Depends on the situation. If playing with a piano player I Tend to use block chords/inversions and leave space harmonically not to block the soloist into a tonality. Example- I’ll use chords with no 3rd and higher extensions. Also depending on the instrument soloing, compliment by staying out of the range of the instrument if possible. Stick to a position as much as possible. Listen. Listen to everyone.
Lars your videos have clearly improved over the years. I really like how you’re comfortable with adding humour into the videos now in a way that doesn’t at all disrupt the videos.
@@JensLarsen I even like your old videos because the REAL information still gets across. There's no BS, just - how Music works and applying it to guitar.
The Bill Evans and Jim Hall Undercurrent album has great comping by both of them. They could obviously play endless complex stuff if they wanted, but they mostly choose not to, to let the other's solos breathe
That is one rare example of guitar working well with piano. They clash more often than not. From my personal experience, I usually keep my hands completely off when I am comping with a pianist, unless I am familiar with his/her harmonic vocabulary and the pianist is responsive.
Having a tendency to over analyze and impress myself, thanks for for reminding me to drop anchor and remember that a good amount of time less is definitely more.
I really love The Bill Evans trio on the program Jazz 625 as an example of some of the concepts you mention here. There have been a few uploads of the full program here on YT for a while. Bill's ability to collaborate with the other members was so sensitive and subtle, and always seems to be in just the exact right amount. I think that's why I've heard people attribute a mastery of silence by Bill as well, which I didn't really understand until considering how he was melding with his band members.
I saw a video of a master class Russell Malone taught at a college in Georgia and he said he views comping like the frame that helps showcase the singer and it definitely shows in his work with Diana Krall.
What you covered here, is exactly what I needed at this time. It's letting me know that I've been accidentally or through divine intervention of the getting my playing on the right track. The experimenting with the right chord ideas for the overall expression of the song. I really needed this. I also enjoyed the Russell Malone story. He played with some friends of mine a while back, like over a decade ago and my friendS said he was the real deal. Those friends are the just most recently late Tony Gulizia and his living brother Joey , who are tops in my book at covering Jazz Standards. Tony had a great voice played great keys and Joey is the best drummer I've ever heard. I'm nowhere near the caliber of musician, but I keep learning and coming up with new songs. I watch your videos, Chris Whiteman and Sandra Sherman, they all help me. Thanks Jens !
Comping really fascinates me and I really want to comp on my own, sadly I never really know what to combine It never really sounds interesting. Your comping advices from previous videos have really helped me finding much more to the chords than just the chord itself
rootless shell, my teacher made me only comp 3rd+7th for 6 months when i firsted started , and all the other notes that i could have used but did not became really loud and clear in my head
Musicians, This post is excellent and useful. Listen to this post a few times to catch everything. Remember, the purpose of comping chords is to support the MELODY. Make sure your playing is about the song not your playing or your chops the music must be the most important thing. Enjoy!
I’ll watch the whole video after work, but the best advice I got with comping is to hit ‘em where they ain’t lol. If they play high, you play low. If they fill out the space and keep rhythm like a pianist, then lay back and use block chords, or upper extensions to fill out the harmony. Don’t step on toes lol.
Jens, an great exercise that I got from a pianist would be: Using a voicing with the root on top, next exactly the same note functioning as a minor second, then minor third and so on till you reach all the intervals with the same melody note all the time. Below you play all the chord qualities you can imagine. This will lead to endless possibilites with just the same melody note. next step would be to play a simple diatonic scale and add all the possible chord qualities to the notes that had been practiced under it, which would create landscapes of reharmonization of a simple scale
Pat Martino told me , " the most important thing, and sometimes the hardest thing, is to play WITHOUT expectations. Those who are filled with expectations never REALLY improvise". Years later, Robben Ford said, "the most important thing, is to be OPEN, and make YOURSELF AVAILABLE to the unknown". Two great cats, talking about the REAL DEAL! It works for me. . . . . . .
i really like michael brecker...i recently began listening to an album i had years ago....with the brecker brothers....michael and randy (trumpet) with jack wilkens on guitar...it is a jack wilkens album called merge....amazing!...they do a great rendition of freight train...thank you Jens...your videos are well produced with lots of info...
