How it decides

Scale levels

How fancy the scales get. Basic leans on pentatonics (five notes, hard to land on a wrong one), Standard is the usual chord-scale for each chord, and Advanced reaches for bebop, Lydian and altered colors. Each level moves the scale the analysis chose, so a dominant resolving to minor climbs a different ladder from one resolving to major. A tonic minor chord is Aeolian at Basic, and in a blues the I, IV and V play the key's Blues scale (a blues).

The first row is G7 going home to C; the second is D7 as the V7 of G minor, where the analysis has already chosen Phrygian Dominant. Random deals every chord its own inside scale (never an outside one), so you can't coast; Shuffle deals a new hand.

A level is a view setting, like the instrument: it isn't written into the chart. The level and its shuffle are remembered for each chart in this browser and go with a share link. A scale you write or pick for a chord is a pin, and plays at every level.

What you can change: the level, and any chord's scale (pick it in the editor, or write it in the source).

A blues

A chart reads as a blues when its form is a 12- or 24-bar blues, or its header says context: blues (Read: Blues beside the editor's Key, or Read as under Details on a phone), whatever its form: a 9-, 13- or 16-bar Delta blues too.

In a blues the I7, the IV7 and a V7 with nowhere it must go are Mixolydian, and so is a triad or 6 chord on I, IV or V (a maj7 says its 7th is major, and keeps the major rules). In a minor blues the i and iv are Dorian; its V7 takes the minor key's scale. At Basic each of those plays the key's Blues scale, 1 ♭3 4 ♭5 5 ♭7: E Blues over E7, A7 and B7, the way blues players start. Advanced climbs each chord's own ladder, Mixolydian to Bebop Dominant.

Chords that leave the blues, a ii–V or a turnaround's VI7, keep their own rules at every level.

What you can change: Read as, a chord's scale, or its function.

Chords it can’t read

A chord I can't read, say Cmj7 or a quality I don't know, comes up amber in the editor. It has no numeral and no scale until you pick one, its staff on the Scales sheet asks you to choose a scale, and every line rests on it and starts again after.

What you can change: fix the chord (Cmaj7), or pick a scale for it and it'll draw.

Slash chords

Some slash chords are really another chord on their bass, and take their scales from it. A major 7th over the note a half step below (D♭maj7/C) plays as C 7sus4♭9; a minor 7th over the note a 4th above its root (Am7/D) plays as D 9sus4. The chord symbol stays as you wrote it, and its labels and the Practice presets still read it as written. Any other slash chord takes its root's scales, its bass keeping its interval from the root.

What you can change: pick another of the chord's scales in the editor.

Key areas

The key of the moment is found from the cadences: a ii–V or a V landing on its I says where the tune is, and where nothing does, the chart's own key holds. The Changes sheet writes a key change in wherever that key moves, and every numeral and scale after it is read in the new key. A run of chords that only borrows from the next key, such as a V7/ii, stays in the old one.

Tune Up is in D, but it's three ii–V–Is a whole step apart: Em7 A7 Dmaj7, then Dm7 G7 Cmaj7, then Cm7 F7 B♭maj7. So the sheet writes C major over bar 5 and B♭ major over bar 9, and reads the Dm7 as ii in C, not as i in D.

What you can change: a key change of your own (Key change here, in a bar's menu, or @key in the source), a section's key:, or a chord's function, which settles the rules without pinning a scale. See Functions and rules.

Reharm options

A chord's Reharm menu offers substitutions for its function in the key of the moment: a dominant's tritone sub (Db7 for G7 in C), its related ii (Dm7 before it, unless it's already there), the back door (Bb7, for a V7 to the tonic of a major key), a sus, the diminished chord a half step under its target, and the tritone sub's own ii–V (Abm7 Db7); and a major IV's minor iv.

Which ones depends on the sheet's level: Basic offers the tritone sub and the related ii; Standard adds the back door, sus, diminished and minor iv; Advanced and Random add the tritone sub's ii–V.

A two-chord substitution shares the chord's time. A chord held two bars or more splits by the bar; a chord alone in a bar of four beats or more, two beats each. It isn't offered in a bar shared with another chord, or in 2/4 or 3/4. Each substitution is offered only where the analysis reads every new chord as its stated function, without a guess, so the scales and lines that follow are the rules' own.

What you can change: the level, or the alternate itself: a choice is written as the chart's alternate changes, which you can edit like any others.

Reharm presets

Reharm, beside the Changes control, reharmonizes the whole tune in one step: a tritone sub on every V7, a ii before every dominant that hasn't one, or the back door into every tonic. Each writes that substitution at every chord the Reharm menu would offer it (at Advanced, whatever the sheet's level), by the same rules, so the split of a chord's time and the analysis's check are the menu's.

It only fills: a chord with a scale you wrote, and a bar that already has an alternate, are left as they are, and it says how many chords it changed and how many it left. A repeated section is reharmed once, in every repeat. What you can change: any chord afterwards, with its Reharm menu, or Undo.

Comparing the lines

Under the Changes sheet of a chart with alternates, Standard and alternate takes each passage where the two sets play different chords, with the chord either side that they share. For each set it shows the guide-tone line the sheet would play through it (From 3rd, or From 7th when that's the sheet's line), each chord's guide tone written for your instrument.

The sentences are worked out from those notes. Where one chord replaces one, they say how its 3rd and 7th stand to the old chord's: exchanged (a tritone sub's are the same two notes the other way round), the same, one kept, or new. Then where the bass goes into the chord after, against where it went before, and how the alternate's line moves at each chord: staying on a common tone, or by how far.

The guide tones

Each chord's 3rd and 7th. Where a chord has no 7th or no 3rd, something else stands in: a 6 chord uses its 6th, a sus chord its 4th, an augmented triad its 5th, and any other plain triad its root. (A diminished 7th's 7th is its double-flat 7th.) The label under the note is that degree without its flat or sharp: 3, 7, 6, 4, 5 or 1.

What you can change: the chord. C6 in place of Cmaj7 gives the line an A where it had a B.

Where a line starts

From 3rd begins on the first chord's 3rd, From 7th on its 7th, in whichever octave keeps the line, up to the next rest, closest on average to the middle of your instrument's range. So a line doesn't start in the middle and drift to the bottom.

What you can change: the range (Lowest and Highest note, under Instrument), which moves the middle.

How a line moves

At each new chord the line goes to whichever of its two guide tones is nearer: a common tone first, then a half step, a whole step, and only then a leap. That's why it swaps between 3rd and 7th when the roots move by 4ths and 5ths. When both are equally near, it takes the one nearer the middle of the range, then the lower. A chord that repeats the last one's guide tones (C7 to C7♭9) ties the note over; a common tone on a different chord is played again.

A ii–V–I in C, concert pitch, a chord a bar:

From 3rd keeps the F as G7's 7th, then falls a half step to E. From 7th falls a half step to B and keeps it as the Cmaj7's 7th. The repeated Cmaj7 ties both over.

What you can change: which line you see, From 3rd or From 7th.

A line’s range

The line only uses notes your instrument can comfortably play, so at the floor or the ceiling it turns back toward the middle. The ranges are under Written ranges.

What you can change: Lowest and Highest note, under Instrument.

When the two lines meet

You see one line at a time, but the other is worked out alongside it. If both land on the same note, they part at the next new chord. If that chord has the note too, the line that was lower keeps it and the other moves to the chord's other guide tone, upward if that's no more than a tritone away. Otherwise the one that was higher goes up to the nearest guide tone above and the other down to the nearest below. Neither leaps more than a tritone just to get away: a line with nothing that close on its side moves as it would on its own, so now and then the two stay together for another chord. So From 3rd and From 7th may touch, but they rarely stay together.

A pinned note

A pin (#749) is your own note for one chord on From 3rd or From 7th: any pitch in your range, reached a half step at a time. It is named by its degree from the chord's root: one of the chord's guide tones by its own name, the chord's altered 5th as ♭5 or ♯5, else 1, ♭9, 9, ♯9, 3, 11, ♯11, 5, ♭13, 13, ♭7 or 7 (with ♮ where a guide tone already reads that way: G♯ over A7 is ♮7), and spelled from that degree (♯11 over E7 is A♯). The line plays it there, struck even where it would have held, and goes on from it by the rules above: the nearer guide tone at the next chord, a hold where the chord repeats; from a pin to the end of its run the line moves on its own, never parting from the other line. A move back onto the sheet's own note there clears the pin. Nothing before the pin changes: the notes leading to it are the ones the sheet chose, even where that means a leap into your note. A pin at a run's first chord simply starts the run there. A pin the chord can't play (another chord, a note outside your range) is set aside until it can. The popover names the rule that placed the note it shows.

