The other day a student of mine was asking me the following question regarding comping:

How do you build an array of harmonic possibilities that you can recall on the spot when performing live?

That is s a really interesting question that made wanted to share a few ideas with you.

The progression we were talking about with my student was a simple blues progression in the key of C, with some typical jazz reharms.

As explained in other posts, I came up with a very simple approach called V123. V stands for "Version" and 1, 2, or 3 indicates the placement of the lower note of the chord on the guitar. (no inversions for now).

For example, a CMaj7 V1 has the tonic on string 6, V2 on string 5, and V3 on string 4.

As for the choice of chords, I’ve just chosen the 2 most common chord structures which any guitarist should know.

Here are the forms:

V1 Chords

V2 Chords

for now, we will mainly focus on V1 and V2. I’ll talk about V3 in an upcoming post.

Step by step method for building a rich progression

Step 1: Learn each V1 and V2 form of each chord of the progression. C7 V1, C7 V2, F7 V1, F7 V2, etc.

Step 2: The proximity rule: Start with a C7 V1. Then ask yourself what is the closest V chord of a C7 V1. The answer is F7 V2. Then, the next new chord of the progression is a Gm7 (on bar 4), which will then be a Gm7 V2, because, again, it is the closet chord form to the previous one, in the area of the neck we are operating in.

Therefore, by following that “proximity rule” throughout the whole progression we should come up with this path:

C7 V1 (1 measure)

F7 V2 (1 measure)

C7 V1 (1 measure)

Gm7 V2 (1/2 measure)

C7 V1 (1/2 measure)

F7 V2 (1 measure)

F#°7 V2 (1 measure)

C7 V1 (1 measure)

Em7 V2 (1/2 measure)

A7 V2 (or V1) (1/2 measure)

Dm7 V1 (1 measure)

G7 V2 (1 measure)

C7 V1 (1/2 measure)

A7 V2 (or V1) (1/2 measure)

Dm7 V1 (1/2 measure)

G7 V2 (1/2 measure)

Step 3: Same identical concept, but let’s start the progression with a C7 V2 chord and build the rest of the path. The closet F7 chord to a C7 V2 is an F7 V1.

You now have 2 fixed paths (one starting on C7 V1 and another on C7 V2), which are a great starting point for future structures.

The next step would be to start exploring with tensions 9 and 13 and different combinations of tensions/ We’ll talk about that later.

By memorizing several harmonic paths (that you can create yourself, get from your teacher or transcribe from records), you are building a strong harmonic archive.

The richer the archive is, the freer your comping will be.

Thanks for your attention.

The Modern Improviser

How to build rich chords progressions: step…