Bitonal 2line

Juampy Juarez teaches his Bitonal 2line concept: improvising two simultaneous lines on guitar, each in a different tonality. It grows out of Jimmy Wyble's two-line technique, which Juampy learned from Wyble and Sid Jacobs in Buenos Aires around 2007 and expanded in his earlier lesson and book Contrapuntal Improvisation.

The approach is deliberately practical rather than theoretical — a device you can use in real time for improvising, composing and comping, with the amount of dissonance left up to you.

What's covered

• How the concept extends Jimmy Wyble's two-line playing toward bitonality — one line inside the key, one outside
• Choosing effective second tonalities: a semitone above or below, or a tritone away — keys far apart on the circle of fifths
• Worked examples over a II–V–I (E-7, A7, Dmaj7), pairing lines like E minor against F minor
• Playing the lines separately, together as intervals, or as two lines inside with the bass outside
• Hybrid picking — pick and fingers — since this polyphonic material can't be played with the pick alone
• Mixing bitonal lines with traditional single-note vocabulary

Juampy points to Stravinsky as the father of bitonality, Bach as counterpoint's ambassador, and Jimmy Wyble as the player who opened the door to contrapuntal improvisation — and recommends listening to all three. For more on these ideas, see his clinic and book Bitonal Guitar.

• 16-page PDF included
• 59 minutes