Tips on How to Comp in Db (Flat) Major Chord Voicing

Video Transcript

Now I just want to take a second and really illiterate the fact that comping is really an art, and really, you can't just start playing chords, and hitting notes and sounding good, it's really listening in, and it's playing under the vocals to the horn player, and it's really, if you think about like a painting, there's something that's a focal point, or that really sticks out, and then you have the background just really brings out the focal point. And what you're doing when you're comping is you're becoming part of the background, but you're really bringing out what's in charge, so, how do you play enough, but not too much is really what you're going for. So what we're going to do is we're going to show you, so, here's an example of too much. So I'm just playing a lot of notes, but, so, we start here, we have our E flat minor. A flat seven. D flat major. I'm just doing shell voicing, so now, let's just get shell voicing?s going, and then use your right hand to throw in a little hits every now and then, but you want to be really light about it, not too much. So...here's an example of too much. It's just too much; the horn player needs some room. Again, the way you space out your voicing?s, maybe make them spacer. But see, less is more when you're comping. And you want to really accent the one. So really, get together with a bass player and work with a saxophonist and see what you can do, and really the more you do it, the better you'll get.

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags