Modal Improvising in C Minor with Horizontal Fretboard Movement

Keyboardist Laura Hall and I perform live, improvised music (for better or worse) for the CW show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

It’s all about styles and variety, like other house bands, which means we're attempting to bring the widest swath possible in an improvised format.

Unlike other house bands, Laura and I are the only musicians on this show. We rely on drum machines for a rhythm section and usually bass is in Laura’s left hand. We’re armed with a multitude of guitars, keyboards, hand percussion and whatever we need to provide the largest sonic palette.

Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep” provides a good guitar foundation for such variety, so we’ve used this tune on many occasions. It has resulted in a slew of slightly differing, improvised and modded versions of the original tune.

The progression is quite simple, C minor, very diatonic and it features a great pre-chorus where we finally get the A♭ major lift our ears have been wanting.

In the sheet below, you can see that chord start at measure 19 then repeat at 22.

So, how do we make it more varied and interesting?

The first thing we need to identify is the basic tonality of the tune. C minor can mean a lot of things so we need to find the ‘vibe’ of this chord.

This A♭ major chord lets us know the progression is in the C Aeolian mode, giving us a flat 3^rd, flat 6^th and flat 7^th.

• 1, 2, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭6, ♭7
• 1, 2, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭6 (A♭), ♭7
• Flat 3rd (E♭), Flat 6th (A♭), and Flat 7th (B♭)

If there was a prominent F7 in the progression, I would suspect the A natural of that chord is letting us know the C minor is actually C Dorian.

After establishing the groove and the progression, I like to start embellishing the original chords with different voicings. The song is modal, so we can apply that to the progression. A great way of working out new voicings is to pick a small voicing you like, 3 or 4 notes, then move those notes up and down by one scale step.

Cm Voicing Shifts

In the example below, we start at the Cm, advancing up the fretboard until we have four different voicings.

Substitute V7 Chord

Take a look at that 2^nd voicing again, the A♭, D and F.

You might recognize these notes as the money tones of a B♭7 chord. The flat 7 dominant chord is a great pull toward the I or i chord as it’s somehow a little ‘cooler’ than the V7 chord and we hear it a lot in pop music.

When moving these voicings around, avoid the root. Think of yourself as the right hand of a piano.

As a result we can use the B♭ chord as a substitute for the V7 chord.

It’s especially helpful in the pre-chorus when we swap out the G chord for the A♭ major chord.

I’ll use the B♭7 and the G5 chord interchangeably, playing G minor/dom 7 triads over the B♭ and vice versa. While the results aren’t exactly “out,” thinking in terms of substitute chords can lend some different ideas and help break free of the usual guitar-istic patterns.

Just remember:

When moving these voicings around, avoid the root. Think of yourself as the right hand of a piano.

The Melodic Minor scale is simply a major scale with a flat 3^rd. This means A♭ Melodic Minor is:

• A♭, B♭, B, D♭, E♭, F, G, A♭

If we consider these notes from the root of the V chord we get:

• ♭9, ♭3, M3, ♭5, ♭6, ♭7

And if we consider them over the B♭ chord we get:

• R, ♭9, ♭3, 4th, 5th, 6th, ♭7

You can also fly in this altered dominant idea over the i/I chord. For example, if we start vamping on the C minor for a length of time, I’ll play some A♭ melodic minor ideas over it, just to break up the chord a bit. This comes from that old jazz chestnut – for any i/I chord you can substitute a V7 chord before it.

There’s a lot of ‘pull’ in these altered notes, and it really sets up the C minor chord nicely.

These substitutions lend themselves to a more ‘piano’ way of playing, more fluid and graceful, and not as confined as the usual ‘guitar’ way of playing. We guitarists sometimes get stuck in our boxes and shapes and positions, which are often a vertical approach.

This is a decidedly more horizontal approach which opens up all sorts of ideas.

If you want to expand on this type of playing, Ted Greene’s “Chord Chemistry” is a must read for any guitarist.

His descriptions and concepts regarding chords and voicings are so rich and detailed, that this one book will keep you busy for a lifetime. I would also recommend the Allan Holdsworth book “Just For The Curious” which is a great basic primer on the works of this master, touching on similar topics.

Of course, given the space and freedom of a duet, you can also explore a lot of sonic freedom.

The nature of the Adele song is basically straight 8ths, top to bottom. I always want to firmly establish ground zero, our starting point. I’ll acknowledge the basic tone used on the recording and the basic parts played. But after we’ve tipped our hats, we can mix it up.

I usually start by getting to a clean tone with a lot of ambient delay. These colorful voicings and inversions really lend themselves to a nice whole note, with a touch of whammy and lengthy delay repeats. It’s a great way of floating and clearing some space. Soloists love it when I do this, because it gives them all the room in the world.

Rethinking normal effects can be a great color choice. For example, I’ll turn on the wah and slowly open and close it over a single note, or over a chord. I’m not doing an Isaac Hayes wah, rather I’m using it as a slow color.

Conclusion and Sounding Like a Full Band

Fundamentally, I’m looking at ways to make the duo sound like a full band. I’ll emphasize a rhythmic motif first, and on the next round emphasize a sonic motif. It’s like imagining yourself as the different members of the band at different times.

All of these ideas are taking advantage of the open space of a jam and supportive audience. I wouldn’t make these explorations if there was a singer and we were just doing a play through of the tune.

Try some of these approaches the next time you have the luxury of space and see how it opens up your guitar playing, perhaps in the context of other guitar lessons.