Rests, repeats and spelling

A chord with no guide tones (one I can't read, or a chord quality I don't know) gets a rest, and the line starts again after it, placed the same way as at the start. Repeats and endings are played in the order they're written: a second ending carries on from the chord before it, and the last bar doesn't lead back to the top. Each note keeps its chord's spelling: the 7th of G♭7 is F♭, not E.

The 7th Chords line

7th Chords plays each chord's four chord tones: its 7th chord as written, altered 5ths kept and extensions left off (G7♭9 plays G B D F), and a triad's root again as its fourth note. The pattern list chooses the order: up or down from the root or an inversion, up and down by turns, or voice-led, each arpeggio starting on the chord tone nearest the last note and going the way the last one went, turning round where it would run out of the range, so the line rises and falls instead of leaping back an octave.

The note value is set bar by bar: the longest that gives the bar's shortest chord four notes. In 4/4 one chord gets quarters, two get eighths, three or four get sixteenths. A chord that lasts longer repeats its arpeggio; one with too few slots for another whole one turns back on it (six eighths in 3/4: 1 3 5 7 5 3).

A chosen Rhythm replaces this note value: the line plays in the rhythm instead.

Each arpeggio is placed whole, in the octave that starts it nearest the last note, but never so it runs mostly outside the comfortable middle of your range: a line climbing chord after chord turns back rather than drifting to the top.

What you can change: the pattern, and the range under Instrument.

Cells

Cells, in the 7th Chords pattern list, put a four-note cell on each chord, two beats each, after Randy Vincent's Building Solo Lines From Cells. A cell is four scale degrees counted from the chord's root (1 2 3 5), read through the chord's scale, so it bends to fit each chord. A single cell plays in every two beats; a system takes turns (below). Under a Superimpose the slot plays the Pentatonic or Triad pair line instead.

Cell systems

A cell system has two cells, A and B, that take turns, chosen so that each ends a step from where the next begins: root to root, 3rd to 3rd, 3rd to 5th or 3rd to root. Played through a tune, the line keeps moving by step across every chord change. With Phrase on, the default for a system, each cell is chosen to end a step from the first note of what follows it, the next chord's target. When the system's own cell already ends a step away, it stays. If no cell fits, the cell is followed by its own turn-back, what follows plays its arpeggio, or the slot isn't a whole cell of eighths, it plays as the system has it. Off plays the system as written. Order then plays each cell as written, reversed, rotated or with its pairs swapped, and Octave moves its 2nd, 3rd or 4th note an octave, the other way from the move into it, for wider lines (Randy Vincent: 1 2 3 5 with its 5 an octave down).

With Phrase on, a dominant 7th that lasts two cells or more and resolves (the next chord's root a 5th or a half step below, a blues I7 to IV7 too) borrows substitutes, as jazz players do: its first cell is its own, the second is read through the tritone substitute's Lydian Dominant (over G7, D♭7), the third through the dominant a minor 3rd up on Half-Whole Dim. (B♭7), the fourth the tritone substitute again, and so on. The chord symbol stays as written. A sus chord, a dominant whose scale the chart writes, and the last chord before a rest or the end play their own.

Approach figures

Approach, under Guide Tones, leads into each chord's note with a short figure of eighths: a note a semitone below or above, a pair from one side, an enclosure (a step above in the scale, then a semitone below) and more. A step in the scale is spelled from the scale the sheet shows over the chord before; a chromatic note is never B♯, E♯, C♭ or F♭ (into B♭ from above, it's B). Two equal notes in a row become one.

A random approach

Random deals one of the nine figures to each chord, never the one the chord before got, from a seed: the deal is new every time you open the chart and whenever you pick Random, and Shuffle deals again. A share link carries the deal, and a chart saved as yours keeps it.

Where an approach goes

The target note still lands on its chord's first beat; the chord before gives up its last beat or two to make room, and a note tied over is broken. Under 7th Chords and the cells (with Superimpose off) the figure takes the place of the chord before's last notes, in the line's own rhythm. There's no approach into the first chord, after a rest, where the chord before would keep less than an eighth, or where a note of the figure would leave your range. A figure whose first note is the one the line is already on leaves it there: from the 3rd through Dm7 G7 Cmaj7, a chromatic approach from above into E is just G7's F, held.

With Chord tones on strong beats on, a guide tone line also leads into each strong beat inside a chord, where its note is struck again: the chord's 7th and 3rd by turns, so each figure goes somewhere new. From the 7th, two bars of Cm7 play B♭, E♭ on 3, B♭ on the next 1, E♭ on its 3, each with the figure before it, cut from the note before; where that would keep less than an eighth the note is struck again with no figure. Under a rhythm the rhythm keeps its attacks, so there are none.

What you can change: the figure, or None; Chord tones on strong beats.

The Arpeggios sheet

The Arpeggios sheet has one staff for each of the Scales sheet's lines, in eighths. 7th Chord runs the chord tones over two octaves and closes on the root (1 3 5 7 1 3 5 7 1; a triad 1 3 5 1 3 5 1). Extended plays the chord tones once and stacks the scale's other notes above them: the 9th, 11th and 13th, in that order. Up, Down, or Up & down, which doesn't repeat the top note. The run is placed with the fewest notes out of your range; two octaves outrun most, so the rest go on ledger lines.

The Patterns sheet

A pattern is a list of steps between neighboring notes: +2 −1 is up a third, back a step. The Patterns sheet runs it over each scale line, through the scale or through the chord tones: the group starts again from each next note up an octave, then the octave itself closes the run. Down is the same run reflected; Up & down goes up and comes back from the top. Each run is placed whole with the fewest notes out of your range.

What you can change: the pattern (or write your own), Scale or Chord tones, and the direction.

Pentatonic Auto

Each chord's scale is set against all twelve minor pentatonics. They're ranked by how many notes they share with the scale, and among those that share as many, the one fewest fifths from the chord's root comes first, the flat side before the sharp. Auto plays the top one. That's the Scales sheet's rule, and the Changes sheet's with Ranked against Chord; with Ranked against Key, where the Changes starts, each key area has one pentatonic for all its chords (the ladder). Over Cmaj7 (C Ionian), the top three:

What you can change: Built on picks a degree of every chord instead (on 2 over Cmaj7 is Dm, over G7 it's Am), and a chord pick changes one chord.

Inside and outside pentatonics

Five notes shared is wholly inside: every note of the pentatonic is in the scale. Wholly inside: over a major chord (Ionian) on 2, 3 or 6; over a minor (Dorian) on 1, 2 or 5; over a dominant (Mixolydian) on 2, 5 or 6. Fewer shared is further out, so a pick from lower in the list is a deliberate step outside.

On the Changes, Ranked against Key sets each key area's twelve on a ladder round the circle of fifths from home (its tonic minor: Am in C major), each rung sharing fewer notes with the key: 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Rung, Side and Path move along it.

The Pentatonic line

While Superimpose is Pentatonic, the Line's 7th Chords slot plays each chord's pentatonic, the one its label shows, in four-note cells: the pentatonic less the note Leave out chooses (leave out 1 and Am pentatonic plays C D E G). The first cell starts on its bottom note going up (its top going down); each later one starts on its note nearest the last one played and goes the way you chose, unless it would run past your range, when it turns the other way. A chord with no pentatonic plays its 7th chord arpeggio.

What you can change: Leave out, and the direction.

Hexatonic Auto

A triad pair is two triads from the chord's scale with no note in common: six notes, after Gary Campbell's Triad Pairs for Jazz. Pair n is the triads on degrees n and n + 1 of the scale. Auto takes the pair that covers the most chord tones, then one whose triads are both major or minor, then the one nearest the chord's root by fifths. Over Cmaj7 that's G/Am.

A symmetric scale has pairs its chain of triads doesn't reach, after Walt Weiskopf's Intervalic Improvisation; they join the list after the chain's. On a diminished scale: its major triads a tritone apart, then its minor ones (C/F♯ over C7♭9, which Auto now picks: it covers as many chord tones as E♭/Am and sits on the root). On the whole-tone scale, which has no chain: its two augmented triads, a whole step apart (C+/D+ over C7♯5). On the augmented scale (1 ♯2 3 5 ♯5 7, the Advanced level's scale over Cmaj7♯5 and C+): its two augmented triads, a minor third apart (C+/D♯+). Pair n counts the chain's pairs only; pick an off-chain pair from the chord's list.

What you can change: Pair, Ranked against, and a chord pick for one chord.

Triad pairs from the tritone sub

Over a dominant chord, a pair can come from its tritone substitute, after Walt Weiskopf's Intervalic Improvisation: B/D♭ over G7 takes its triads from D♭7's Mixolydian. B is G7's 3rd; D♭, F and A♭ its ♭5, 7th and ♭9. A dominant's pick list ends, under From the tritone sub, with up to two such pairs of major and minor triads: those covering the most of the chord's tones, a pair holding the sub's own triad first. A pair the chord's scale already has isn't repeated. They're never Auto and Pair n doesn't count them; pick one for a chord and it lights the notes of it the staff holds.

