‘HOW TO SOLO OVER A I-VI-II-V CHORD PROGRESSION’ BASS TUTORIAL SHOWS YOU HOW TO APPROACH SOLOING AND IMPROVISATION OVER THIS COMMON CHORD SEQUENCE ON THE BASS GUITAR.

The I-VI-II-V turnaround is one of the most common chord sequences found in music. In jazz standards specifically they’re ALL over the place! There’s many different ways of approaching soloing and improvising over it by using different substitute scales and arpeggios and in the following tutorials I will highlight some of my favorites.

Practicing this chord progression with the many scalar substitutions really helped my bass playing, soloing and improvisation move up a level and greatly improved my ability to ‘see’ the scales over the entire fretboard of the bass guitar. I suggest you practice soloing over this progression one key per week, or even longer if your enjoying it! I remember soloing over this progression in the key of C for around a month, the benefits I felt within my playing were eye opening to say the least. If you haven’t looked at my arpeggio and scale tutorials yet please do so as it will really help you on your journey.

Take a look at these well known jazz standards to see how common this chord sequence is… Blue moon, The way you look tonight, The Lady is a tramp, cheek to cheek. It’s also worth noting that it also occurs in either the last two or four bars of MANY standards and is commonly referred to as a ‘turn-around’.

Now get that metronome on and start shedding!

S.

Part 1

Part 2

Want the tab and notation for this lesson?!… Click here to find out!