Joe use to go over to my friends house when I was a kid in the 70’s and it would start with a ton of Italian food , wine and then a beautiful night of jazz in an intimate setting. I wish I would have been old enough to really appreciate what was going on but I was 9
Hi Jens great vid and love your channel.... Can I just say playing funk taught me so much about comping because you are focused on the Rhythm sooooo much that your guitar is (almost) literally a percussion instrument. So when it came to other music forms I would essentially play from the drums up.... Thanks again
Thank you! I have actually also done a fair bit of funk and pop rhythm guitar which is indeed great training for that, not all students like that though 😁
Great video as always Jens.Basically how to comp depends on a number of factors. Specifically the Kind of Tune, the Number of Instruments, the Type of Instruments, and what the Soloist likes behind him/her. If it's a Live Performance or a Recording Session you can talk to the other musicians and find out what they like. If it's a Jam Session you may not have that opportunity. There are a number of books about Comping and many more about Chords, but in my humble opinion the best book about Jazz Guitar Comping is Jazz Guitar Comping Masterclass by John Pisano. Thanks.
We do appreciate all your hard work! For all of us out here fumbling along - these videos are gold! Especially this one. All the great humorous cut aways and snippets of other musicians are top notch…. Thanks
Thanks! Videos on specific players rarely do well, I tried making that for a year and there was very little interest, so it is unlikely that I will make one 🙂
So very helpful, thank you. Just what I need Also, I've found in the US we don't fire people as much as just never call them for another gig. LOL I love the fire coming out of your ears.
Hi Jens I have watched a lot of your TH-cam videos however I'm not to sure what arpeggios to learn first and what positions. I have learnt some beginner standards and want to improvise but it seems a lot of that comes from memorising arpeggios and necessary scales. is there a certain approach to this for someone starting to improvise jazz. Also do you have any tips for getting a jazz tone I have a semi-hollow and am still trying to get a warm traditional tone. many thanks
I feel it every time cus I'm not good with the ear, so when try to funk outside and feel the gig dude may think u really wanna change n keep another new harmonization, and then theres just another one n a half beat to tell him and fall down at the offbeat of the next beat. A note pitch to yell the keys out "chill up, it's Chameleon"?
The most frustrating thing about comping is that you can only go so far by practising alone. You need to play with a lot of good, responsive players in order to know what makes good comping.What you do for one player might not work for another. And the standard, textbook way of comping is almost always uninspiring.
@@geogi_bodies Well, you won't learn more rhythms from playing with others so if you are limited to that then there are plenty of things to develop without playing in a band. Think of comping as an interactive spacious chord solo.
Jens, I'm really getting a lot out of these videos. They're filling in some key areas that I missed or got wrong when I was first learning. The presentation is both professional and welcoming and, as with some many Dutch and Scandinavian presenters, your English vocabulary and grammar are excellent. You share with them one hiccup, though, in that you are giving a hard S sound to all the words that end in Z or S. That means you are saying JASS in every video, when it needs the same soft S as is found in fizz, fuzz, nose, and almost all plural words ending in S. Obviously, it's not a big deal, but that one little thing can throw English-speaking listeners, and your innate musicality may want to remove that repetitive obstruction, especially as it is so prominent in your primary subject. (Just watching an American movie or TV show and listening to how everyone treats plurals should alert you to soft-S in everyday usage.) Thanks again for sharing all that hard-earned knowledge!
Thanks, Ken! Maybe it will seem strange to you, but I actually consider my accent a part of my cultural identity. It could be because I am an ex-pat, so while I speak English to make myself understandable to an audience, then I am not sure I want it to be flawless. This is certainly not something that gets in the way of being understandable given that you are the first 34 million views to comment on it.
