Comping Studies

As a guitarist, you spend the vast majority of your time at a jam session or on a gig comping chords behind other musicians.

Because of this, it’s essential to study comping over any tune you learn.

In this section you learn 3 comping studies, all of which use a different approach to the chord progression.

Have fun with these comping studies, and when you learn all 3, mix them together to take these shapes further in your studies.

Top 4 Strings Comping

To begin, you learn chords on the top-4 strings that outline the changes to Solar.

Jazz guitarists often comp on the top-4 strings to get out of the way of the bassist, and have their chords cut through the band on stage.

Because of this, they’re essential shapes to learn when studying this, or any, jazz standard.

The chords are written with a plain rhythm, so experiment with rhythmic variations as you jam these chords over the backing track.

Audio Example 27

4th-Chords Comping

As it’s often played in a modern-jazz style, Solar is a solid tune to work on your 4th-chord comping concepts.

4th-chords are chord shapes that are built by stacking 4th intervals, as compared to 3rds in traditional chord shapes.

When you stack 4th intervals, you create a more ambiguous and open sound compared to traditional drop 2 and drop 3 chord shapes.

This allows you to outline the changes while injecting an open, more modern sound to your comping.

The 4th chords in this study are written with a plain, static rhythm.

So, once you learn these shapes, put on the backing track without piano and comp along, adding your own rhythms along the way.

Audio Example 28

Ed Bickert Style Comping

In this final chord study, you add rhythm to the mix as you learn an Ed Bickert inspired comping chorus.

Ed is a master of creating engaging and interesting comping lines, that are often as interesting as listening to the soloist he’s comping for.

In this study you learn shapes, rhythms, and melodic comping patterns found in Ed’s playing.

If you dig any of these shapes, rhythms, or ii V I outlines, take them out of this study and add them to your own playing.

Bickert’s comping is some of the best, and so he’s the perfect player to study when learning how to comp over any jazz standard.

Audio Example 29