PART TWO: CHROMATIC APPROACH TONES Something | found useful very early on, and something that always presents a fresh challenge, is to become familiar with and eventually master the chromatic approach notes to each chord tone. Here are four examples of that, which | use in my own practice routine. We'll start simply, with chord tones in order from root to seventh. Then we'll add a little more thythmic density with triplets, and also mix up the pattern of chord tones from one bar to the next. I'm going to hazard a guess that, if you're anything like me, the chromatic approach notes from above the chords tones sound a little strange to you, and quite likely don’t fit under the fingers right away at first. | highly recommend spending time working on these as much, if not more, than the approaches from below, so you have a much wider range of options when it comes to creating and releasing tension as you improvise over ii-V-Is.J Patt 2 Chromatic Approach Tones EXERCISE 9 GI maj? Al EXERCISE 10 Dm a b, Cmaj7 Ay b. bene’: EXERCISE 11 Dm? G s cmaj7 A’EXERCISE 12 camajr MY CHROMATIC APPROACH EXERCISE