@@JensLarsen Totally agree - as an American who has spent half his life in Canada, I've adopted some inflections and ignored others - but thought it might be worth considering if only because the word "jazz" comes up so often. Thanks for responding so quickly!
Jens, can I ask you how old you were when you started playing live? I am not confident enough in my skills and I'm 23. Starting to believe it's too late for me.
I know you are asking Jens, but I was where you were when I was 23. Things really clicked into high gear for me at 26, now at 28 I know more than I ever thought I would by now, and can play things I couldn’t even have dreamed of at 23. My one piece of advice would be, knowledge and techniques only truly become absorbed in your mind once you have strong hands that can effortlessly navigate the instrument. If you get very strong, dexterous fingers by drilling lots of scales and arpeggios daily for just a few months, youll develop muscle memory of the fretboard, and will realize you’re able to understand and reproduce new concepts in seconds instead of days. Good luck, it’s definitely not too late
I would also appreciate it if you could go into time, especially if you are the only person playing behind the soloist and also feeling time at very slow tempos , ex.24mm , any comments would be appreciated, thanks!
@@DaddySantaClaus I thought you meant that. Actually that approach will get you fired in quite a few bands, it only fits in some contexts and is really hated in others, especially bass players can get furious about limiting them with that 🙂
@@hkrause9166 I mostly use a metronome and sometimes a drum track from DrumGenius. I talk about those apps here: th-cam.com/video/U4BQvsn02-Y/w-d-xo.html
What is your best advice for comping?
✅How Chord Melody Will Help You Master Important Skills
th-cam.com/video/ryBxYdKQ7AY/w-d-xo.html
You are part of the rhythm section, so maintaining a rhythm is more important thank making all the chord changes
Depends on the situation. If playing with a piano player I Tend to use block chords/inversions and leave space harmonically not to block the soloist into a tonality. Example- I’ll use chords with no 3rd and higher extensions. Also depending on the instrument soloing, compliment by staying out of the range of the instrument if possible. Stick to a position as much as possible. Listen. Listen to everyone.
This also requires a piano player who is willing to lay out a bit and not just bury you with ten fingers
Lars your videos have clearly improved over the years. I really like how you’re comfortable with adding humour into the videos now in a way that doesn’t at all disrupt the videos.
Thank you, but you might have me mixed up with Lars Jensen who makes really bad guitar videos 😂
@@JensLarsen I even like your old videos because the REAL information still gets across. There's no BS, just - how Music works and applying it to guitar.
Being able to be versatile and adaptable is something that really makes a musician improve and appreciate what is possible.
Certainly!
The Bill Evans and Jim Hall Undercurrent album has great comping by both of them. They could obviously play endless complex stuff if they wanted, but they mostly choose not to, to let the other's solos breathe
That is one rare example of guitar working well with piano. They clash more often than not. From my personal experience, I usually keep my hands completely off when I am comping with a pianist, unless I am familiar with his/her harmonic vocabulary and the pianist is responsive.
I’m a jazz trombonist in college who plays guitar on the side. I’ve just started taking it more seriously and this video is super timely. Thanks!
Go for it :)
Having a tendency to over analyze and impress myself, thanks for for reminding me to drop anchor and remember that a good amount of time less is definitely more.
Working on comping right now and this is super helpful info not found elsewhere. Thanks so much Jens!
Glad it was helpful!
I really love The Bill Evans trio on the program Jazz 625 as an example of some of the concepts you mention here. There have been a few uploads of the full program here on YT for a while. Bill's ability to collaborate with the other members was so sensitive and subtle, and always seems to be in just the exact right amount. I think that's why I've heard people attribute a mastery of silence by Bill as well, which I didn't really understand until considering how he was melding with his band members.
