ALL OF ME – CHORD AND SINGLE NOTE SOLOING

By Matt Warnock
There’s something sophisticated and cool about jazz guitarists that solo and comp for
themselves over a tune. Players such as Jim Hall, Joe Pass, Lenny Breau, and others have made
this type of soloing, mixed chords and single notes, a stable of their jazz guitar voice. While
you may love those players, and mixed chords-notes soloing, you might not know where to
start. In this lesson, you learn about exercises you can work on to develop this side of your
jazz guitar improvisational approach. As well, there’s a study over All of Me that you can learn
to bring a practical, musical example of this approach into your playing.

SOLOING AND COMPING STUDY

Now that you know how to practice adding comping to your solos, you can learn a study
that mixes single notes and chords over All of Me.
In this study, you solo for two bars and then comp for two bars, running the form with that
formula for a whole chorus.
Notice that the single lines start at least an 8th note after the last chord, and end about an
8thnote or more before the next chord. This allows you to switch from comping to soloing
and back again without tripping up on a fast change. Keep this in mind when working on
your own mixed single note and comping solos.
Once you have this study under your fingers, you can expand upon this exercise to use it as
a stepping-stone in your own playing.
To do this, follow these steps:
1. Play the chords as written but you make up the single notes.
2. Change the rhythms for the chords but keep notes same.
3. Keep the single notes as written but make up your own chords.
4. Make up your own single notes and chords throughout.
5. Because it’s a long solo (32 bars) start learning it one 4-bar phrase at a time. Learn
bars 1-4, then when that’s comfortable, learn bars 5-8. Then, mix bars 1-4 and 5-8
together as you build an 8-bar phrase.
6. Continue through the study this way to make it more manageable to learn and not
overwhelming in the practice room.

Now that you know how to practice this study, have fun learning it!