In Position Soloing Over Cmaj7 Fm7.
This is a continuation of a past free lesson, which you can check here: Solo In Position over Cmaj7 Abmaj7. Check this blog first. It will make everything in today’s lesson easier to follow.
Today we’ll talk about some advanced improvising with the 7 in position scale fingerings.
If you don’t know those scale patterns yet, you can learn them here: The 7 C Major Scale Fingerings
You will be soloing in position, over this chord progression.
“In position” means “staying in 1 spot with your hand”.
||: Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Fm7 | Fm7 :||
The Fm here is a modal interchange chord. Learn more about Modal Interchange Here.
This whole chord progression is in the key of C.
You might wonder how this can be possible when after all there is no Fm chord in a C major scale.
The chords in the key of C are C Dm Em F G Am Bdim. There is no Fm chord.
The above link about modal interchange chords explains how and why this works.
For reasons explained in one of the past blogs (the aforementioned URLs), you use the F Dorian scale over the Fm chord here.
So in this chord progression, you will solo 2 bars C major/Ionian scale and 2 bars F Dorian scale
This applies to all minor modal interchange chords btw. (i.e. In the key of C over a Gm chord, you play G Dorian)
F dorian has 3 flats.
Learn here how to quickly figure out the key signatures to modes in all keys
The Closest Scale Fingerings for C Ionian and F Dorian.
Chord progressions with modal interchange chords or key changes are fantastic resources to drill your ability to change between scales while staying in position. Good improvisers know how to solo over various complex chord progressions or key changes keeping their fretting hand in 1 location.
That is what we will be practicing today.
Closest scale fingering combinations for the Cmaj7 Fm7 chord progression:
- C Ionian fingering → C Aolian fingering
- D Dorian fingering → D Locrian fingering
- E Phrygian fingering → Eb Ionian fingerin
- F Lydian fingering → F Dorian fingering
- G Mixo fingering → G Phrygian fingering
- A Aeolian fingering → Ab Lydian fingering
- B Locrian fingering → Bb Mixolydian fingering.
Solo 3 min per position = a 21min daily drill.
It’s only challenging in the beginning. After a couple of days, this will get easier.
This is an amazing exercise to drill your scale fingerings. Every jazz guy spends a lot of time on those types of improvisation drills.
The scale fingering combinations over the chord progression | C | Fm |, are the same like for the chord progression | C | Ab || (Ab Lydian and F Dorian have the same 7 notes).
The following video covers the above scale fingering combinations.
Conclusion
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