Steve Herberman - Chordal Solo Choruses

Clips from Steve's class, available for download from www.mikesmasterclasses.com
(in TAB and standard notation)
The inspiration for this fun and challenging class comes from the exciting chordal solo choruses George Van Eps recorded for the Jump record label with his small group. Those solos were all about motion in any voice at any time!

This advanced-level class deals with arranging solos in a contrapuntal 8th note-based chordal style using fingerstyle or hybrid picking. Through the discussion and demonstration of four written solos, arranging techniques are shown to help you compose and eventually improvise solos in this style. The written solos used in the class are an expansion on the rhythm changes etude used in Steve's class Applications Of Triad Motion Studies inspired by George Van Eps from Sept. 2006 for mikesmasterclasses. Through 2, 3 and 4 part harmony, with an emphasis on triads, we'll look at independent moving lines which travel in and out of familiar chord forms in a myriad of combinations. The etudes in this class use the progressions of Groovin' High, It Could Happen To You, Sunny Side Of The Street and All God's Chillun Got Rhythm. A bar by bar analysis of the techniques are included in the written materials and are expanded in the video. Some of the concepts and techniques demonstrated are: Rootless voicings, minor line clichés, inner line motion, imitation in alternate voices, reharmonizations and substitutions, chromatic lines, and triads up through 13th chords. The aim of the class is to help the musician see how this particular chordal style works and to get some of the language and finger mechanics under the fingers to use in a personal way.

This in-depth 90 minute class comes with 20 pages of written material with TAB included and is
arranged for the standard-tuned 6 string guitar.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Steve
• Herberman
• chordal
• solo
• choruses
• George
• Van
• Eps
• contrapuntal
• Mike's
• Master
• Classes

[kungfuaxe]

Steve, you sound fantastic! Great ideas here - wow!

[SteveHerberman]

Sorry I was signed in as another user! My comment was about being inspired by GVE's Jump sessions but not exactly like his style. He did use a pick for the Jump sides in the mid-40's.

[splanky87]

once I get my guitar in shape, I'd love to show how these concepts also work for the plectrum-inclined. It will be nowhere as great as Steve's, I'm still learning Van Eps material as well. But you can really let you musical imagination fly with these triads, they aren't exclusive to folk music for sure. Best part about triads is that since you're only paying attention to three-voices, keeping track of voice leading is much easier. Thanks again for posting these clips, mgellar! 

[splanky87]

@SteveHerberman considering how you will often play gig where the piano is horribly out of tune (or study in colleges where they don't service their pianos often), perfect pitch can be a curse. For a guitarist, perfect pitch maybe elusive, but that doesn't mean that they are not great musicians. The best guitarists in my program were also the ones who possessed impeccable relative pitch. Was Jump the record GVE played with a pick? Rosenwinkel actually uses these concepts in his playing, it's hip

[splanky87]

Hey Steve, have you ever gone through Van Eps' first book, George Van Eps Guitar Method. I really have gotten a lot of millage of that book, but I think there are some mistakes. Whenever people talk about Van Eps, they always talk about his Harmonic Mechanisms book, but Guitar Method is where it all started. Plus, the book is full of the traid-concept that you explain here. Maybe you could edit it one of these days, and finally bring this old book into the forefront? Love your playing too!

[SteveHerberman]

@jose044 See my reply above! Thanks.

[SteveHerberman]

I would think perfect pitch would be quite useful for improvising but most of us are not blessed with it (or our parents didn't work on it with us when we were very young.)

Working on good (or great!) relative pitch is something we can all do to improve our ears.

[jose044]

Hi steve... great tone...

can i ask you a question?

How do you think that perfect pitch is usefull for Jazz improvisation?

Thank You!