What you can change: a chord pick for one chord.

Hexatonic pairs by key area

Ranked against Key, every chord in a key area takes the same pair, after Walt Weiskopf's Intervalic Improvisation: the major triads on 4 and 5 of a major key (F/G across Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 in C), and harmonic minor's minor iv and augmented V in a minor key (Gm/A+ in D minor). Where a chord's scale doesn't hold the key's pair (a Dm6's scale, with its B♮, holds no G minor triad), it plays its own Auto pair, grayed. The label prints once for the run, as the pentatonics' do. On the Scales sheet the Hexatonic preset ranks each staff likewise, by the key area of the first chord it covers; the Arpeggios sheet's Triad pairs follow the Changes sheet's choice.

What you can change: Ranked against (Key or Chord), and a chord pick for one chord.

Hexatonic groupings

On the Scales sheet the six notes are split in two and tinted apart, by the grouping you choose: the two triads, the chord tones and the color notes, a pentatonic and one more, or the lowest three and highest three.

The Triad pair line

While Superimpose is Hexatonic, the 7th Chords slot plays each chord's pair a triad at a time, its lower triad first: G/Am plays G B D, then A C E from the note nearest D. The direction, the starts and the turns at your range's edges are the Pentatonic line's. Up & down turns with each triad; where a chord has room for one triad and a note of the next, the cut triad doesn't count, so the chords alternate up and down. A chord with no pair plays its 7th chord arpeggio.

That is the Nearest shape. Two more follow Walt Weiskopf's exercises in Intervalic Improvisation. Climb plays both triads in root position, then both in first inversion, then second, each starting on its note just above the last triad's start: F/G plays F A C, G B D, A C F, B D G, C F A, D G B. Down mirrors it, from the upper triad's second inversion top down; Up & down climbs the six triads up, then six down. Arpeggios is the Climb with each triad 1 3 5 8 (F A C F, G B D G, …), four notes, so each lands on the beat; one whose octave fits nowhere in your range drops its 8. A triad that would leave the range is placed nearest the last note instead, and the climb goes on from there.

What you can change: the shape and the direction (Line options).

Triad pairs on the Arpeggios sheet

The Arpeggios sheet's Triad pairs writes each line's pair as six triads, the lower and the upper in turn through root position, 1st and 2nd inversion, after Weiskopf's Intervalic Improvisation: F/G plays F A C, G B D, A C F, B D G, C F A, D G B. The pair is the one the Changes sheet's Hexatonic shows: Auto (or the key's pair, ranked against Key), or your chord pick, which you can make from the staff's caption. Each triad's next inversion starts on the next note up of its own triad, and the upper triad starts nearest the lower. The figure is placed whole with the fewest notes out of your range, nearest its middle; a triad still out moves an octave, whole. Block writes the six triads as chords; otherwise Up, Down, or Up & down, which doesn't repeat the top note. A chord with no pair plays its 7th chord arpeggio.

Quartal Auto

A quartal stack is a seven-note scale's notes three steps apart, so each two a fourth apart, from one degree: three or four notes. A stack keeps perfect fourths and at most one augmented fourth (none with Perfect only); a diminished fourth rules it out. Auto takes a stack without an avoid note (a scale note a half step above a chord tone, like F over Cmaj7), then the one holding the most guide tones, then perfect fourths before an augmented one, then the most chord tones, then the bottom note nearest the chord's root by fifths. Over the ii–V–I in C: D G C F on Dm7, F B E A on G7 (its tritone holds both guide tones) and B E A D on Cmaj7. A scale that isn't seven notes has no stack.

The Scales sheet's Quartal preset lights it on each staff; the Changes sheet's Quartal Superimpose names it under each chord, where the stack changes. Click a name there to pick another stack: the list runs in Auto's order.

What you can change: Built on (a degree of each scale, on the Scales sheet), Notes (3 or 4), Perfect only, and a pick on the Changes sheet.

The Quartal line

While Superimpose is Quartal, the 7th Chords slot plays each chord's stack of fourths, the one its label names, whole: bottom up or top down, never turned inside out. Each later stack on the same chord is the next one in Auto's order that isn't the stack just played, so a held chord planes from stack to stack. Each is placed nearest the last note; a stack that fits no octave of your range gives way to the next, and a chord never starts on the note the last one ended on. Over the ii–V–I in C: D4 G4 C5 F5, then A5 E5 B4 F4 down, then E4 A4 D5 G5 (B E A D doesn't fit C4–A5). A three-note stack the beat cuts goes on into the next beat, as the Triad pair line's triads do. A chord with no stack plays its 7th chord arpeggio.

Notes (Quartal options): Auto stacks four notes where two of the chord's four-note stacks fit your range (a four-note stack spans an octave and a minor third, or a major third with an augmented fourth), else three.

What you can change: the direction (Line options), Notes, Perfect only, and a pick.

Upper structure Auto

An upper structure is a major or minor triad from the chord's scale read over the chord: A♭/C7 over C7 altered puts ♭13, the root and ♯9 on top. A triad qualifies when at least two of its notes lie outside the chord's core, its root, 3rd and 7th (the 4th on a sus chord): the 5th never counts, being the tone an upper structure replaces, so E♭/C7 (♯9, 5, ♭7) and Cm/C7 (1, ♯9, 5) are in, and the chord's own triad is out. A triad holding an avoid note is out too: a scale note a half step above a core tone (F over Cmaj7 or C7, so no Dm or F over either; C over G7), or the major 3rd on a sus chord; a dominant keeps its ♭9, which Levine's ♭ii needs. On the plain scales that leaves the clean ones: G/Cmaj7 (5, 7, 9), Gm/C7 (5, ♭7, 9), Gm/C7sus4. Auto follows Levine over a dominant (The Jazz Piano Book, ch. 14): the major triads on II, ♭VI, ♯IV, ♭III and VI, then the minor ones on i, ♭ii, ♭iii and ♯iv, in that order (♭VI ahead of ♯IV, so A♭ is the one over C7 altered, where both fit). Any other triad, and every triad over another chord, comes after: the most tensions first, major before minor, then the root nearest the chord's root by fifths (♭ side first). So Dm7 Dorian takes Em/Dm7 (9, 11, 13), Cmaj7 Lydian D/Cmaj7 (9, ♯11, 13), and C7 Lydian dominant D/C7. A scale with no major or minor triad outside the core (whole tone) has none.

The Changes sheet's Upper structure Superimpose names it under each chord, where it changes. Click a name there to pick another: the list runs in Auto's order, each with what it adds against the chord's root.

What you can change: a pick on the Changes sheet.

The Upper structure line

While Superimpose is Upper structure, the 7th Chords slot plays each chord's triad, the one its label names, whole: bottom up or top down. Each later triad on the same chord is the next one in Auto's order that isn't the triad just played, each placed nearest the last note; one that fits no octave of your range gives way to the next, and a chord never starts on the note the last one ended on, as the Quartal line does with its stacks. Over G7 altered in a bar of four: E♭4 G4 B♭4, then C♯5 begins the next. A triad the beat cuts goes on into the next beat. A chord with none plays its 7th chord arpeggio.

What you can change: the direction (Line options), and a pick.

The order of chord picks

Click a chord's pentatonic or triad pair to pick another; the list runs from inside to outside, in the order above (most shared, or most chord tones covered, first), with the sheet's own choice at the top. A pick holds for that chord on both sheets, through changes of Built on, Pair, Path, Rung or Side, and goes with a share link. It isn't written into the chart. Rewrite the chord, or move the level so it gets another scale, and the pick rests until it fits again; change the chart's key and the picks clear.

What you can change: Default undoes one pick; ⋯ More actions → Reset chord picks undoes them all.

Spelling a scale

Every scale is worked out from its formula, then spelled the easiest way to read: no double flats or sharps, as few B♯s, E♯s, C♭s and F♭s as it can, then the fewest accidentals, and on a tie the sharp or flat side it was written on. So a scale on the ♭2 of B♭ starts on B, not C♭, and G♭ Ionian (six flats, a C♭ among them) stays G♭, not F♯ (six sharps, an E♯ among them), because you wrote it flat.

What you can change: Spell Scale on the Scales sheet starts every scale on another note; the spelling rule still applies.

Spelling a chord symbol

A chord symbol follows its scale's spelling when they share a root, so the chord and the staff under it agree. Each guide tone and arpeggio note keeps its chord's spelling too: the 7th of G♭7 is F♭, not E. Only a note that would need a double flat or sharp is respelled, as lead sheets write it: the ♯5 of B7♯5 is G, not F𝄪, and the ♭3 of G♭–7 is A, not B𝄫. A slash bass keeps its interval from the root: in D7/F♯ the bass is D's major 3rd, so it's F♯, never G♭.