I saw a video of a master class Russell Malone taught at a college in Georgia and he said he views comping like the frame that helps showcase the singer and it definitely shows in his work with Diana Krall.
Yes, I would say that is the case for playing behind any soloist 🙂
What you covered here, is exactly what I needed at this time. It's letting me know that I've been accidentally or through divine intervention of the getting my playing on the right track. The experimenting with the right chord ideas for the overall expression of the song. I really needed this. I also enjoyed the Russell Malone story. He played with some friends of mine a while back, like over a decade ago and my friendS said he was the real deal. Those friends are the just most recently late Tony Gulizia and his living brother Joey , who are tops in my book at covering Jazz Standards. Tony had a great voice played great keys and Joey is the best drummer I've ever heard. I'm nowhere near the caliber of musician, but I keep learning and coming up with new songs. I watch your videos, Chris Whiteman and Sandra Sherman, they all help me. Thanks Jens !
Comping really fascinates me and I really want to comp on my own, sadly I never really know what to combine
It never really sounds interesting.
Your comping advices from previous videos have really helped me finding much more to the chords than just the chord itself
Find some examples you like and try to emulate that, you don't even really need to transcribe it just copy the concept or vibe
rootless shell, my teacher made me only comp 3rd+7th for 6 months when i firsted started , and all the other notes that i could have used but did not became really loud and clear in my head
Musicians,
This post is excellent and useful. Listen to this post a few times to catch everything. Remember, the purpose of comping chords is to support the MELODY. Make sure your playing is about the song not your playing or your chops the music must be the most important thing. Enjoy!
I’ll watch the whole video after work, but the best advice I got with comping is to hit ‘em where they ain’t lol. If they play high, you play low. If they fill out the space and keep rhythm like a pianist, then lay back and use block chords, or upper extensions to fill out the harmony. Don’t step on toes lol.
Very solid advice!!!
Thanks a lot for all your compromise with the music and musicians formation.
Glad you like the videos 🙂
I've watched your videos for years, Jens. But I'm only now starting to understand you 😂 This is great content, my man
Was it worth the effort? 😁
the most valuable Explanation i have ever watch and heard in my life .. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Jens, an great exercise that I got from a pianist would be:
Using a voicing with the root on top, next exactly the same note functioning as a minor second, then minor third and so on till you reach all the intervals with the same melody note all the time. Below you play all the chord qualities you can imagine. This will lead to endless possibilites with just the same melody note.
next step would be to play a simple diatonic scale and add all the possible chord qualities to the notes that had been practiced under it, which would create landscapes of reharmonization of a simple scale
Yes that is a nice exercise 🙂
@@JensLarsen Have you done it? 😊
@@patpogoallroundguitarist5814 Yes, we had to do it as a technical exercise at the conservatory
Awesome advice for comping and for life
Thank you 🙂
Great information as always, thanks Jens
Glad it was helpful!
Jens, thanks for another great video. Again as a pianist, I always have great takeaways from your competent instruction!
thx Jens, I agree, over comping steps on toes.
One of your best videos. Thanks.
Glad you like it 🙂
Thanks for posting as your videos have helped shape my learning jazz and you have been very influential in my development as a jazz musician. thanks
Glad you can put it to use 🙂
Pat Martino told me , " the most important thing, and sometimes the hardest thing, is to play WITHOUT expectations. Those who are filled with expectations never REALLY improvise". Years later, Robben Ford said, "the most important thing, is to be OPEN, and make YOURSELF AVAILABLE to the unknown". Two great cats, talking about the REAL DEAL! It works for me. . . . . . .
i really like michael brecker...i recently began listening to an album i had years ago....with the brecker brothers....michael and randy (trumpet) with jack wilkens on guitar...it is a jack wilkens album called merge....amazing!...they do a great rendition of freight train...thank you Jens...your videos are well produced with lots of info...
Thanks! I'll have to check that out, Jack Wilkins is a monster guitarist!
