Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 142 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject: Minor Blues / Help with Help The Poor
One of my favourite musical forms is the minor blues form and I've recently noticed that Help The Poor has some similarities chord-wise to my favourite chord sequence for a minor blues.
e.g. for a minor blues in Dm (the saddest of all keys ) the chords would be:
... which are basically the chords used in Help The Poor.
Now my normal approach solo-wise would be to approach this with just the Dm blues scale, or a barrage of Dm pentatonic wanking , maybe with some chord notes from the other chords thrown in for good measure if my ears are up to the task.
However, there's always been the thought in the back of my mind that I could be doing something more with this and I've had some fun with Revelation over the last week or so since Kirk's posting.
So, I'm looking for input/advice/scales/theory on what else I could be doing here. Of course, the final application has to be down to ears and heart, but I'm just looking for the theory to get my brain and fingers up to speed in the interim.
Chris _________________ because I rock, and that's important.
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 9:48 pm Post subject:
I believe I have a backing clip to this Help the Poor somewhere on my home network. I will dig it out and post.
Minor blues are a blast to play on. I think one of Robben's specialties is playing on and writing minor blues tunes.
Help the Poor
Mystic Mile
Nothing to Nobody
Moonchild Blues
First things first is to analyze the harmony.
Dm7 is the I minor chord
Gm7 is the IV minor chord
Bb13 (V of V would be E7 resolving to A7) this is a tritone substitution for
that - the Bb is a tritone away from E7
A7b13 is an altered V chord
The easiest way to play on this tune is to just play D minor blues over the whole thing.
The next easiest way to play on this tune, but to hit some of those changes, is to play D minor blues but target the 3rd and 7th of those dominant 7th chords. So on the Bb7 target D the 3rd and Ab the 7th - make sure those notes are on strong beats. On the A7 target C# the 3rd and G the 7th. The notes in Bold will really stand out - because the Ab is the b5th and the C# is the maj 7th of D both of which are passing tones in D blues - so you want to nail those on like beat one.
Now let's make the changes. The easiest way to make the changes is to integrate arpeggios of the chords into your lines. So play those arpeggios around your D blues licks.
Ok now let's check out the chord scales.
Dm7 - D Dorian
Gm7 - G Dorian
Bb13 - Bb Lydian b7 or F Melodic Minor - 1, 9, 3, #11, 5, 13, b7
A7b13 - A Altered or Bb Melodic Minor - 1, b9, #9, 3, b5, b13, b7
Now let's stretch the harmony a little bit. Over any chord you can play the V of that chord and resolve it back. For example, on D-7 you can play D-7 A7b9b13 D-7 or D dorian to A altered (Bb melodic minor) and back. Do the same thing on the G-7 up a 4th.
You could also play symmetrical H/W Diminished scales over the Dominate 7th chords. But now you are changing the harmony and starting to take things outside. 1, b9, #9, 3, #11, 5, 13, b7....see the tensions are changing.
You could reharmonize the dominant 7th chords from (Bb13 A7b13) to (E7alt A7b13) or (E7alt Eb7) or (Bb7 Eb7). See I am just playing with tritone substitutions.
There is certainly a lot more you can do on these changes. But this should get you started.
Now one more thing, so I don't have people coming down on me for talking about all this theory. The real way to may all this work and not sound mechanical is to use melodic development techniques. This is probably a topic for another thread. Robben uses this all the time. Carlton and Scott Henderson talk about this in their videos. You can't just play licks all the time - it get's ridiculously boring. However, most guitarist do. You have to try to develop something. Play a melody line, repeat it or repeat it up an octave or up a 4th, or take it through the changes, or change the notes and keep the rhythm the same....there is a thousand ways to do this. You have to let your ears take you...the solos will play themselves!
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 11:46 am Post subject:
My favorite Help the Poor tweak is to play diminished over the altered A7. I'm sure there are rules for when you use a higher number but to me this is a raised 5. Maybe because there is a normal 5 you call it a flat 13 (flat 6th?). For whatever reason, Ddim seems to work over it. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 103 Location: Upper left coast
Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 2:33 pm Post subject: Help the Poor
Interesting stuff, even though I don't understand any of it. Help the Poor has become one of my favorite Robben tunes after hearing him play it live - he takes it to a different place every time, and always throws in a few surprises.
Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 142 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 7:02 pm Post subject:
Kirk,
wow - many thanks - very grateful for your advice and input to this. Always been one of my favourite musical forms too but I've never really pushed it and am a bit rusty on the harmonic theory here, so thanks for all the info. I've got some work to do!
Agree on the melodic development issue too. I think this is one of the things that everyone on this board agrees about, and certainly one of the things that attracted me to RF's playing in the first place. It's also my personal mission in the near future to 'raise the bar' in my own playing in this regard, and tracks like Help The Poor and Revelation give me a great vehicle for doing this.
With my own playing, some nights I'm right on it in this regard, but some nights I really struggle and fallback to lick playing. In some ways this is just the product of a busy life and tired body/mind but hopefully I can do the homework now to give my 'autopilot' a bit more to work with!
Like I mentioned above, I'll get it into the head and hands first, then leave it up the ears and heart to take over. Should be a fun journey.
Chris _________________ because I rock, and that's important.
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:33 pm Post subject: Love That Tune !!
Hey kirk !
After all that cool stuff kirk wrote, I think I'll just chime in with a comp using altered chords. For variety when executing the turn on this one, I turn the Bb13 into the "jazz" Bb7 (thumb on Bb on s6f6, s5 mute, index on s4f6, mid on s2f6, ring on s3f7). From there I make the Bb7flat5, by flatting the second string, as a chromatic transition to the A7. The 7flat5 comes easiest to me by switching index and middle finger from the position I described, index finger going one flat to s2f5.
Ive seen Robben use chromatic changes like that, live. He's hard to follow, though, because of his expertise: speed, economy of left hand motion, and a tendency to keep ring and pinky very close together. Hope I get that tight someday .... _________________ Ya gotta suffa if ya wanna play da bluz - Bromberg
Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:34 am Post subject: Re: Minor Blues / Help with Help The Poor
[quote="StratCat"]One of my favourite musical forms is the minor blues form and I've recently noticed that Help The Poor has some similarities chord-wise to my favourite chord sequence for a minor blues.
e.g. for a minor blues in Dm (the saddest of all keys ) the chords would be:
"Yeah well its part of a uh a trilogy really, a musical trilogy that I'm doing *ding* in D, minor. Which I always find is the sadest of all keys, really, I don't know why but it makes people weep instantly if you play it."
"Very much like I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and its sort of inbetween that, its like a Mach piece really. This piece is called Lick My Love Pump." _________________ -Danny
Joined: 19 Nov 2006 Posts: 13 Location: San Clemente CA
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:28 am Post subject:
Lots of great information here.
One simple technique I like to use is to think of Fmaj7 while playing over Dm. The easiest way to do this is to play the notes from the Fmaj7 arpeggio: F A C E
Against the Dm, these notes will give you the m3rd, 5th, b7, and 9th. The most obvious place to play this is up on the 12th fret, with the E note on the first string, C on the 2nd string, A on the 3rd string, and F on the 4th string. It may sound complicated, but it's easy to see once you get used to it, and the sound isn't so scale-oriented and predictable.
This is one great guitar site. I wish we could all get together and jam on this tune for real.
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) the chords would be:
, maybe with some chord notes from the other chords thrown in for good measure if my ears are up to the task.
