Meet Lucas Pickford
John Coltrane's seminal modal jazz composition 'Impressions' is as
challenging as anything he composed even though it only has two chords
in it. The form is 16 bars of D-7 followed by a bridge section of
Ebmin7 for 8 bars, and finally 8 more bars of D-7 again at which point
the form repeats. The default scale/mode used to improvise over both
these minor chords, is the Dorian Mode.
*So for the D-7 the Dorian Scale looks like this:
D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D
*For the Eb-7 the Dorian Scale looks like this:
Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-C-Db-Eb
Although the default scale for the chords in this tune is the Dorian
Scale, John McLaughlin's solo is by no means completely relegated to
using just the Dorian Scale. McLaughlin makes liberal use
of both chromaticism and also of the Melodic Minor Scale in which
the 7th degree of the scale is major. This adds a different color so to
speak to both minor chords. I will cover the Melodic Minor Scale in
more detail in future columns. Suffice to say that the master
improviser (in this case guitarist John McLaughlin) incorporates
several different melodic devices, scales, intervals, modes, and
chromatic passing notes to get the widest array of colors available to
him or her. This solo has a lot of 32nd notes in it. Don't be
scared by this. It's not so important that you play this solo
rhythmically perfect but rather that you discover the different melodic
shapes and note patterns that are in this solo. Pick out the lines you
really like and hear, and then begin to add them to your own melodic
vocabulary. Many of McLaughlin's lines lay very comfortably on the bass
fingerboard because of the similarity between the guitar and the bass
guitar. This is especially true if you play a 5 or 6 string bass with a
high C string. I think you'll find this solo technically challenging
while at the same time it will begin to open up your ears to the sound
of mixing straight modal playing with highly chromatic passages. When
both of these ways of playing are combined it sounds really cool. Good
luck with this. See you in the summer!
Please click below below to download the transcription of guitarist
John McLaughlin's solo on the John Coltrane tune called "Impressions."
