Sunny ( Smooth Jazz ) - Guitar Lesson

hey folks i'm hp together with dr pink and today's topic is the jazz standard sunny in a smooth jazz version first i'm going to play the theme for you a little bit of improvisation and then we're going to make check out the chords make an analysis of the song there are going to be two in improvisation sections one for the more

beginner type plays of you you still can play over that song and the one for the more intermediate and advanced plays among you but also for the advanced plays it's cool to check out the beginners because there's still some needful stuff to know so let's get ready for the rumble let's get started sunny

That was the theme, now let's go to the improvisation.

yeah and stuff like that so this was of course a more sophisticated improvisation but still we can do an easy improvisation so if you're a beginner check out the theme and check out the beginners version of the improvisation which is still cool and works pretty well with the A minor pentatonics so let's get started

Let's check out the theme of this track.

If you're able to play the A minor pentatonics, no problem.

A minor pentatonics in root position.

This one here.

5, 8, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, 8, 5, 8.

And it works around this part of the pentatonics.

So it starts like this here.

The 5th.

And then it goes here.

8, 5, 8, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 5.

So this is the first part.

3, 4, 1, 2.

You can make slight variations of the rhythm.

It doesn't have to be all the time exactly like this.

first part second part will be same thing again you can do this slide here so what you can do is when you play the first time you play

one two three four one two three and four and one two three and four and one and second time you play one two three four one two and then you play this anticipated on the four and not on the one so let's hear the difference one two three four one uh sorry it's on the three not on the one

oh man okay one two three four one two three and four so this is straight ahead the anticipation version will be one two three four one two and three and four did you hear the difference one is straight the other one is anticipated if you make like this you can create a variation of the easy way so

Okay, so let's play the first part in one row, just with the track.

I missed the beginning.

Once again.

Three, four, one, two.

Again.

Three, four, one, two.

Now comes the second part.

So the second part is very easy, it's a repeating thing.

It goes like this.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One and two and three and four and one.

So it's a repeating thing all the time.

One, two, three, four, one.

five seven five five five seven so here you always do this and now you go here eight five five then again this slide five and they end up like this so let's do the whole thing

Yeah, that's the whole theme.

So now let's get on to the chords.

Now let's check out the chords together with the sheet music I added.

We don't play exactly as displayed in the sheet music because I like this version.

more but it's pretty similar so it starts with a minor we do here fifth fret then the a string and middle string goes up here so see a minus seven is typical jazz chord here make a bar with the ring damp the a string and here we take the e string in the fifth fret so a minor then it goes down to d minor a g minor sorry

one two and you could do like this one two three four one one two three and four then goes to g minor and now to c9 here third second third third see i'll take this one here

Then we go to Fmaj7.

Here in the first fret.

It's like an A minor.

Play it like this without the index finger.

And then take the index finger in the first fret and the empty A string.

That's Fmaj7.

So 1, 2...

And if you want to play them, you play them anticipated.

So 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 1, 2, and 4, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

And then we end up here in the B minor 7.

This is now different than from the sheet music.

There we only have a B minor 7, but we take a B minor 7 flat 5.

So 7, 7, 7 here.

A string is damped.

7, 7, 7 here.

Index in the 6th.

And...

E7 sharp nine.

Let us play twice.

One, two.

Now comes the second part and this is a little bit different now.

A minor

And this is another thing which is different from the sheet music.

Instead of G minor, C7, we play C7 all the time.

For a full bar.

1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.

F major 7.

And we play B flat 13.

6, A string is down, 6, 7, 8.

And end up again with Bm7b5, E7b9, Am7 to E7b9.

Now let's see how that sounds.

Yeah, those were the chords now.

Now, next thing we're gonna do is the beginners or easy improvisation.

The cool thing on Sonny is, and that's why it's good to get into jazz improvisation the easy way, you can basically work it through with the A minor pentatonics.

Meaning, or the A blues scale, so you can work with the scale.

