Jason Lyon Music

Category: b) Harmony & Comping

  • All About That Bass, Bout That Bass (No Trouble)

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    Jason
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    I’ve had a question about comping bass solos. Wow. Well, how long have we got… I’ll start by mentioning that I play some “journeyman” bass. I can do a reasonable job as long the tempos are gentle, the changes aren’t too complex and you don’t expect inspired solos (or particularly good intonation). The reason I…

  • Threepenny Lyrics

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    Jason
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    Bit of fun this week. I sat in on a gig the other night and the singer called Mack the Knife. It’s an interesting one because it’s harmonically very simple – just the four main chords of the key, but usually played cranking up the choruses by semitones. So you really need to take the…

  • Meet Aimee Nolte

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    Jason
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    Gang, this is Aimee; Aimee – the gang. She’s a prolific YouTuber (channel here) and I recommend you spend a couple of hours in her company. There’s not a lot she hasn’t already covered, or doesn’t plan to cover, but I’ve picked out this one. Somebody was asking me a while ago about how to harmonise…

  • Beatomania

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    Jason
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    A very good YouTube video resource here. Rick Beato is an Atlanta-based jazz, classical and rock musician turned engineer and producer. He’s just as much at home talking about Allan Holdsworth or Pearl Jam as Stravinsky or Hans Zimmer. He knows his AKG C414 from his Mozart K466. He is currently producing a video series that comprehensively, generously, vigorously and engagingly marches through…

  • 1959 and All That

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    Jason
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    There was a documentary a while ago on 1959 as the year that changed jazz for ever. It focused on Miles’ Kind of Blue, Brubeck’s Time Out, Mingus’ Ah Um and Coleman’s Shape of Jazz to Come. Of course, jazz had pretty much become set as bebop/hard bop, and there was a desire to explore…

  • The Value of “Huh?”

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    Jason
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    I was recently asked about how to play the second chord in Jobim’s Wave. I don’t think my correspondent would mind me saying that he’d got himself rather tangled up in analysis and choices of diminished chords. Here’s where the most helpful thing I’ve ever encountered comes in – it’s called the “huh?” chord. You…

  • Dominant Ice Cream

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    Jason
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    I’ve been asked to post something about how jazz musicians play fast and loose with V chords when comping. And boy, do they. Well, I’ll start by observing that the chord alterations we’ll look at are also used in contexts where they don’t resolve down a fifth (or a semitone in a tritone substitution situation).…

  • The Third Rail

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    Jason
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    Or the noble art of electrocuting yourself and living to laugh about it Jazzers of a certain vintage used to refer to what we mostly now call “avoid notes” as “the third rail”. It’s a train analogy. The third rail carries the current, so you really don’t want to step on it or you’ll be late…

  • Clearing Up the Leaves

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    Jason
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    Seems an appropriate time of year for this thought. The hardy standard Autumn Leaves… Harmonically, it’s a very simple tune. It’s basically just turnarounds in a related major and minor key pairing. So why is there usually either an unusually lengthy discussion before it’s played or a cock up? It’s all about the key, and…

  • Take Four

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    Jason
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    Bit of fun this week. I’m not down on pop music at all, but I can be forgiven (I hope) for noting that a lot of it sounds suspiciously similar. Well there you go, some harmonic progressions just work and… well… they’re popular. Which is the object of the exercise, after all. Nor is this…