Outside Lines Over Major Chords (This Shouldn't Work...But It Does)

追加: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00][music] [music] [music] >> If you're a straight-up blues or rock player, you may not spend a lot of time playing over major 7 chords, but if you want to venture into R&B or jazz, you're going to have to get comfortable soloing and improvising over these types of chords. Now, a C major 7 chord, like we're going to play over today, stems from the C major scale. So, the obvious choice is to play that scale when you're coming up with lines and soloing, something like this.

[00:00:49]>> [music] >> Now, you can certainly play a lot of cool stuff using just that simple scale, but I want to hip you to something a little bit different, kind of an outside sound that I use a lot when I'm playing over these kind of vamps. And that is to play the C melodic minor scale. This is a minor scale with a major 6 and a major 7. So, basically the same notes as a C major scale, just with a flat third.

[00:01:33]>> [music] >> Now, you might be thinking, "I can't play a minor third over a major chord."

[00:01:40]But, actually when you sneak it in there, it works really well, and there's a reason that it works so well, and what I think about when I'm playing this stuff. So, one of the common chord substitutions for playing [music] over a C major 7 chord is actually to go up a third and [music] play a minor 7 chord, an E minor 7.

[00:02:00]All right? If we look at an E minor triad, it's actually the upper structure triad of a [music] C major 7 chord. So, you know, it's the third, fifth, and major seventh of [music] a C major 7.

[00:02:14]And we can even go so far as to play an E minor pentatonic scale >> [music] >> over a C chord.

[00:02:25]This is a really cool way of playing some of the notes of the C major scale, but just giving it a different flavor and a different sound. Playing triads and chords, arpeggios, or even full scales like that over another sound is a really unique way of stretching out because those scales and those chords, like in this case, E minor or E minor 7, [music] has its own harmonic identity that sort of holds up even when you're playing it over a different chord.

[00:02:59]And I've talked a lot on this channel about when we're playing over a one chord vamp, one of the things I love to do is to imply the five chord. So, in this case, we're playing C major 7, [music] but we're kind of thinking E minor 7.

[00:03:17]And what we can do is sort of imply the dominant five chord, or in this case, an altered five chord sound to E minor. So, if we go to E minor's [music and singing] five chord, we get B7.

[00:03:32]And in this case, we're going to play a B7 altered chord. [music] And if we play the B altered scale, we get the same notes as a C melodic minor scale. So, when I sneak that scale in there, >> [music] >> I'm kind of thinking of a five to one in E minor.

[00:03:59]And it works really well if you resolve it properly.

[00:04:07]>> [music] >> And in this case, I'm using that E minor sound in place of that C major 7.

[00:04:17]But, it's a really cool little technique, right?

[00:04:22]>> [music] >> So, if you're soloing along in C major, >> [music] [music] >> and then we want to shift gears, >> [music] >> we can sneak that melodic minor sound in there. So, I'm going to cover three lick examples and play it along to the backing track to demonstrate, and then at the end we'll tie it all together in an improvised solo. So, let's check out this first lick.

[00:05:04]>> [music] [music] >> So, this lick stays right in this one octave of the scale, and we start by sliding from the major 7 up to the root of our C major chord, and then from the two up to the flat three, >> [music] >> so right up the scale. Then here we skip up to the fifth, and then the major 7, and then that's nine, root, down to major 7.

[00:05:47]>> [music] >> And I sneak that six in there as well.

[00:05:53]>> [music] >> So, a really pretty line that works really well. And again, you can slip this in >> [music] >> and you can really play with the phrasing on all these lines.

[00:06:19]You know, mess with the rhythmic placement and how long you want to stretch out the notes. These are just examples to get you started. So, let's look at lick example number two.

[00:06:30]>> [music] [music] >> All right, so this is a little bit of a busier phrase with some more notes, but in the same position using a lot of the same stuff we used in the first example.

[00:06:53]This time we're going to slide from the nine or the two up to the flat three, and then to the fifth, to the major 7.

[00:07:04]>> [music] >> And then to the nine, root, root, five, six. Right? These are the interval numbers, the fifth, the sixth.

[00:07:14]>> [music] >> And then we're going to come down this little kind of minor major [music] 7 arpeggio.

[00:07:31]>> [music] >> And then there's the nine, root, major 7.

[00:07:37]>> [music] >> Six, seven, nine. Right? All out of the major scale, really.

[00:07:42]Just with that minor third.

[00:07:49]So, I'll play it slowed way down.

[00:07:53]>> [music] [music] >> And all the tabs for these examples are going to be available on my Patreon page. The link is in the description.

[00:08:07]Now, let's go ahead and look at lick example number three.

[00:08:11]>> [music] [music] >> All right, this lick starts in the same spot, but then jumps up the fretboard.

[00:08:29]Basically, what we're doing here is we're starting with this little pickup where I'm playing from the six to the major 7.

[00:08:46]And then coming up to the nine, and then to the major 7 to the root.

[00:08:53]So, that's just kind of a setup for this lick.

[00:08:55]>> [music] >> And then that same little segment we've used in all these examples, that same little kind of minor major 7 sound, which is really >> [music] >> in my opinion, kind of the the key signature sound of that melodic minor thing is that minor third and major 7.

[00:09:20]>> [music] [music] >> And then here we go, nine to root, and then come up five, four, three. Right? That's the >> [music] >> major third of our C major chord.

[00:09:42]>> [music] >> And you could even play these >> [music] >> as kind of altered dominant chords, right?

[00:09:58]Which could be a really cool sound, right?

[00:10:03]>> [music] [music] >> And back into your C major thing. All right, so let's put this all together over a solo. I'm just going to improvise over the backing track. Again, this is just a C major 7 vamp the whole time through.

[00:10:24]Um and I'm going to set it up by playing some basic C major uh scale motifs to kind of establish that harmony.

[00:10:35]And then I'll start sprinkling in some of this melodic minor stuff and you can see how it kind of takes your ear to a slightly different thing. And it's really only changing that major third to the minor third, but because I'm thinking about it as sort of this dominant five um altered thing that's then resolving, it really kind of pulls you away from the basic harmony for a second.

[00:11:05]Um but then resolves really nicely. So, until next time, happy practicing and take care. I'll leave you with this solo.

[00:11:14]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]