Then it's gonna sound great.

You can play bluesy.

And you can play typical bluesy licks.

But you have to just play them in a smooth way.

Maybe that would be something different.

But basically you can play... You can play anything like this.

Let's give it a try.

See how it works.

See it works great.

works great but one trick which really make you sound very cool even if you play simple things play precise eight notes meaning temp is pretty pretty mid tempo i think it's uh one out of five play eight notes try first and as an exercise just play one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four just that this is the minimum speed you need

on the you know what i mean yeah and then you play very steady so one two three and do alternate picking always stay in motion with the picking hand one and two three four one two three four one two three and four and one

Try to count while you're playing this way and keep your hand moving.

You don't see my foot.

My foot is in sync with my hand.

So 1, 2, 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and...

Even if you play a few notes on the offbeat.

So 1, 1 and 2 and... Now I'm going to play on 1 and 2 and 3 and...

Each time it was an upstroke.

And change between playing on beat and playing off beat.

And then you're gonna sound great on that stuff here.

see you could be totally in time then you're smooth cool and sexy you get many phone numbers see that's totally enough sounds cool and it's smooth and sexy what do you want more

Yeah, really works great.

Now let's go to the more sophisticated improvisation, therefore we first need to make an analysis of the track.

So, basically it's played in A minor.

Aeolian, this one here.

then it goes to gma and 7 to c7 to f major 7. this is a 2 5 1 structure where you play g dorian which would be this scale here

I try to play it in position but you can play of course any position you like G Dorian C Mixolydian which would be the same we start here C Mixolydian and let's do F Ionian probably here

Oops, sorry, that was Lydian.

Well, you could do Lydian if you want, but still you could also do Ionian.

Probably I would do Lydian in this case, because F Lydian is nearer to the main key of the song, which is A minor.

So we do it.

Let's do F Lydian.

So it would be like this.

Then we have the 2-5 in A minor, Bm7b5 to E7sh9.

So here you can play, you don't have so much time, but still you play B Locrian, which will be here, or any position which you know.

It's this one here.

And E friggin' natural three, which would be this one here.

Just an example of a possible position you can play this.

See?

So, but what you also can... Now, this comes twice, and then in the third part we have an additional chord, which is a little bit tricky, this B13.

And here we play Lydian b7.

This will be this one here.

six eight five seven eight five six eight this is

You know what I mean.

And then the things remain.

So this is the analysis of the modes which can be played.

But of course there are some tricks.

I personally think it's much cooler if you mix it up with normal bluesy stuff and just partially really go for the modes.

I would do this on the...

When it goes to Gm7, C7, there I would change a little bit.

And on when it goes to B13.

I'm going to show you how it's meant.

So it starts bluesy.

Now...

now attention b7 yeah so this is the spots where you can do this uh or you even when it's played b minus m to e7 sharp nine there i will not really go for the most but just make the signature note this is the g sharp

yeah and since we are now in expert mode you have to play the rods in 60 notes now because that's not cool just playing that stuff that slow so let's see how it works start with blues see i played i switched the modes

So you need to have a certain speed that you really can do the cool stuff.

I did a lot of playing now, just to see how it works.

Now I'm going to explain a few things which I did.

What really works...

I did something like this.

Started on A minor, I just was going up in A minor, in 16th notes of course.

And here I changed to G Dorian.

and just went down.

See now, I'm down here.

So I just changed the positions in between.

Now here I changed.

See?

Very cool.

What also is very cool is you can do this kind of repeating things.

This lick is very cool here.

Works great here.

Five, seven, eight, five, eight, seven.

And these are six notes.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

But it's a 16-round, so the accent moves all the time.

And you can play that one as long as you want.

It's kind of a Pat Martino thing.

And of course you need to get out pretty smooth.

What I did now.

I just added chromatic stuff from here.

5, 6, 7, 8.

So...

And now I'm finished up.

