Barry Greene Video Lessons

Hi Barry,

I'm really enjoying the lessons! I have a couple questions. I've always had a hard time trying to understand how to comp behind a soloist when there is a bass player present. There is so much conflicting advice on the internet about how to do this properly. Some people say take away the roots and stay out of the low register. Then you have the people who say use mostly three note voicings in the middle register. I've also heard opinions about using shell voicings to create chord stabs and then fill in with voicings higher in the register. But when I listen to the greats comp, they habitually break these rules. So my takeaway from all of this is that it's ok to play in the low register some times as long as it's rhythmic and groovy and doesn't create too much bass movement, which is bass player territory.

Until now, I've been comping using mostly rootless shell voicings, so guide tone dyads and then usually building a melody voice on top of that. But that gets old soon and you can't really follow the soloist dynamically with only that.

When I started to watch your comping lessons, I noticed that your comping is very varied register wise, yet it always works!
I've started to learn your comping examples on the Oleo lesson, and I can already hear a difference in my playing. But it's one thing to learn by rote, and another thing to understand the nuts and bolts of it. Do you have any insights to share about what made it click for you in terms of understanding how all this works with how to choose the right voicings and register? Was there ever a time in your development as a guitar player where you had questions similar to this?

If I may add a request, as far as I can see there is no comping lesson yet for the minor blues. You have a really good lesson on Mr PC with great lines, but there is no comping in the lesson. So I would like to request if you could do a lesson with just comping examples on that, especially the way your would comp behind a soloist in a situation with a bass player. Maybe in different tempos also. That would be really great!

In general, any time you're playing notes below an Eb on the A string, you're getting into bass player territory. The first bit of advice you gave is accurate: stay out of the bass player’s range. You can play voicings with the root on the bottom, but they need to stay out of the range I mentioned a moment ago. The thing is, anytime I'm comping, I'm routinely putting in substitutions. In order for those to work, I need to stay out of the bass player’s way. Hope that helps, and thanks for being on the site! There are a lot of comping videos on the site that you can easily transfer information to Mr. PC. -thanks again -barry

Thanks Barry. That gives me a much clearer idea about how to go about this.