Spelling a new key

Transpose… moves the chart to a new concert key and spells each root on that key's side: in B♭ a ii–V is D♭–7 G♭7, not C♯–7 F♯7, even when a scale then has a C♭ or F♭ in it. In C and A minor, which have no side, and wherever that side would need double flats or sharps, the plain rule above decides.

That's different from the Instrument setting, which never changes the chart, only how it's written for you; the written parts use the plain rule alone.

What you can change: transpose back to undo.

Written ranges

Every line on the Changes keeps to a comfortable written range for your instrument, not its whole compass. Guide tone lines turn back at its floor and ceiling; arpeggio and cell lines turn back sooner, keeping mostly between a 4th above the lowest note and a major 3rd below the highest. The Arpeggios sheet's two-octave runs are placed with as few notes outside it as they can, and the rest go on ledger lines.

What you can change: Lowest and Highest note, under Instrument, for every line.

The click’s tempo and feel

The click starts at a tempo read from the chart's style, by the first word that matches: a medium ballad at 84 and any other ballad at 66, a samba at 200, an up samba at 220 and a bright one at 240 (the sources' samba runs from 192 to 240), slow at 72, medium up at 160 (before medium), up or fast at 220, a waltz at 150, and medium, swing, blues, Latin, Brazilian, bossa, even or straight 8ths, funk and rock at 132. A style with none of these words starts at 120.

The feel is read on its own: Latin, Brazilian, bossa, samba, even or straight 8ths, funk and rock play straight, everything else swings, so an up samba is fast and straight. Swing plays the skip note two thirds through each beat, straight an eighth halfway; Quarters, the beats alone, is one tap away. It plays the chart's time signature, the one it starts in, all the way through: a chart that changes meter partway keeps its first until the click can follow the form.

What you can change: the tempo and the feel, on the click itself. The chart remembers them, so a tune opens at the tempo you last practiced it at.

What the click plays on

Click on (after Bergonzi) picks the beats the click sounds: every beat, 2 and 4, 1 and 3, 3 only, 4 only, or the and of 2 and 4, where the feel puts its eighth (two thirds through the beat in Swing, halfway otherwise). With a pattern, the click plays nothing between the beats; the count-in still counts every beat, and the lights still follow every beat, so you keep your place while you play the rest. Until you choose one, it follows the rhythm's Feel: in 4 every beat, in 2 2 and 4, the hi-hat of a swing feel, and in 1 4 alone, one click a bar. A bar too short for a pattern (2 and 4, 4 only and the and of 2 and 4 in 3/4) plays every beat.

What you can change: Click on, under the click's ⋯. The chart remembers it.

Where the Line sounds

The Line in the click's Mix (Comping) plays the Line on the Changes sheet with the band, at concert pitch: a trumpet's written D sounds as C. It leaves out the octave some instruments sound below what they read (tenor and bari sax, guitar, bass), as the sheet does, so their Line sounds where a C instrument would read it. It plays the bars as drawn, from the top again at the end; repeat signs, endings and D.S. aren't followed yet, and a bar longer than the click's meter leaves out the notes past its beats.

What you can change: the instrument changes the Line, and so what you hear; Line in the Mix mutes it (it starts muted).

How far the 8ths swing

With the click's feel on Swing, the click's skip note, the Line and the rhythm in the Mix, and a staff's Play swing the 8ths: an 8th off the beat plays as far through the beat as the Swing dial says, from 50% (straight) to 75% (a dotted 8th and a 16th), two thirds (a triplet's feel) until you move it; the note before it holds until then. A beat that holds a 16th, a dotted 8th's end or a tuplet plays as drawn, so a hard swing never lands an 8th on a 16th. Straight and Quarters play every note as drawn, but a groove's band (the drums, piano and bass) swings under Quarters too: Quarters only quiets the click's skip note, and Straight alone straightens the band.

What you can change: the click's feel, and the Swing dial under its ⋯. The chart remembers the dial once you move it.

What the rhythm taps

The Rhythm in the click's Mix (Comping) taps the Changes sheet's rhythm on a rim, a short knock unlike the click, at the rhythm's attacks: as its card shows them with the Line off, or the Line's with a Line poured into the rhythm, so what you see and hear always agree. Accented notes sound louder; a rest, or a note tied over from the one before, strikes nothing. A guide tone line without Play in rhythm takes no rhythm, so there is nothing to tap. It swings as the Line does.

What you can change: Rhythm in the Mix, under the click's ⋯, Comping (on until you mute it), and the rhythm itself.

The order the form plays in

On the Changes sheet the click, the Line and the rhythm play the form as a player reads it, once through, then from the top again. A repeat sign goes back to its start sign (or the top) as many times as it says, each ending on its pass. A D.S. goes back to the segno and a D.C. to the form's first bar (past an intro), once, at the end of the section it's written in; after it no repeat is taken again and only the last ending plays (for "al Coda", the ending that holds the coda sign, if one does). "al Fine" stops at Fine; "al Coda" leaves at the coda sign or To Coda (with neither, at the D.S.'s section end) for the Coda, which plays to the end: the first coda sign past the D.S. outside its own section. A Coda section plays only by its jump, unless the chart has no "al Coda". Each bar clicks in its own meter; the count-in is in the chart's main meter. A section only a cue reaches (an interlude "on cue") isn't played.

What you can change: the chart's repeats, endings and navigation marks.

What a staff’s Play sounds

A staff's Play sounds a Scales staff up and down, the top note once, in 8ths at the click's tempo, the last note a quarter; with Practice on, only the notes picked, in the same order. An Arpeggios staff plays its notes as drawn, in 8ths; a Block triad pair plays each group as one chord, a quarter each. A pentatonic on a Changes label's ladder plays its minor pentatonic from the root up to the octave and back, in 8ths, its root where a Scales staff's root sits. It sounds at concert pitch and swings as the Line does. With the click stopped it starts at once; with the click running it starts on the click's next bar.

What you can change: the click's tempo and feel, and Practice's notes.

When the page follows the click

With the click running on the Changes sheet, the bar it is in is washed amber (through a count-in, the form's first bar, faintly), and in a bar with two or more chords the chord sounding takes the same amber. When that bar is on a line not fully in view, the page scrolls so the line sits a third of the way down the window (in focus mode, the page), smoothly unless your system asks for reduced motion. It never scrolls within a second of your own scrolling, wheel, touch or key, and never while a popover is open; stopping the click clears the wash.

What you can change: scroll where you like; the page waits a second before it follows again.

What a loop plays

Loop, at the top of the click's settings, goes round a section or a run of the sheet's bars (From and To are the bar numbers the Changes prints): the click, the band and the lit bar play those bars as the form plays them, so a repeat inside the loop still repeats and a 1st ending inside it still gives way to the 2nd on the second pass. Bars the form never plays (after a Fine, an ending not taken) can't loop: the picker says so and the whole form plays. The sheet washes the loop's bars blue and names it above the first line holding them, with a ✕ that turns it off; the click bar reads Loop 5–8 · round 3.

Between rounds puts a bar or two of the click alone before the loop comes round again, as a count-in sounds: the lights go amber, the band and the Line rest, and the Ramp and the Keys cycle step at the first bar after it; each time round the loop is a chorus to them. A loop changed while the band plays takes effect at the next bar, the round count starting again; Loop off carries on from the bar sounding into the rest of the form. Starting with a loop on starts at its first bar after the count-in.

What you can change: the loop and the gap are remembered with the tempo per chart; a chart edited so the loop no longer fits (fewer bars, a section gone) turns it off.

What the piano and bass play

With the Changes sheet, the click's ⋯, Comping, plays the chart's changes with the click, at concert pitch, in the form's order; where the chart has no groove to play, the piano holds each chord and the bass plays its root. The piano plays rootless voicings, after Levine: four notes, the chord's 3rd and 7th with two of its 5th, 9th, 11th and 13th, from the 3rd up or from the 7th up. A dominant gets its 9th and 13th, a minor 7th its 5th and 9th, a major 7th its 5th and 9th, a half-diminished its ♭5 and the 9th or 11th; a sus chord its 4th, 5th and 9th; a 6 chord its 5th, 6th and 9th. Each tension is the one the chord's scale has at the sheet's level, so the altered scale at Advanced sounds a ♭9 and a ♭13, and Lydian a ♯11 in place of the 5th. Each chord takes whichever of its two shapes, and whichever octave, moves least from the chord before, its lowest note from C3 to C♯4. A chord is struck where it starts, held to the next one, and struck again each bar it's held through.

The bass plays each chord's root where the chord starts (a slash chord's bass note), in the octave nearest the last, from E1 to C3.

What you can change: the sheet's level (its scales choose the tensions), and the Mix: a mute for the piano or the bass.

