« Counterpoint vs. Guitar | Home | The Inner Ear »



A Basic 2-part Study for Standards

By Ernesto | November 25, 2007

Here’s a simple excercise to start applying some counterpoint to standards. I got the idea from Neil Olmstead’s book Solo Jazz Piano: The Linear Approach.

It consists of playing the melody of the tune along with a simple bass line: the root and 5th of each chord in half-notes. Simple! But it can be a lot harder than it sounds. It really depends on how involved the melody is. Either way, you’ll always run into awkward stretches here and there.

Once you have that down, you can start improvising over the bass line. I usually start with quarter notes to keep things simple.

The idea is to do this with a lot of tunes to develop the necessary techniques and to have a basic framework on which you can build more advanced concepts.

Topics: Counterpoint, Guitar, Jazz |




Related Posts:
  • All The Things You Are
  • Polyphonic Patterns Applied
  • Three-part Counterpoint Etude
  • Cantus Firmus Blues
  • The Chord-Tone System


    • One Response to “A Basic 2-part Study for Standards”

    1. Three-part Counterpoint Etude | Ricercar Extempore Says:
      January 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm

      [...] A Basic 2-part Study for Standards [...]

    Comments