Joe use to go over to my friends house when I was a kid in the 70’s and it would start with a ton of Italian food , wine and then a beautiful night of jazz in an intimate setting. I wish I would have been old enough to really appreciate what was going on but I was 9
That is crazy! I would have loved to hear that!
Hi Jens great vid and love your channel....
Can I just say playing funk taught me so much about comping because you are focused on the Rhythm sooooo much that your guitar is (almost) literally a percussion instrument. So when it came to other music forms I would essentially play from the drums up.... Thanks again
Thank you! I have actually also done a fair bit of funk and pop rhythm guitar which is indeed great training for that, not all students like that though 😁
Great advice....... thanks Jens...!!!
The Barry Galbraith Guitar Comping book is also has great material to learn comping 'etudes'. great for reading too!
Great! I never worked from it, and only know it from people asking me to explain what is in there 😁
Great video as always Jens.Basically how to comp depends on a number of factors. Specifically the Kind of Tune, the Number of Instruments, the Type of Instruments, and what the Soloist likes behind him/her. If it's a Live Performance or a Recording Session you can talk to the other musicians and find out what they like. If it's a Jam Session you may not have that opportunity. There are a number of books about Comping and many more about Chords, but in my humble opinion the best book about Jazz Guitar Comping is Jazz Guitar Comping Masterclass by John Pisano. Thanks.
Thanks Michael!
Hey Jens, I thought we may not get one today... Reminder set 😎
Why did you think that? 🙂
Skeeter Best on Lucky Thompson's Tricotism is a great example of comping.
I'll have to listen to that 🙂
Really interesting topic ! Thanks !
Glad you liked it!
Thank you Jens!
Glad it was useful, Dan!
Thanks for this Jens!
Glad it is useful! 🙂
Great stuff as always. Cheers from Boston.
Much appreciated!
Outstanding. Well done.
Glad you like it!
Great advice, thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Moltes gràcies, professor.
Aquesta lliçó m'ha estat
molt útil.
Gràcies, Jens.
Great lesson and thank you.
Glad you like it 🙂
Excellent and great info
Glad it was helpful 🙂
Excellent again. So consistent!
Are you editing all this yourself? You are a machine. So many details 👏👏👏👏👏
Thank you! We are two people working on the edit, it is a LOT of work 🙂
@@JensLarsen We all appreciate it 👍🙏
We do appreciate all your hard work! For all of us out here fumbling along - these videos are gold! Especially this one. All the great humorous cut aways and snippets of other musicians are top notch…. Thanks
fabulous insights man.
Glad you like it!
Great video. You should do a video looking into the playing of Julian Lage. I’d love to see that.
Thanks! Videos on specific players rarely do well, I tried making that for a year and there was very little interest, so it is unlikely that I will make one 🙂
Spot on, Jens.
Thanks!
So very helpful, thank you. Just what I need Also, I've found in the US we don't fire people as much as just never call them for another gig. LOL I love the fire coming out of your ears.
Thanks! We do it like that over here as well, but that doesn't make for good content 😁
I've been fired from bands where everyone in the band (and audience members) said I was the best Muso in the band ! 🥸 Go figure !
Thank you
Jens, you’re fire! Bahahaaa. JK. Excellent lesson, keep two rooties and move the other two fingers around to experiment with options. Thank you!
Thank you Bryan!
amazig video a always, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
this is a good video. good tips
Glad you think so!
Very nice thank you
Glad you like it!
Excellent video
Thank you Joram!
Hi Jens I have watched a lot of your TH-cam videos however I'm not to sure what arpeggios to learn first and what positions. I have learnt some beginner standards and want to improvise but it seems a lot of that comes from memorising arpeggios and necessary scales. is there a certain approach to this for someone starting to improvise jazz. Also do you have any tips for getting a jazz tone I have a semi-hollow and am still trying to get a warm traditional tone. many thanks
The dreaded, “Don’t chord, don’t chord!” 😂
The what? 😁
I feel it every time cus I'm not good with the ear, so when try to funk outside and feel the gig dude may think u really wanna change n keep another new harmonization, and then theres just another one n a half beat to tell him and fall down at the offbeat of the next beat. A note pitch to yell the keys out "chill up, it's Chameleon"?
