing with my comping that
I can create voicings around now most importantly to recognize is that jazz standards are made
up of chord progressions and so you want to make sure that you know voicings and chords
and the most important corporations in jazz so on the screen right now I have a video
of the most important jazz chord progressions that you need to know make sure that you know
all of them and go check that one out right now I mentioned again I have a jazz piano
and jazz guitar accelerator course in our Inner Circle membership check that out in
the link in the description down below I'll leave it here on the screen make sure you
like this video if you found it helpful please subscribe to the channel and we'll see you
in the next one cheers