How to Improvise Chord by Chord

Juampy Juarez distills more than 33 years of teaching into a step-by-step method for one of the biggest obstacles in jazz and fusion: improvising chord by chord. Instead of running scales, you build a vocabulary of thirds, triads, and arpeggios that describes the harmony as it goes by — the technique jazz players use to develop a vocabulary that involves scales, arpeggios, triads, passing notes, and modes.

What's covered

• The 12-bar blues progression as the starting point — root, subdominant, and dominant functions in C
• Targeting the third of each chord, the note that defines the harmony, starting from one simple position
• The bass-and-third exercise, basic comp rhythms, and feeling jazz time on 2 and 4
• Mixing thirds with the minor pentatonic and blues scale (including the blue note)
• Moving from thirds to major triads and arpeggios, played as one- and two-note-per-string patterns
• Applying the method to major blues, minor blues, and II–V–I, with discussion of swing, blues bebop, and post-bebop

Juampy has watched many students become confident in jazz improvisation with this method, and this video lesson puts the whole approach in one place. A 37-page PDF is included (text in Spanish, but it follows the video instruction).