So here I make a chromatic movement.

See?

Yeah, probably you can also do chromatic here on the G string.

And here you make the turnaround chromatic as well.

Five, six, seven.

So the whole thing is like this.

Now it's finished.

See?

That one works great here.

See?

And also I didn't start exactly on the beat.

So this starts on the second 16th note of any beat you want to start.

So if you have 16th notes on beat, like 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4-1, you start on the second one, 1-2-3-4-1, see?

1-2-3-4 and here's the first again.

And then it's much cooler.

That's really cool stuff.

And what you also might notice is the phrasing.

It moves from A to B and goes back to A, then goes to C and has these waves in it.

Try to do these waves in it.

Oops.

You also can add chords in between, like the Eymann.

Like funk is very cool.

Or you also can do this one, and this also works great.

What we start here is also a blues lick but works great here.

5, 8, 5, 8, 5, 5, 8, 5, 8, 7, 5, 7, 5, 6, 7.

Very cool stuff.

You also can add these chords in between.

I call them the West Montgomery power chords, which they are.

This is 7, 8, 10.

This is the power chord, because it's a power chord, but a high one.

Move it up here to the 9th and to the 12th.

And then you can just make funky sloppy things.

What also works cool is like...

this little lick in the right position.

You can play this anywhere.

That one also works either on G, Dorian, also on A, Aolin.

So eight, you do the first note twice, eight, six, five, do the same thing again.

It's kind of a repeating thing, just goes down.

stop somewhere if you anyway you like very cool okay what else can we do

Now let's put things a little bit together.

I was talking a lot now and it's of course not possible to do an entire improvisation concept like in 50 minutes over this song if we are in expert mode.

But I just want to give some ideas.

Try to work around the blues scale with these sequence runs.

or anything which you know and work with some chords and adapt to the modes if you have time for it.

What does that exactly mean?

I mean...

Especially on the E7 sharp 9.

So this G sharp would be the note to target.

Maybe just play the note there where the E7 sharp 9 comes.

And then you've already done your job well.

On the B13 you can do this.

Figure out that the Lydian b7 would be like this.

Wait.

nine eight six five so i'm gonna show what i mean first you play easy go you can play pentatonic in 16 rounds it's cool now there was the place to do it

now there's later on now we go

Yeah, what else?

Sorry, this one I forgot.

That one is really cool.

This one, like, slide up and just... That one is really cool and works great on this track.

See?

Yeah, so now let's put things a little bit together.

You can also start with the beginner stuff, because it's not needed to play fast all the time.

Play melodic.

Now we go more into runs.

Always work with this

and now we have a whole thing going on and so on yeah folks that was my tutorial about smooth jazz version of sunny

It's of course impossible to do an entire jazz improvisation course in such short time and covering up all levels like from beginner till expert.

But as soon as you get into jazz stuff, the expert stuff is still good to know but it takes a certain time to get into it.

So I just gave some ideas how you can work it out and you already need to have a few things together to go especially in technical ways to do the expert stuff.

But the beginner stuff is also cool and works great on the track.

The track can be downloaded on the link display below.

If you have any questions or stuff like that you can have a private online lesson and

The main thing, but the main thing on playing smooth jazz is play it smooth, cool and sexy.

Yeah, because otherwise you don't get the phone numbers which you want.

If you see somebody you like and you play silky smooth and sexy, you probably get the phone number.

And if you don't play it nicely, you don't get it for sure.

So that should be motivation enough to practice hard on that stuff.

Personally, for me, I can admit it now, I started music because of a girl which I was in love and I want to impress her.

And it didn't work out, but I really got addicted to guitar playing then.

Yeah, good.

I don't tell the name of her, probably she watches it.

Yeah, good.

So that was me from, I think, all from me from Dr.

Pink.

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Good.

That was Dr.

Pink with Say Something Silk Smoothie.

Yeah, that's what you have to say.

Good luck and we see us next time.