Play the Changes: soloing over real chord progressions

Improv 101 teaches two powerful frameworks for improvising over chord changes. In one, you choose one base scale that works over the whole progression, and you use triad overlays to find the chord tones as each chord goes by. A framework only gets you so far, though. The true key to learning it is to use it over real music, where the chords change when the song says so and not when you're ready. Play the Changes is a new lesson series for that step. Each lesson takes one backing track and works through it: what the chords are, which scale covers them, where the best target notes are, and how to practice soloing over it at any level of experience.

I think of it as the practical companion to Improv 101. The course teaches the method, and this series is a set of worked examples.

The backing tracks

I'm a big fan of Elevated Jam Tracks. Tom's backing tracks are well produced and very musical, and they cover a good range of styles. What makes them right for this series is that they're built on real chord progressions, the kind that a solo has to acknowledge. Over a one-chord vamp or something written to sound modal, you can stay in one scale and sound fine. Over Tom's tracks, the chords push back, and your solo will sound dramatically better when you can follow them.

These lessons play his videos straight from his YouTube channel, but they add some Fret Science magic on top. I'm thrilled to offer this new lesson series with the support of Tom and Elevated Jam Tracks.

What's in a lesson

Every lesson covers a similar set of basics.

The progression

A chord chart labels every chord with both its name and its Nashville number. A circle-of-fifths chart marks the chords in yellow and shows which one is home, the tonal center. When the numbers aren't obvious, as with a minor-key tune or a chord borrowed from outside the key, the lesson explains them.

The base scale

The main approach is to choose one scale that works over the whole progression and stay rooted in it, and each lesson explains the choice. Most of the time, the best choice is a pentatonic scale, so the rectangles and stacks you already know from Improv 101 do the work.

Triad overlays

A figure lays each chord's triad over a pentatonic stack, along with its 7th when the chord has one, so you can see where the chord tones are relative to the shape under your fingers. The Nashville numbers make this portable. Once you know where the 4 chord's tones sit around a major pentatonic stack, you know where they sit in every key, so after you've worked through a few of these lessons, you won't need this diagram.

Targets

When the chord changes, the juiciest note to target is often a chord tone that isn't in the base scale and wasn't in the chord before. It's the note that tells a listener you heard the change coming. You won't want to land on it every time, since a solo that does the same thing at every change gets predictable, but you always want to know where it is. Each lesson points these notes out.

Avoid notes

These are scale tones a semitone away from a chord tone, above or below it. They're fine in passing, but if you sit on one while that chord is sounding, it rubs. Each lesson lists them.

Tom's solo, sometimes

Tom's backing tracks include an example solo at the end, and they're always worth checking out. One of the best reasons to subscribe to his Patreon is that he provides TAB for the solos, so if you hear something you like, you can learn it and add it to your vocabulary. When I think the choices he makes are worth a closer look, I'll talk through them and link to that moment in the video.

The Jam Track player

Each lesson ends with the Jam Track player, which plays the Elevated Jam Tracks video and stays in sync with it. Above the video are an animated fretboard and a live chord chart. The chart highlights the chord that's sounding and gives you a bird's-eye view of the track's form, its A and B sections, and the order they come in; tap a section to jump there. The fretboard follows the chords, and you can set it to show what you need for the day's practice: one stack, one rectangle, or a whole position, with the triad targets or all of the chord tones marked.

How to practice

This is the order I recommend. The key to all of it is taking small steps and getting comfortable with each one before you move on.

1. Set the fretboard to show one stack, somewhere on the neck where your hands are comfortable soloing.
2. Step through the progression by clicking the chords in the chart. Each click shows that chord's targets on the fretboard. Notice where they are relative to your stack, and pay special attention to the ones that fall just outside it.
3. Spend some time just listening. Play the track and follow the chart until you can hear, recognize, and feel each chord as it goes by.
4. Take your first solo inside that one stack. Play phrases in the pentatonic scale and lean on the chord tones.
5. When that feels good, try it in another stack, or switch to a diagonal stack pathway and move up and down the neck.
6. Go back to the first step with a rectangle position instead of a stack, and work through the same steps.
7. When stacks and rectangles are both comfortable on their own, bring them together, first in one in-position pentatonic form and then freely across the whole fretboard.

Another useful limitation is to loop a short section of the track, say one pass through the B section or a single chord transition, and work on just those changes. Because the music comes from YouTube, you'll hear a small hiccup each time the loop jumps back to its start. It's still a good way to drill a tricky change. The player also supports slowing down the tempo in 5% increments.

None of this depends on how long you've been playing. If you're new to improvising, one stack and the root of each chord can be a whole practice session. If you've been at it for years, try to hit the outside target at every change while the rest of your solo moves freely across the neck.

Where to learn more

If this way of improvising is new to you, start with If I Could Teach Only One Lesson: Improvisation. It's my attempt at a beginner-friendly lesson that gets any guitarist improvising over chord changes in under 15 minutes, and the video is free for everyone. It covers the pieces this series stands on: the stack shape inside the pentatonic scale, where to find the root, and how to overlay a chord's triad on the stack, using the outro of "Stairway to Heaven" as the example. Silver patrons also get the written version and a PDF.

The triad overlay technique is covered in depth in Improv 101. Module 4 introduces it over the same "Stairway" changes. Module 7 maps an overlay for every chord in a key by its Nashville number and puts them to work over "Little Wing."

The first lesson: Morning Light

The series starts with Morning Light, a slow track in C. Every chord in it belongs to C major, the A section moves between chords that share most of their notes, and the B section has two clear outside targets to reach for. It's a great place to try the whole approach before the progressions get harder.

Play the Changes lessons are open to Silver patrons and up. As the series grows, you can find all of the lessons here.