Kenny Burrell Chords Workshop
Published: Wed, 11/08/23
The subtext, of course, is that midway through this endeavor, I began playing the guitar. Which was a completely different experience; the guitar immediately felt intuitive, interesting and enjoyable. It was also fueled by records – I wanted to be able to do things I heard other people doing, while with the violin I continued to try and learn to play music from a piece of paper.
(I do think things are different now – my piano-playing daughter will pull up Erik Satie or Chopin recordings on Spotify to hear what the piece she's working on can sound like when fully realized by an accomplished musician. But the classical world still has something the roots music world doesn't: a centuries-long notation-based pedagogical tradition. Yes, you can pull up "Gymnopedie #3" on your iPhone in a matter of seconds, but in reality, no one tries to learn it by ear. That's what the sheet music is for.)
In retrospect, I'm pretty sure part of the appeal of learning various roots music styles was the self-taught nature of it. Every bit of information gleaned from a Guitar Player interview, pried out of an older guitar player or painstakingly scraped from the grooves of a much-sought-after LP had personal significance, like some nineteenth-century aristocrat's private collection of antiquity fragments: "See, I found this move on a Buddy Guy record; this is that voicing I got Spagnolia to show me, these are the fingerings I got from..."
As a result, I wound up with my own names and reference points for things, beyond the universal ones like "the B.B. King box" or "the 'Purple Haze' chord." "The Charlie Christian position" and "the swing scale" were just my handles for the scale shape Charlie Christian sounded like he was playing out of and the notes he tended to choose; "Duane Allman harmonica licks" were the slide moves on Live At Fillmore East that, well, sounded more like harmonica licks than Elmore James licks.
I'm sure other people have these names, or similar ones, for the same things, but the point is that part of the process of learning roots music is discovering and categorizing various aspects of it for yourself. "Kenny Burrell chords" became my name for the kind of things I heard on albums like Midnight Blue and The Tender Gender, those jazz voicings on the top three or four strings you can use to comp in between your single-note licks or even create whole harmonized melodies with. In my upcoming Kenny Burrell Chords workshop, the third one in this fall's Reliable Source series, I'll show you what those voicings are, how they fit together on a minor blues, and how to make them an integral and intuitive part of your soloing vocabulary.
You can still sign up for this weekend's Kenny Burrell Chords workshop, and if you wish you'd signed up for the other two classes in the series, Minor Blues Chord Substitutions and Bebop & Minor Blues, you can still purchase a complete replay of those workshops as well:
Minor Blues Workshops Registration
In addition to chord-melody and call-and response licks on the upper strings, I'll also spend some time in the workshop explaining how to create bebop-style comping patterns just by syncopating four-to-the-bar Freddie Green comping moves. This is something I discussed a couple of months ago on my Youtube channel; if you missed it, here's a link to that video:
How To Turn Freddie Green Voicings Into Kenny Burrell Chords
I get asked a lot if there's tab for this or that Youtube lesson. For a while, I tried to provide some tab for every Youtube lesson, but it really slowed down the pace at which I could put out new videos, so I ultimately discontinued the practice in favor of keeping the videos coming out on a somewhat regular basis. That's why you can still find tab links for some of the older lessons, but not for any of the more recent ones.
But if tab is your jam, you'll love the Reliable Source workshops, because each one comes with between fifteen and twenty-five pages of notation, tab and chord diagrams spelling out every example, exercise and solo I cover in the live stream. So no matter what I'm teaching during the lesson, you've got a clear, accurate reference for it both while it's happening and when you're re-watching afterwards. That's especially helpful with material about improvisation; I want you to be able to understand exactly what licks, voicings and fret positions are involved so you have the best chance possible of understanding the material, practicing it productively and making it permanent part of your own vocabulary.
Again, to sign up, check out the details at the link below:
Minor Blues Workshops Registration
More soon,
David