Straight out of "Play now--understand later," we go back to the 3rd of a 5-part series on Vamps we posted in 2012. We had the series repeated in the Mandolin Cafe Lessons page, as well, but for now, just play through the chords. Get familiar with them and try transposing them.

All we are doing is adding a 'ii V7' to the I. Repeat these over and over, you get the "Vamp" effect we've been studying. It's far more interesting than the I, I, I, I voice (yawn...) you might do if all the music called for was a D chord.

Take a look at other fretboard incarnations of the V7 chord:

We can inject these into other voicings of the 'I ii V7' in D:

Again, you can transpose these blocks all over the fretboard in other keys. Try moving everything up a fret. Makes playing in the key of Eb a snap!

Remember, we're sneaking the V7 where it wasn't before. Playing it fast, a sort of "scurry" dominant, you can inject the V7 chord just about anywhere in a song. Get in--get out. We going to take the trick one step farther and add the V7 of the ii chord, the B7, injecting the B7 blocks.

We'll add this to the progression, and note if you scurry this, it still balances spice with the integrity of the home key.

Add this to the other inversions:

We mentioned moving it up a fret to apply in the key of Eb. Now you can go all over the place with these. Does the progression sound familiar? (Check out the chords for "I've Got Rhythm.") You'll find this all over the place, and don't limit yourself to places where it's written out.

Season to taste.

Further
Vamps Pt 1. Creating energy with Diatonic triads
Vamps Pt 2. Expanding the Diatonic triads
Vamps Pt 3. Scurry Dominants
Vamps Pt 4. Circle of fifths
Vamps Pt 5. Minor Modal

Posted by Ted at March 6, 2014 11:11 AM