Use the

Melody (Or~Not)
a good solo is a lot more
than just playing the changes
q.
D ack when we were doing the
sessions for my 1970 album
Spaces (Vanguard), I was in a
hurry. We were about to record “Planet
End,” and the meter was running. John
McLaughlin was playing rhythm and sec-
ond lead on the cut, so I set the chord
changes down in front of him and started
getting ready to play. John called me over
and said, “I’d like to hear the melody first.” I
told him, “Oh, don’t worry about it, I’m play-
ing the melody on this one.” But John was
hip to something that I wasn’t, and he held
firm: “I’d really like to hear the melody
before I play.”
What John already knew and what I later
came to realize is that you can’t do an intel-
ligent job of improvising over a particular
song if you don’t know the melody. If you’re
just “playing the changes,” you’re wander-
ing aimlessly-your improv isn’t “about”
any song in particular. Of course, that’s not
true in every case-if you’re playing “Blues
In F” or “Rhythm” changes at a jam, or if the
song has a built-in vamp section, you’re

By Larry Coryell
pretty much expected to create something
out of whole cloth. [See HTPG ml. 3 No. 1 for
more on “Rhythm”changes.1
What follows here are four examples of
how an improvisation can be tailored to
reflect or sustain the ideas of a given
melody, and then two examples of soloing
more freely.
Reflecting melody
The fragment in Ex. 1 a is a repeating four-
bar phrase from my composition “Molly,” a
down-home, country-folk kind of melody
The improv in Ex. 1 b shows an uncompli-
cated approach to referring to the melody
in a solo. What’s interesting here is that it
starts in one place in the first four bars, then
shifts.to
shifts to another level in the repeat:
repeat:,Where
Where it
was mostly eighth- and quarter-notes in the
first four bars, it moves to sixteenths and
eighths in the second four. The final mini-
phrase (the fourth beat of measure 8) dou-
bles the melody up one octave. Everything
Lx, la
E B
Ex.lb E
64 HOW TO PLAY GUITAR / VOL.3 NO.5
is working off the diatonic scale with a few
country inflections.
Whereas Bx. 1 was diatonic major, the
next example is an exploration of diatonic
minor. The fragment from Rodney Jones’
haunting “Soulin’” (Ex. 20)2a) is fundamental-
ly a II-V-I in D minor, with the Bbmaj7 serv-
ing as a substitute for the II, which usually
would be an Em7b5. What’s notable here is
the unobtrusive “rise and fall” of the impro-
vised line (Ex. 2b) as it starts in the middle
register and rises up to the C at the end of
the second beat, (a raised 9 on top of the
A7#5). The second half of measure 2 is all in
the Bb jazz minor scale. Measure three uses
the “rise and fall” method again, then goes
into the next bar which uses chromatically
descending major and minor thirds.
Ex. 3a looks at the initial melodic
statement of “Soulin’“-the “rig” if you
will-a simple, very bluesy figure. The first
two bars of the improv (Ex. 3b) use the D
minor pentatonic scale, but the rhythm
A E
B A‘
A E
changes up a bit to make it interesting:
Notice how the first three-note phrase is
made of two sixteenths and an eighth,
while the second three-note phrase revers-
es that idea-an eighth and two sixteenths.
The third and fourth measures draw on the
riff more literally, complete with double-
stops (the riff itself is “double-stop-like,”
built from octaves with thirds in the mid-
dle) and more rhythmic variation. The
fourth bar, for example, goes from two
beats of the same phrase (an eighth plus
two sixteenths) into two beats of triplets,
into measure five, which tremolos the
whole measure-very funky.
Ex. 4a shows three measures from “I
Remember Bill” by Don Sebesky. I played
this passage (Ex. 4b) at a live concert in a
duet with keyboardist Mark Sherman. The
example picks up in the second measure,
where the melody note is simply a G; the
improv takes that G and plays around with
the actual harmony as well as the harmony
A Bll E
A Bll E
to come. I started with an elaborated
phrase-reminiscent of Coltrane’s “Like
Sonny”-in the first two beats of bar 1. The
second phrase (in the second two beats of
bar 1) is the same as the first, only the last
note changes from a B4 to a Bb, a harbinger
of the forthcoming Eb7.
The next bar repeats the previous phrase
verbatim, then varies it one more degree by
substituting F$ for the F#. The final measure
is a Db major/E/, Mixolydian cadenza that’s
played during a fermata (a pause held indef-
initely)-you can throw in a lick like that
when you’re playing a duet and the other
guy is listening.
Or not
The form of the improv is more open in the
last two examples-there are no real melody
requirements, and the chord structure is a
vamp or repeated pattern.
First we’ll look a passage in 6/4 from
‘Ex.ta
Bbmaj7
-
En Pb
Bbmaj7
“The Three Marias” by Wayne Shorter (Ex.
Ja). The thematic idea here is to create a
chromatic impression by moving in half-
steps and inserting small-interval jumps
here and there. The improv (Ex. 5b) starts
by loosely following a pattern of intervals
in sequence up through the second beat of
the second measure. Then the pattern
shifts (this position shift can be tough-
lay for it) to the 8th fret, first string and
does a variation on the first pattern, still
implying chromatic lines with small-inter-
val jumps. This idea carries into the fifth
beat of the 3rd measure and starts again
on the 6th fret, first string. Note that in
measures 2 and 4 there is the same succes-
sive fingering (third finger covering strings
two and three). The final line, by the way,
is not symmetrical as it winds down to an
Ab7#9 color right at the end; note how it
changes slightly by leading to a E/, instead
of an E (measure 4 going into beat five),
A7#5 Dm9
Dm9
G7 Dm
then continues on as before.
Ex. 6a shows the two-bar “going-out”
vamp from my own song, “Ray Of Hope.”
The improv in Ex. 6b picks up on the 2nd
bar of the pattern. The first bar of the improv
begins with a B-minor idea that leads into a
pseudo-chromatic line interspersed with
whole-steps-look at last note of bar 1 going
into bar 2, and the last two notes of beat one
in bar 2. A much-needed breath is taken at
the start of measure 3 as the line works its
way up to measure 5, which plays almost the
same thing as in the 1st measure (the first
two beats are exactly the same). The second
half of measure 5 ascends to a C# on the first
string, and the solo works with that C#
rhythmically, with emotion, and rides out
on that motif for the fadeout.
Of course I couldn’t have played any of
these improvs properly if I hadn’t listened to
John McLaughlin all those years ago. So
before you take that solo, learn the melody! n
G13
G13
G7
VOL.3 NO.5 / HOW TO PLAY GUITAR 65
 En3b Dm G7 Dm G7

h.40 87 Em Eb7
A

Ex.4b 87 Em 47
Freely

En. So Ab13 Ebm/Ab D/AL

IV 1
1 1

I
D/Ah
Eb Ebm/Ab Ebm/Ab
I I I
“,..,,.I
* r I I I I I I 6’ 6’ Y’ / 6’ 6’ f 6’ 6’ 6’ ,’ ,’ ,’ I ,’ ,’ ,’ ; ; ,’ I ,’ ,’ ,’ ,’ ,’ ,’

Ex. Sb AL13 E bm/Ab

66 HOW TO PLAY GUITAR / VOL.3 N0.S

I
 Ebm/Ab D/Ah Ebm/Ab E/Ah Ebm/Ab D/Ah &m/AL

q - a-
-CA
Bll El1 Al3sus 811

Bll El1 AlBsus Bll

El1 Al3sus Bll El1 Al3sus

VOL.3 NO.5 / HOW TO PLAY GUITAR 67