A chart’s groove

A chart's style picks its groove, the pattern set the piano, bass and drums play in on the Changes: a ballad the Ballad set, a partido alto the Partido alto set, a baião the Baião set, an afoxé or ijexá the Afoxé set, a choro the Choro set, a frevo the Frevo set, a marcha-rancho the Marcha-rancho set, a samba the Samba set, a Latin, Brazilian or bossa style the Bossa set, any other Swing. It picks how far the 8ths swing too, the Swing dial's start: two thirds of the beat, 72% for a shuffle, and straight for samba, bossa, Latin, Brazilian, even 8ths, funk and rock. On a Brazilian chart the band you pick under Band picks the groove instead: Saudade do Paulo plays a bossa as a choro, at the choro's tempo until you set your own.

What you can change: the chart's style, a Brazilian chart's band (remembered for the chart), and the Swing dial.

What the Swing groove plays

In the Swing groove the piano comps and the bass walks in place of the held chords and roots. The piano strikes each chord's voicing (the same voicings as the held chords') in a comping rhythm drawn for it from a dozen (the Charleston, 2 and 4, pushes on the and of 2, held chords), never the last chord's rhythm again and never past the chord. Most chords are voiced open, over two hands: drop-2 (the closed voicing's second note from the top an octave down) or spread (its top two notes an octave up, over the 3rd and 7th); about one in five keeps the closed voicing, which after its first strike moves: its lowest note an octave up, or its top three alone. The voicings drift between a low, a middle and a high register four bars at a time, from A2 up to D6. About one chord in four is anticipated, struck on the and of 4 before it and held over the bar line, and now and then a bar is left empty. Each strike has its own weight: a downbeat a little firmer than beats 2 to 4, the and of a beat firmer still, a push firmest, the top note over the rest. The bass walks, from E1 to G3: the chord's root on its first beat and its last beat a half step, a whole step or a 5th from the next chord's root, with a rake, a ghost note or a pickup now and then. Each comping style has a bass feel of its own, described below.

The drums play a ride cymbal's ding, ding-a (the skip note after 2 and 4, after 2 in 3/4), 2 and 4 leaning, with the hi-hat's foot on 2 and 4 (on 2 and 3 in 3/4); the skip note swings as the dial says. Each comping style has drums of its own, after the drummer on such a record, described below. The choices are drawn from the chart's title, so a chart plays the same groove every time. In any groove the drums keep time: the click is silent but for its count-in.

What you can change: the Mix (a mute for each part), the Swing dial, and the sheet's level.

A groove by chorus

Each chorus of the Swing and Brazilian grooves draws its choices afresh: the piano's rhythms, the bass's fills, the drums' comping. The first chorus is the chart's own; each later one is drawn from the title and the chorus's number, so a long play-along doesn't repeat itself note for note, and plays the same way every time. A chorus ends where the form does as played, on a D.C. al Fine's Fine bar or a Coda's last; where it ends in a drum fill, the next one's 1 is a crash. Under Ramp the arc runs across choruses, "two-feel the first chorus, four the second" (Mooney, Constructing Walking Jazz Bass Lines II, p. 39): the first chorus in two and sparse, its fill into the four on that last bar, four and denser from the second. The Ballad groove holds its chords, the same every chorus. A loop's rounds count as choruses, and starting again, or turning the loop on or off, starts from the first, as the tempo ramp and the keys do.

Rhythm section: the band

The Swing groove's band starts as the band your comping style names: Off-beats is Red Garland with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, Quartal is McCoy Tyner with Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, and so on, eight bands from eight records, and a ninth no style names: Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams (Miles Davis Quintet, 1965). A band you choose is yours from then on, kept apart from the style. Its pianist plays the style as it is; a band of its own three plays as that style did, save Bud Powell's band, where Curly Russell now walks by step (below).

What you can change: the band, under the click's ⋯, Comping, with the Swing groove, or each player in it. It isn't in a link: a link plays your own band. A ballad keeps its own; in double time a ballad plays the Swing groove, and with it your band. A bossa plays its own band, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Sebastião Neto and Milton Banana (Getz/Gilberto, 1964), named but not swapped: its players are offered under no other groove, and the swing players not under it (the Bossa groove); a samba plays the Rio 65 Trio, Dom Salvador, Sérgio Barrozo and Edison Machado, the same way (the Samba groove), and a partido alto the rhythm section of "Brooklyn High" (the Partido alto groove), and a baião Hermeto Pascoal's (the Baião groove), and an afoxé the rhythm section of "Montanha Russa" (the Afoxé groove), and a choro "Saudade do Paulo"'s (the Choro groove), and a frevo or a marcha-rancho the rhythm sections of their Inside tracks (the Frevo groove, the Marcha-rancho groove).

Rhythm section: each player

Each player is a way of playing: the pianist's voicings and rhythm, the bassist's line and the drummer's time and comping, each after one player's records, as the sections below describe. Mixed, they play together: the bass still reads what the piano decided, and the drums the piano and the bass, so a pianist from one band with a bassist from another listen to each other as the band's own would. Every pairing is allowed; none is checked for fit. A player's tooltip names the record and what the style plays.

Comping: Off-beats

The Swing groove's piano comps in a style. Off-beats (after Red Garland) is the one described above: its figures lean on the and of 2 and the and of 4, with the Charleston (1 and the and of 2) and 2 and 4 among them, one in four chords pushed and about one bar-long chord in twelve left out. Jeb Patton names the and of 2 and the and of 4 as Garland's (An Approach to Comping, p. 10), and his comping guide to Garland on "Diane" (p. 236) keeps returning to them. The style is a set of devices, not a transcription.

The style is how the band sounds, not what the sheet shows: its voicings and its rhythm play, and the Changes keeps the Line and the rhythm you chose. It plays on a swing chart, and on a ballad chart its ballad way; a bossa chart plays its own groove's piano.

What you can change: the style, under the click's ⋯, Comping. How many bars it leaves out is the style's own.

Comping: Shells

Shells (after Bud Powell) is a bebop left hand: two notes, the root with the 7th, the 3rd, or the 3rd an octave up (a 10th), low, between E2 and E4. Its figures are 1 and 3, 1 and 3 with a push on the and of 4, a shell held through the bar, and 1 with the and of 2, short chords taking their 1-, 2- and 3-beat figures from the same ones. Patton's comping guide to Powell's left hand on "Straight No Chaser" (An Approach to Comping, p. 81) is mostly 1 and 3 with shells held over the bar; Mark Levine's The Jazz Piano Book (ch. 17) has the voicings.

Comping: Sustained

Sustained (after Bill Evans) holds its chords: one held to the and of 4 and pushed into the next chord, the and of 2 held to the and of 4, half notes, a chord laid back an 8th. The voicings are the rootless A and B forms in the middle of the keyboard, G3 to G5, each led to the next by step. Half its chords are pushed, and never more than two bars go by without one. Patton's guide to Evans on "On Green Dolphin Street" (An Approach to Comping Vol. 2, p. 185) is long tied chords released on the and of 4.

Comping: Plinks

Plinks (after Count Basie) is punctuation: one very short chord on 3, or 1 and the and of 2, or 4 alone, high up (C5 to C7) in drop-2, and half the bar-long chords left out. "The master of what not to play" (Patton, An Approach to Comping Vol. 2, pp. 148–149). Over a 2-beat chord, where its beat-3 plink has no room, it plays on the second beat, or its and.

Comping: Ramp

Ramp (after Wynton Kelly) is Garland's off-beats with more drive, every chord staccato: 1 and the and of 2, the and of 2 and the and of 4, 1 with the and of 2 and the and of 4, and 1, 3, then 4 and its and. Rootless voicings, C3 to C5, and a push at least every third bar. The figures are drawn sparsest first in the first chorus and densest from the second, the way Kelly "builds density and rhythmic activity" through a solo (Patton, An Approach to Comping Vol. 2, p. 99, on "Remember").

Comping: Riffs

Riffs (after Horace Silver) repeats itself: one figure, kept for eight bars, then another: the tresillo (1, the and of 2, 4), 1 with the and of 2 and the and of 4, or the and of 1 then a chord held to the bar. Low closed chords, G2 to G4, a push at least every third bar, and a bar in five left out, as Silver does at a fast tempo (Patton's guide to "Airegin", An Approach to Comping, p. 217). His dotted-half cross rhythms over three bars (Vol. 2, p. 212) aren't drawn yet.

Comping: Strum

Strum (after Erroll Garner) is a guitar's four to the bar: a short closed chord on every beat, C3 to C4, never pushed and never left out, so every attack is on a strong beat. No transcription of Garner was read for it: it follows the common account of his left hand, and may change when one is.

