How’s it going, guys? This is John McClennan and
I’m here with guitarcontrol.com, bringing you this
video lesson. We’re looking at lines going over the
first four bars of “Giant Steps”, John Coletrane’s
tune. The first four bars are almost — probably
one of the hardest parts of that song. So it’s good
to practice some lines that outline those chords and
show you how to basically get through it on guitar.
So here’s a line that I write and we’ve got B major 7.
So this is coming right off the root here. We’ve got
7th fret, jumps up a 6th to the 6th fret. This would
be the 9th fret, the 8th, pulling off to the 7th and
then here’s a typical bebop flavor, going to our G
major 7. I’m just basically doing what I call an
enclosure around the 3rd of this chord.
Total John Coletrane here, by the way. Slide it
up half a step for a nice little lick going over
basically A minor, D7, G, you know, II-V-I.
That’s where you can resolve it there. And look,
this outlines the D7: 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and
then resolving to basically that chord.
So here’s the whole lick slowly, and be sure to click
the link for the tab so you can follow along. Up to
speed. It’s a tricky line, but practice it. It will
do your chops some good. Practice over the first four
bars of “Giant Steps”. You might just want to put
that on loop and play over it until you get it.
Thanks for watching.
