TrueFire
Try For Free

Trading Solos: Jazz

Interactive Video Jam Session with a Top TrueFire Artist

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

Get this course and 1,000+ more with All Access

Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.

Purchase Individual Course for $14.99
Trading Solos: Jazz
Henry Johnson

Henry Johnson

Educator

jazz, jazz blues

Genres

About this course

In this Jazz edition of Trading Solos with Henry Johnson, you’ll jam with Henry over five frequently encountered jazz grooves, in a variety of keys and feels.  Along the way, Henry will share some of his go-to moves, gear tips, comping techniques, and other key approaches to help you develop a jazz vocabulary and get a great jazz sound.

“One of the best ways to learn new licks and comping approaches is to jam with other guitar players, which is very common in the jazz world. When you're comping, you're picking up on some new lines and ideas from their solos. When you're soloing, you get to try out your own ideas while being inspired by their rhythm guitar moves.”

For each of the five grooves, Henry will pass on a handful of licks and comping approaches, and then you’ll take turns applying those ideas, by soloing and comping for each other over the backing tracks

Henry will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way.  You’ll get standard notation and tabs, plus, Henry includes all of the backing rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.

Grab your guitar and let’s trade solos with Henry Johnson!

What you'll learn

  • Create percussive rhythmic comping patterns
  • Use three distinct comping approaches for the same tune
  • Apply solo lines over five common jazz grooves
  • Voice lead through chord changes using minimal notes
  • Develop comping skills while listening to and supporting soloists
Release date: 01/24/2019 • 1h 04m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateguitarelectric guitarsoloingimprovisation
Start Course
Sample lessons
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Track Overview
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Comping Approaches: Demo
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Three Solo Ideas: Demo
Let's Trade Solos
Let's Trade Solos
Track 1: Playalong

What's included

23 lessons • 15 charts • 5 Jam Tracks

Trading Solos: Jazz
Hi, I'm Henry Johnson. Welcome to this Jazz edition of Trading Solos.

One of the best ways to learn new licks and rhythm approaches is to jam with other guitar players. When you're comping, you're picking up on new lines and ideas from their solos. When you're soloing, you get to try out your own ideas while being inspired and picking up on their rhythm guitar moves.

In this edition of Trading Solos, we'll jam together over five commonly encountered jazz grooves in a variety of keys and feels. For each of the five backing tracks, I'll show you a handful of licks and comping approaches that I'll be using, which you can also use. Then, we'll take turns applying those ideas, trading solos, and comping for each other like we would on the bandstand.

Everything is tabbed and notated and you'll have all the backing tracks to work with on your own. You can loop and slow down the videos to work with the lessons at your own pace.

Grab your guitar and let's trade some solos!
Approach Tips
Before we begin, I'd like to talk a little bit about my approach to music. For me, I see music as a universal language, and in my upbringing, I didn't have a particular type of music that I only catered to. I like all different kinds of music!

The approach I use is listening to everything and taking what I like from it. If you take in a large variety of music, it will come back out of you mixed in with your own personality and become a part of your sound. As with language, we're all speaking English, but all saying something different!

With music, you don't actually want to sound like anybody else, you want to sound like yourself. So, being open to more types of music will give you a larger variety of angles you can come from.
Track 1: Barron's Blues
The first track that we're going to trade solos on is a 12-bar blues in C. If you listen to the track, one of the things you'll notice is that we're in half-time here. Half-time means that instead of counting 1,2,3,4, you actually count 1, 2, so be sure to try that out. Up next, we'll check out some comping approaches.
Track 1: Barron's Blues
One of the approaches that I use all the time is feeding off the rhythm section. If they're playing on the 1, I'm trying to play right after. If the bass player plays a note, I'm playing right after them. With a piano player, I don't try to follow up with the whole chord - just using one or two of the lowest notes.

If the bassist is playing a walking pattern (4/4 instead of half-time), we can play as if we're anticipating what the rhythm section is going to play. This will push the beat, and create more movement - a great thing to add in to your playing.

When playing in half-time, try out adding a little more variation to your pattern as well. In this example, all I'm really doing is moving our two-note answer to the bass part up and down.
Track 1: Barron's Blues
Here are a few ideas that we can both use in our solos over our 12-bar blues in C. I'll show you something you can try out over the IV chord, and bebop lick, and a double stop lick that work great.
Let's Trade Solos
Now it's time to trade solos over our 12-bar blues track in C. I'll start things off by taking a solo over the entire 12-bar form. Make sure you're backing me up - the comping ideas we went over earlier will all work here. This is important, and will help you see the whole picture of playing with another guitarist.Then, I'll play rhythm, and you take a solo - either using some of the licks we went over in the previous lesson, or some of your own ideas! Let's have some fun.
Track 2: The Old Cedar Tree
Okay, so the second track that we'll trade solos over is a song that I wrote called "The Old Cedar Tree", and is in the key of F. Let's take a listen to it here. Like our first track, we're in half-time on this one. Next, we'll check out some comping and soloing techniques to use.

+ 16 more lessons

Start Course

Reviews

19 results

Osokin

Verified buyer

04/12/21

Soulful Jazz Spoken With A Heavy Blues Accent!

Henry Johnson is a great, soulful player and a very inspiring teacher. His playing examples (on a nice selection of tunes) reflect his belief that the language of jazz should always be spoken with a heavy blues accent. Brilliant stuff!

jrdocbenson

Verified buyer

06/13/20

I am very pleased with all aspects of these program’s, but the most important thing to me is the content.

birdblues

Verified buyer

06/08/20

Mr Johnsons trades much better then I so decided to cheat for now and try to emulate what he's playing from the tab. really fun stuff its....Treasure !!!! Thanks

Jakobird1

Verified buyer

05/16/20

Don't play alone!

Useful ideas and phrases for playing with other musicians and keeping the groove and harmonic feel of the solos relatable.

Milesmoon

Verified buyer

05/07/20

Great course from a great player!

Henry Johnson is a great player. His course is well structured with good musical examples all taught in a friendly manner. The choice of tracks is also good. I really appreciate this course and recommend it.

Stop searching. Start improving with All Access.

Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.

Learn MoreStart Free Trial

Similar courses

Jazz Expressions
Jazz Expressions
Henry Johnson
Henry Johnson
Jazz Inspirations
Jazz Inspirations
Henry Johnson
Henry Johnson
Jazz Blues Pathways
Jazz Blues Pathways
Tim Lerch
Tim Lerch
Historical Jazz Guitar Heroes
Historical Jazz Guitar Heroes
Henry Johnson
Henry Johnson
Browse Library