Comping: Quartal

Quartal (after McCoy Tyner) voices each chord as four notes a perfect 4th apart in its scale, those holding its 3rd and 7th first, C4 to C6, struck in staccato quarters, on every off-beat, or on 1 with the and of 2 held, and a push at least every third bar. Between strikes the stack planes, as Tyner's does: now and then it moves a step up or down the scale, never more than two from where the chord began, and it never sounds the same three times running (where no other stack fits, that strike rests). Under it the Swing groove's bass holds a pedal in place of its walk: the chord's root and 5th from its first beat in each bar. Patton's study on "Passion Dance" (An Approach to Comping Vol. 2, pp. 197–203) has the parallel 4ths over a pedal; Mark Levine's The Jazz Piano Book (ch. 13) the voicings. Tyner's dotted-quarter chains across the barline aren't played yet.

Comping: Open, after Herbie Hancock

In the style of Herbie Hancock the piano plays few chords and leaves them open: struck off the beat and held, on the and of 2, the and of 3 or the and of 1, the and of 4 alone, or pushed into the next chord, in wide two-handed voicings, drop-2s and stacks of 4ths, C3 to G5, with about a bar in three left out. No transcription of Hancock's comping was read for it: it follows Mark Levine's So What chords and 4ths (The Jazz Piano Book, chs. 12–13), and may change when one is. Only in the band menu: it isn't one of the comping styles.

Bass: the walk

The Swing groove's bass changes feel with the comping style, after the bassist on such a record: the style picks it. Under Off-beats (after Paul Chambers) and Shells (after Curly Russell) it walks: the chord's root (a slash chord's bass) on its first beat, chord tones on 1 and 3 and passing tones on 2 and 4, and its last beat a half step, a whole step or a 5th from the next chord's root. Now and then it walks up or down into the next root in half steps, or a dominant's 7th steps down to the next chord's 3rd, or up a whole step to its 5th, in place of its root. Two chords in a bar take two notes each, sometimes the same note twice. A 3/4 bar plays the root for two beats and a lead-in on 3. Mike Downes (The Jazz Bass Line Book, pp. 12–16, 116) and Steven Mooney (Constructing Walking Jazz Bass Lines Book II, pp. 16–25) have the rules.

The walk breathes: now and then a triplet rake on 2 or 4 (its first third rested, or three half steps dropping into the next beat), a ghost note (a dead 8th after the beat), an 8th pickup on 3 or 4, the next chord anticipated on the and of 4, or a section's last bar held on 1 or 3, never the same one two bars running and two bars running only about 1 time in 4 (Downes, pp. 32–33; Mooney, pp. 13–15, 27–28). Beats 2 and 4 are a touch stronger than 1 and 3.

Bass: by step, after Curly Russell

In the style of Curly Russell the bass walks by step: the chord's root (a slash chord's bass) on its first beat, then up or down the chord's scale a step at a time, the run going on the same way across the bar lines for a few bars, until it turns or reaches the top or bottom of his range, which climbs higher than the walk's. Now and then a note is repeated, and only seldom does a half step from outside the scale lead into the next chord; where the next root is a step or two away, the run steps into it. No rakes, ghost notes or pickups: a plain line. From Dave Fink's transcription of Russell on "Mohawk" (Bird and Diz, 1950).

Bass: after Ron Carter

In the style of Ron Carter the bass walks with his line's choices: about a third of the chords start on their 3rd or 5th rather than their root, the note before a chord leads into it more often by a chord tone or a whole step than by a half step, and the line stays between E1 and D3. In about a bar in three a beat becomes a dotted 8th and a 16th, "given their full values"; now and then beats 3 and 4 become a quarter-note triplet, or a rake leads in; and about a bar in twelve leaves out 2 and 4, or 4, its 1 always struck. From his Building Jazz Bass Lines (pp. 11–40). The book gives the line, not when Carter leaves the time, so the broken bars stay rare.

Bass: a light four

Under Plinks (after Walter Page) the bass walks a light four: the walk's notes, each short and a touch softer, with only a rare ghost note, steady under the sparse chords; a shot with the piano's push still ties over the bar line. No source was read for it: it follows the common account of the Basie band's four, and may change when one is.

Bass: a two-feel

Under Strum (after Eddie Calhoun) the bass plays in two: half notes, the root on 1 and the 5th or 3rd on 3, each chord's root where two share a bar. About a bar in three picks up a quarter on 4 into the next chord, a bar in four is a dotted quarter and an 8th, now and then a rake leads into a change, and the bar before a phrase starts sometimes walks in quarters (Downes, pp. 91–95, 158; Mooney, pp. 12–15). A 3/4 bar is a half note and a pickup on 3.

Bass: two, then four

Under Ramp (after Paul Chambers) the bass plays in two, then four, as the piano grows denser: the first chorus in two, as on "the head and opening choruses… to build momentum" (Mooney, p. 12), more quarters in its last four bars, "we hint that the 4 feel is coming" (pp. 14–15), then the walk from the second chorus on, a release (Downes, p. 93; Mooney, p. 39).

Bass: a broken line

Under Sustained (after Scott LaFaro) the bass plays a broken line, looser than two or four: a figure a bar, never the same two bars running (half notes, a dotted quarter tied over, 8ths, a quarter-note triplet, a rest on 1, a whole note). Most bars have the root on 1, the rest by beat 3; over a ii–V the V's root is sometimes held through both bars; now and then a bar has one note, on 4 into the next. Where a note is free it moves against the piano's top voice, and answers in its gaps (Downes, pp. 139–145).

Bass: locked to the riff

Under Riffs (after Gene Taylor) the bass locks to the riff: the root on 1 and the root, 5th or octave on each of the piano's figure's strikes, the same pattern for the riff's eight bars, and on through a bar the piano leaves out. It lands each chord on 1 where the piano pushes. No source was read for it.

Where there is little riff to lock to (a phrase the piano leaves out, or a sparse pianist's: Count Basie's plinks, Bill Evans's held chords), a chord with no figure in its phrase is played in two, the root on 1 and the 5th on 3; a figure too short to carry the chord, a plink or two, is held, each strike to the next, so the chord still sounds.

Bass: hearing the piano

Under every style but Riffs and Quartal the bass hears the piano. Where the piano pushes into a chord, the bass hits it with it about one time in three (one in two in a two-feel): the chord's note on the and of the beat before, tied over, nothing struck on its 1, as Sam Jones's anticipations with Red Garland "are 'shots' with the piano" (Downes, p. 91). The other times it plays plain into it: the chord's note on its 1, nothing extra on the beat before. Where the piano leaves a chord out, the bass fills about half of them, never two running: a run up the chord to the octave, or a turn round beat 3 (a bar of quarters in a two-feel, and not after the bar of quarters a two-feel walks into a phrase), but not under the light four, where the space is the point. Under a busy piano, four strikes or more in a chord, the walk stays plain. No source gives these rules: Downes asks only that the bassist listen, "how does what I am playing fit" (p. 145).

Bass: a pedal

Under Quartal (after Jimmy Garrison) the bass holds a pedal: the root and 5th from each bar's chord, held (Mooney, pp. 31–32).

What you can change: the comping style; the bass follows it.

Drums: Philly Joe Jones

The Swing groove's drums change with the comping style too, after the drummer on such a record. Under every feel the time is kept, on the ride (or brushes, or the hi-hat) with the hat's foot on 2 and 4; comping leaves whole bars of plain time ("a cardinal rule is to never overplay", Chapin, Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, p. 2), a four-bar phrase's comping two bars from its first, second or third bar (Riley, The Art of Bop Drumming, pp. 20–21); a section's last bar may fill, the snare moving to the toms, and the next section's 1 is struck on the crash (Riley, p. 66; Gottlieb, The Evolution of Jazz Drumming, Pitfalls §4).

Under Off-beats, after Philly Joe Jones, who played with Garland and Chambers in Miles Davis's quintet (Gottlieb, §19): the snare comps on the off-beats, the and of 2, 3 and 4 in chains, or a single accented and of 2 after a bass drum and snare on 1, with ghost notes between, in about half the phrases. A section in four now and then plays his two-bar riff through it, the and-of-4 pickup and then the and of 1, 2 and 3 (Riley, p. 31), and one in six a cross-stick on every 4, as on "Miles" (p. 75). A fill before about half the sections.

Drums: Max Roach

Under Shells, after Max Roach: no feathered four, the bass drum kept for bombs "in the spaces between the punctuations" (DeJohnette & Perry, p. 8). About half the sections ghost the snare on 2 and 4 under the ride; the snare comps on the and of 2 and the and of 4, the bass drum on 1 or the and of 4; and a section in four drives its last four bars, the bass drum on 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and its and (Gottlieb, §15A).