The most frustrating thing about comping is that you can only go so far by practising alone. You need to play with a lot of good, responsive players in order to know what makes good comping.What you do for one player might not work for another. And the standard, textbook way of comping is almost always uninspiring.
Is there a standard textbook way of comping? What is that? 🙂
@@JensLarsen Charleston rhythm and shell voicings. Boredom guaranteed haha
@@geogi_bodies Well, you won't learn more rhythms from playing with others so if you are limited to that then there are plenty of things to develop without playing in a band.
Think of comping as an interactive spacious chord solo.
Jens, I'm really getting a lot out of these videos. They're filling in some key areas that I missed or got wrong when I was first learning. The presentation is both professional and welcoming and, as with some many Dutch and Scandinavian presenters, your English vocabulary and grammar are excellent. You share with them one hiccup, though, in that you are giving a hard S sound to all the words that end in Z or S. That means you are saying JASS in every video, when it needs the same soft S as is found in fizz, fuzz, nose, and almost all plural words ending in S. Obviously, it's not a big deal, but that one little thing can throw English-speaking listeners, and your innate musicality may want to remove that repetitive obstruction, especially as it is so prominent in your primary subject. (Just watching an American movie or TV show and listening to how everyone treats plurals should alert you to soft-S in everyday usage.) Thanks again for sharing all that hard-earned knowledge!
Thanks, Ken! Maybe it will seem strange to you, but I actually consider my accent a part of my cultural identity. It could be because I am an ex-pat, so while I speak English to make myself understandable to an audience, then I am not sure I want it to be flawless. This is certainly not something that gets in the way of being understandable given that you are the first 34 million views to comment on it.
@@JensLarsen Totally agree - as an American who has spent half his life in Canada, I've adopted some inflections and ignored others - but thought it might be worth considering if only because the word "jazz" comes up so often. Thanks for responding so quickly!
Jens, can I ask you how old you were when you started playing live? I am not confident enough in my skills and I'm 23. Starting to believe it's too late for me.
I know you are asking Jens, but I was where you were when I was 23. Things really clicked into high gear for me at 26, now at 28 I know more than I ever thought I would by now, and can play things I couldn’t even have dreamed of at 23.
My one piece of advice would be, knowledge and techniques only truly become absorbed in your mind once you have strong hands that can effortlessly navigate the instrument. If you get very strong, dexterous fingers by drilling lots of scales and arpeggios daily for just a few months, youll develop muscle memory of the fretboard, and will realize you’re able to understand and reproduce new concepts in seconds instead of days.
Good luck, it’s definitely not too late
I would also appreciate it if you could go into time, especially if you are the only person playing behind the soloist and also feeling time at very slow tempos , ex.24mm , any comments would be appreciated, thanks!
Maybe this? th-cam.com/video/fs6hkTjyxuk/w-d-xo.html
I guess its time to switch to Piano!
😂 Maybe not though
freddie green.
That is certainly a guitarist
@@JensLarsen Chet Atkins.
@@JensLarsen just play quarter notes hahaha joking
@@DaddySantaClaus I thought you meant that. Actually that approach will get you fired in quite a few bands, it only fits in some contexts and is really hated in others, especially bass players can get furious about limiting them with that 🙂
You dont like iReal, Jens....or?
I hardly ever use it myself, a little too midi in the swing.
@@JensLarsen do you use backingtracks and if so, what do you use and therefore suggest?
@@hkrause9166 I mostly use a metronome and sometimes a drum track from DrumGenius. I talk about those apps here: th-cam.com/video/U4BQvsn02-Y/w-d-xo.html
Thank you
You're welcome