Drums: Paul Motian, broken time

Under Sustained, after Paul Motian, broken time on sticks: the ride's ding, ding-a and the hi-hat's foot on 2 and 4, loosened after the Evans trio: a bar of the ride in quarters alone about one in six, an accent on the snare on the and of 1 or 2 leaning into the next beat now and then, and a phrase in six in 3 against 2, cross-sticks a beat and a half apart over two bars (Riley, p. 51, after Marty Morell with Evans). An accent into a phrase about one in three, and a fill into a section about one in three. The sources don't describe Motian himself.

Drums: Jo Jones, the hi-hat

Under Plinks, after Jo Jones, the time is on the hi-hat, "shifting the timekeeping role of the drums from the bass drum to the hi-hat" (Gottlieb, §6): the ride's rhythm on a closed hat struck, 2 and 4 a touch open, as he "rode on an opening and closing hi-hat" (DeJohnette & Perry, p. 7), the foot on 2 and 4 and the bass drum feathered in four. The comping is almost none, as Gus Johnson's with Basie (Gottlieb, §21): a light snare on the and of 3 or the and of 1 in about a bar in five, and now and then a figure over the bar line at a section's end. No tom fills: the space is the point.

Drums: Jimmy Cobb, two then four

Under Ramp, after Jimmy Cobb, who played with Wynton Kelly in Miles Davis's band (Gottlieb, §27), the drums follow the bass's switch. In the first chorus, a two-feel, "a more relaxed groove… fewer quarter-note based rhythms on the ride" (Riley, p. 57): the ride on 1, the and of 2, 3 and the and of 4, Cobb's heel on 1 and 3 (p. 11), comping in about a bar in six. A fill into the second chorus, always. From it, the ride in four and his one or two comping notes a bar (the and of 2 with 4, the and of 1 with the bass drum on 2, the triplet into the bass drum, the bass drum on the and of 4), and the form's last eight bars build: triplet strings, then snare quarters in the last bar to set up the next chorus (Gottlieb, §27A).

Drums: Art Blakey

Under Riffs, after Art Blakey, who founded the Jazz Messengers with Silver (Gottlieb, §17): a heavy hi-hat on 2 and 4 (DeJohnette & Perry, p. 8). In about two phrases in five the snare doubles the piano's riff, coinciding with it (pp. 10–11); in half the others the phrase's last two bars comp in triplet strings rising to a rim accent (Gottlieb, §17D), so the riff carries the rest. A fill before about three sections in four.

Drums: Denzil Best, a light four

Under Strum, after Denzil Best, a light four on sticks: the ride soft on every beat with no skip note, 2 and 4 a touch firmer, the hi-hat's foot soft, under Garner's chords on the beat (after Thigpen's "light, steady 4/4 pulse", The Sound of Brushes, p. 27). No comping; an accent into a phrase about one in four. The sources don't describe Best himself.

Drums: Elvin Jones

Under Quartal, after Elvin Jones, "power, triplet subdivisions, energy, and displaced rhythmic combinations" (Gottlieb, §29): the comping is the time. The ride is broken into 8ths and the bass drum and snare fill the 8ths it leaves, a cell a bar, after "Passion Dance" (§29B); about a bar in four accents the and of 2 so strongly the next beat is left out (DeJohnette & Perry, pp. 8–9); a phrase in three ends in triplets over the bar line; and every section's 1 is a crash with the bass drum, Perla's "BLAM".

Drums: Tony Williams

In the style of Tony Williams the hi-hat's foot plays every beat ("Hi-hat continues on all 4", Footprints). The ride plays the beat in quarters with one skip note a bar, after any beat, and a bar in three plain; now and then a phrase leaves out its 1 (So What). The bass drum isn't feathered: it comps, loud, on the ands, with the snare, in about four phrases in five, Footprints' and of 2 on the bass drum and and of 4 on the snare first. A fill is straight 8ths on the snare moving to the toms, into a crash with the bass drum on its last beat, and the next bar's 1 is left out. About half the choruses take a passage to the ride's bell. From the Tony Williams package's transcriptions (So What, Four & More; Footprints; Nefertiti). They give no tempos, so the hat plays every beat at any tempo.

Drums: the ride shaded

In the style of Tony Williams the ride is shaded: its level swells and falls back over two to four bars, and each stroke lands a touch off that level, so no two choruses ring alike. A bar moves as one: 2 and 4 still lean and the skip note stays under the beat. Every other drummer's ride keeps its own levels. Our call, for the hairpins of one to four bars his transcriptions write (Nefertiti).

Drums: the ride’s bell

Under Off-beats (Philly Joe Jones), Ramp (Jimmy Cobb), Riffs (Art Blakey) and Quartal (Elvin Jones), and in the style of Tony Williams, about half the choruses take a passage to the ride's bell for a lift: a whole section past the first (a bridge, or a last A), or the two or four bars building into a section or into the next chorus. The bell plays the ride's strokes at the ride's levels; the other drummers stay on the ride. Our call, from a user's idea: no source gives how often these drummers moved to the bell.

Drums: hearing the band

Under every feel the drums hear the piano and the bass. Where the piano pushes into the next bar's 1 and the bass shoots it with it, the drums catch it about half the time, the bass drum and a crash on the and set up on the snare (Gottlieb, Pitfalls §4), the set-up and the crash left out under Plinks for an opened hat, and a fill stopping for it; where the bass played plain, a bass drum alone a few times; a push they don't catch, they leave the beat before it clear, so the band lands together. A bar the piano leaves out they answer with a figure about half the time, "coinciding" or answering (DeJohnette & Perry, pp. 10–11), but play plain time where the bass fills it, and never under Plinks or Strum, whose space is the point. Under a busy piano, four strikes or more in a bar, they keep plain time. Elvin's cells are the time, and don't answer or lay out.

What you can change: the comping style; the drums follow it.

What the Ballad groove plays

With the Ballad groove on, the band plays its ballad way, each player after his own: the same band as under Swing, from the same choices, only slower and softer. Its band is its own: the Ballad starts from your Swing band and keeps its own once you choose (the band).

The piano keeps its pianist's voicings, register, pushes and left-out bars, but holds each chord to its next strike (legato), a fifth softer; Basie's plinks stay short, his space his ballad too. The bass: Paul Chambers (Garland era) goes into two, Curly Russell's two is plainer (root and 5th, a pickup now and then), Eddie Calhoun's leans on its pickups; LaFaro's broken line, Page's light four, Kelly-era Chambers's two then four, Taylor's lock, Garrison's held roots and Carter's walk play as they do. The drums keep their own time, with a third of their comping and half their fills, no drive, softer by a third; with sticks, not brushes (the kit has none), Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach and Jimmy Cobb add a cross-stick on 2 and 4 (2 and 3 in 3/4). Each chorus is drawn afresh, as under Swing.

These ballad ways are drawn from each player's swing records and the common account of ballad playing, not from a ballad transcription of each.

What you can change: the groove, the band and its players under the click's ⋯, Comping.

What the Bossa groove plays

With the Bossa groove on, every part plays figures printed in the bossa's sources: Ed Uribe's The Essence of Brazilian Percussion and Drum Set (pp.74–84), Nelson Faria's The Brazilian Guitar Book (pp.60–72) and Faria and Cliff Korman's Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section (pp.31–39). Drums plays the cross-stick's clave (1, the and of 2, and 4; then 2 and the and of 3) over hi-hat 8ths accented on the and of 1 and the and of 3, the hi-hat's foot on 2 and 4, and a kick on 1 and 3 with a pickup on the 8th before each; every fourth time through the two bars the cross-stick plays one of Uribe's variations. The clave's two bars run from the form's first bar and never start over. The piano plays block chords in the middle of the keyboard on João Gilberto's figure or on a two-bar figure, with a variation every fourth time; where its last 8th falls just before a chord change it sounds the new chord early and holds it over. The bass plays the root and the 5th under it, as half notes, or moving with 8th pickups, or sounding the next chord's root an 8th early, one way for each eight bars. The 8ths are straight: a bossa style's click starts straight. In a 2/4 chart each written bar plays a whole bar of these figures, a slot a 16th, as the Samba, the Partido alto and the Baião do too. The band is Getz/Gilberto's (1964): Antônio Carlos Jobim, Sebastião Neto and Milton Banana, a citation, not a claim; the sleeve credited the bass to Tommy Williams, but Neto played it.

What you can change: the groove, each player's level and Mute, the click's feel, and the sheet's level. Not the players: the Bossa band is its own.

What the Samba groove plays

With the Samba groove on, the band plays the samba of Rio in two, its weight on the second beat, from the same books and from Oscar Stagnaro's The Latin Bass Book (pp.144–160) and Lucas Pimentel's study of Edison Machado (pp.11–13). The kick is the surdo: the bossa's rhythm, 1, the and of 2, 3, the and of 4, but 1 soft, its pickups light and 3 the strongest, "as if the downbeat were on the upbeat" (Uribe p.26); the hi-hat's foot is on 2 and 4. Below 210 the drums play Machado's samba-de-prato, the ride cymbal on every 8th, the left hand free; from 210, where Machado thinned the ride to figures no source prints exactly, they play Paulo Braga's samba (Inside p.24), the hi-hat on every 8th accented on the and of 2 and of 4, and the tamborim's two-bar teleco-teco on the cross-stick, every fourth time one of Uribe's phrases. The bass plays Stagnaro's line, the root on 1 and the 5th under it on 3, an 8th before each a pickup, the next note or a half step under it, or the surdo's half notes leaning on 3, or plain half notes, one way for each eight bars. The piano plays Faria's or Uribe's figures off the beat, a chord change struck an 8th early, and every other chorus holds its chords long, the next struck early and tied over (Inside p.19). The band is the Rio 65 Trio (1965), Machado's: Dom Salvador, Sérgio Barrozo and Edison Machado, a citation, not a claim.

What you can change: the tempo (the drums follow it), each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel. Not the players: the Samba band is its own.

What the Partido alto groove plays

With the Partido alto groove on, one two-bar figure organises all three parts, as all four books print it: a first bar with no downbeat, its accent just after 1, and a second on the downbeat that ends anticipating the next (Inside p.42; Faria p.33; Uribe pp.112–113). It sounds as two voices, and Uribe's basic, "the most common way" (p.113), splits them: the high voice on the cross-stick, the and of 1, then 2; the low voice on the kick, 3 and 4, then 1, the and of 3 and the and of 4; the hi-hat on every 8th, its foot on 1 and 3 (Inside p.43). Every fourth time through, the cross-stick plays Uribe's variation, the second bar's stroke on the and of 2. The bass doubles the low voice (Stagnaro p.161): the first bar's downbeat tied over from the bar before, the 5th under the root on 3 and a step under the next root on 4; the second bar's root on 1, the 5th under it on the and of 3, and the next bar's root an 8th early, tied over. The piano plays Faria's figure on the same two bars, or its second form, with Cliff Korman's right hand every fourth time. No source ties a famous band to the style, so the band is the one the source records: "Brooklyn High", Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section (2001), Cliff Korman, Itaiguara Brandão and Paulo Braga.

What you can change: each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, the figure's orientation (orientation:) and a section's groove (groove:), like a samba bridge.

What the Baião groove plays

With the Baião groove on, the drums play the north-east's trio: the triangle on every 8th, muted, ringing open on the and of 1 and the and of 3, the next bar the and of 1 and the and of 4 (Inside p.75; the sources disagree on where it opens, and Inside is the book the set follows), over Márcio Bahia's zabumba stroke on the kick, from Hermeto Pascoal's group (Pimentel p.40): 1, the and of 2 and the and of 4, nothing on 3. Behind the solos, from the second chorus, his ride groove: the ride on 1, 2, the and of 2, the and of 3 and 4, the snare with it on 4, the kick on 1, the and of 2 and the and of 3. The bass plays one figure an 8-bar phrase: the zabumba's cell, the root on 1 and again on the and of 2, held (Inside p.68; Stagnaro p.169), or root, 5th and octave on the same two strokes and the and of 4 (Inside p.77). The piano strikes the same cell and holds it, or Faria's figure, 1 and 3 anticipated (p.124); every fourth time, quarter notes on 1 and 3 (p.122). The band is Hermeto Pascoal's: Jovino Santos Neto, Itiberê Zwarg and Márcio Bahia (Só Não Toca Quem Não Quer, 1987).

What you can change: each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, a section's groove (groove:).

What the Afoxé groove plays

With the Afoxé groove on (an afoxé or ijexá style), the band plays a true 4/4, as Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section writes it (p.100): the hi-hat closed on every 16th, accented on the and of 1 and of 3, and the kick on 2, its and, 4 and its and. Behind the solos, from the second chorus, Paulo Braga's "straight-ahead jazz feel on the ride" (p.108), the hi-hat's foot on 2 and 4. The bass doubles the kick on the root (p.100; Uribe p.66), or, an 8-bar phrase at a time, Stagnaro's "3, 4": each pair's second note the next chord's root, an 8th early (p.181). The piano plays the left hand's two short chords on 2 and its and, then the next chord on the and of 4, held over the bar line; every fourth time the guitar's chords on the ands of 1 and 3. No source ties a famous band to the style, so the band is the book's own, on "Montanha Russa": Cliff Korman and Paulo Braga, with the book's two bassists, David Finck and Itaiguara Brandão, named together until its credits say which plays it.

What you can change: each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, a section's groove (groove:).

What the Choro groove plays

With the Choro groove on (a choro or chorinho style), the band plays lightly, as its sources make the kit optional (Faria p.86). A choro is written in 2/4, so in a 2/4 chart each figure's slot is a 16th; in a 4/4 chart one 2/4 figure fills the bar, a slot an 8th. The pandeiro plays every slot, accented on the 2nd and 4th of each beat, as Paulo Braga plays it on the hi-hat (Inside p.55): each beat the thumb's open bass, the fingertips, the heel, the fingertips, the tips taking the accents (no source notates a choro pandeiro's strokes; this is the instrument's basic cycle), over the surdo on the kick, its second beat the strongest (Inside p.55). The bass plays each chord's own bass note, an inversion's rather than its root: an 8-bar phrase at a time, Stagnaro's commonest cell, the bass note, its 3rd on the second beat and the bass note again, or the surdo's figure ending a half step under the next bar's bass note (p.177). The piano plays Faria's first variation (p.89), the book's guitar part (Inside p.55): a short chord on each off-16th, the first of each beat held to the next; an 8-bar phrase's last two bars lighten to Cliff Korman's comp, a short chord on each beat's second 16th (p.64), as he warns that guitar-like comping on the piano "can sound 'choppy'" if overdone (p.12). A regional is no piano trio, so the band is the book's own, on "Saudade do Paulo": Cliff Korman, David Finck and Paulo Braga.

What you can change: each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, its time (time: 2/4) and a section's groove (groove:).

What the Frevo groove plays

With the Frevo groove on, the band plays the frevo phrase, the style's identity: "it is crucial to feature the pattern shaped by the characteristic accents of the snare drum" (Pimentel p.56). The snare plays every 16th of a 2/4 bar, accented on the 1st, 4th and 7th, then the 2nd and 5th of the next, over the kick on each 2/4 beat (Inside p.81); the fourth two bars of each eight its second bar is Ed Uribe's caixa 4a, two 16ths, an accented 8th and an accented buzz roll a quarter long (Uribe p.139). Behind the solos, from the second chorus, the phrase moves to the hi-hat for Paulo Braga's double-time feel, its foot on every 8th (p.87). The bass plays "much like a jazz 'walking bass', playing even quarter notes" (Faria p.102): the root, then its 3rd (Inside p.81), or, an 8-bar phrase at a time, the 5th below (Faria p.104). The piano plays the phrase on the chord's top voices, its third chord tied over the bar (Inside p.81; Faria p.105), or Faria's basic figure (p.104); every fourth time only the up beats (p.108). A 2/4 bar of the sources is a written 4/4 bar, so its ♩138 is a written ♩276. The band is the book's own, on "Sombrinhas de Olinda": Cliff Korman and Paulo Braga, with the book's two bassists named together.

What you can change: the tempo, each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, a section's groove (groove:).

What the Marcha-rancho groove plays

With the Marcha-rancho groove on (a marcha or marcha-rancho style, not a samba marcha, which is a samba), the frevo's slow, usually minor relative, "heard principally at the conclusion of the festivities" (Inside p.90), plays the same phrase gently: brushes on the snare, soft, the kick only on the 2/4 bar's second beat, the hi-hat's foot on its ands (p.91). The bass plays the root short and the 5th below long; the piano the phrase's attacks, short, every fourth time the guitar's, held (pp.91, 97). Its ♩112 in 2/4 is a written ♩224. The band is the book's own, on "Fim de Festa": Cliff Korman and Paulo Braga, with the book's two bassists.

What you can change: the tempo, each player's level and Mute, and the click's feel; in the chart, a section's groove (groove:).

Which bar of a figure comes first

A Brazilian groove's two-bar figures (the Bossa's clave, the Samba's teleco-teco, the partido-alto figure and the piano's cells) run from the form's first bar and never start over: "once the pattern begins, it doesn't revert" (Faria p.61). Which bar comes first is the tune's, set by its melody, and the sources print both. A chart starts them on their first bar (A-B); orientation: B-A in its header starts them a bar on.

What you can change: the chart's orientation:.

A section’s own groove

A section can name its own groove, groove: samba under its section: line: its bars play that set's groove, the rest the chart's style's. A partido-alto tune often plays its bridge as a samba (Inside p.42; Uribe p.113). The band shown is the chart's. In double time every bar plays the Swing groove.

What you can change: a section's groove:.