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When learning how to play jazz guitar, one of the most important things we can do as
guitarists is expand our repertoire beyond swing and bebop tunes.
By exploring other styles of jazz, such as Bossa Nova, you will not only expand your
repertoire and harmonic/melodic palettes, but you will build a wider repertoire of tunes
that you can bring to your next jam session or gig as a jazz guitarist.
In today’s lesson, we’ll be looking at a Bossa Nova tune, Blue Bossa, that is one of the
most popular tunes to be called at jam sessions or out on the bandstand, and therefore
it’s an important tune to have under your fingers as a jazz guitarist.
Blue Bossa Harmonic Analysis
To begin, let’s do a quick harmonic analysis of Blue Bossa. There are 3 main sections of
the tune, bars 1-8, bars 9-12 and bars 13-16.
Here is a breakdown of the chords in each of these 3 sections.
• Im7-IVm7-iim7b5-V7alt in C Minor
• iim7-V7-Imaj7 in Db Major
• iim7b5-V7alt-Im7-iim7b5 V7alt in C Minor
As you can see, there are two key centers in Blue Bossa, C minor and Db major.
Because of this, it can be a bit tricky to navigate when soloing over.
But, if you are just beginning to explore this tune in your playing, a good place to start is
the C minor blues scale over C minor sections and the Bb minor blues scales over the
Db major section.
From there, you can explore a number of scales over each chord in the tune, here are a
few of my favorites to help you get started.
Cm7 - C Melodic Minor
Fm7 - F Dorian
Dm7b5 - D Locrian
G7alt - G Altered Bebop Scale
Ebm7 and Ab7 - 9 Note Bebop Scale
Dbmaj7 - Db Ionian
Click to hear a sample solo over Blue Bossa that outlines these key areas and using
these scales.
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Blue Bossa Audio Examples
As you work through each of the following Blue Bossa Exercises, here are audio
examples for every written example in this lesson. Simply click on the link and it will take
you to a page that will play the audio for you.
1. Blue Bossa Chord Melody Arrangement Audio
2. Blue Bossa Bossa 1 Rhythm Audio
3. Blue Bossa Bossa 2 Rhythm Audio
4. Blue Bossa Rhythmic Melody Soloing Audio
5. Blue Bossa Single-String Soloing Audio
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Blue Bossa Exercises
1. Chord Melody
The first item that we will look at when learning how to play Blue Bossa, is a sample
chord melody arrangement that I did of the tune, using mostly one chord per melody
note, with a few exceptions were I just played the single-note as is for fingering
purposes.
While not overly complicated, this arrangement might take some time to get fully smooth
and have a nice sense of flow to it as you move between the chords.
So, take your time, and once you have the chords/melody under your fingers, stick with
it a bit to make sure that you can play it as smooth and cleanly as possible before
moving on from there.
I used mostly 2 types of chords in this arrangement, mostly to keep things simple and
because these shapes tend to sound full in chord melody playing, while not being overly
hard to play at the same time.
The two shapes were Drop 2 Chords and 4th-Voicing Chords, which you will have seen
many times before if you have studied my previous lessons.
If these shapes are new to you, check out my articles “Drop 2 Chords for Jazz Guitar”
and “What Are 4th Voicings and How Can They Affect Your Jazz Guitar Playing” for
more info.
2. Bossa 1 Rhythm Study
The next item in our study of Blue Bossa is a rhythmic etude that features a rhythm
called the Bossa 1 Rhythm.
This is a commonly used, and very important, guitar rhythmic pattern that can be heard
in the playing of many famous Brazilian guitarists, and therefor it’s worth having under
your fingers for this, or any, Brazilian tune you play.
The rhythm is fairly straightforward, but there are a few things to keep in mind when you
are learning/playing the Bossa 1 Rhythm.
• Your thumb plays a steady bass-note beat, always the root in this case, on beats 1
and 3 of the bar.
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• The bass notes and chords that fall on beats 1 and 2 are played quietly, never
accented.
• The last chord, on the & of beat 3, is accented (played louder) to highlight the
syncopation of that part of the bar.
• The rhythm is one-bar long and you just repeat this bar for the entire tune.
Again, this is a pretty straight-forward rhythm, but one that can add a level of
authenticity to any Bossa Nova song you are playing.
To learn more about this rhythm, and Brazilian rhythms in general, check out my ebook
“Modern Time: Rhythmic Fundamentals for the Improvising Musician.”
3. Bossa 2 Rhythm
We can now add 1 chord to our Bossa 1 rhythm that we just explored, to produce a
Bossa 2 rhythm.
While it may seem fairly easy to just add one chord to the bar in order to produce this
new rhythm, it is the resulting anticipation of the next chord that makes things tricky.
Because we now have an accented chord on the & of beat 4 in each bar, you have to
anticipate the next chord change with that attack before the bass note of that chord
sounds on beat 1 of the next bar.
This is the hardest part when learning how to play Bossa or Samba rhythms on guitar,
playing the chord for the next change before the chord actually happens.
But, if you can get this technique down, then you are well on your way to playing Bossa
and Samba music on guitar with an authentic feel and touch that you can’t get without
this anticipatory embellishment of the rhythm.
If you are having trouble with the Bossa 2 Rhythm, try isolation the first 4 bars and
working slowly with your metronome until you get it down and are comfortable with that
anticipated chord on the & of 4.
From there, you can piece the whole tune together after you have worked out the
smaller pieces of the puzzle on their own.
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4. Melodic Rhythm Soloing
This is a fun, but often tricky, exercise that I like to do with any tune I am learning, but
especially Brazilian melodies as they often have highly-syncopated rhythms embedded
in their construction.
In this exercise, you are going to keep the exact rhythm of the melody from the lead
sheet, but you are going to improvise the notes in your soloing lines.
Normally, when quoting the melody of a tune in our solos we just play the notes, with or
without the exact rhythm of the melody in our phrases, so this exercise takes that
approach one step further as you keep the exact rhythm of the melody and change the
notes.
I’ve written out an example solo below for you to check out, and after listening to and/or
learning this solo, try improvising along to a backing track while maintaining the exact
rhythm of the Blue Bossa melody line, but play all new notes in your improvisation.
To read and study this concept further, check out my article “Play the Tune Not the
Changes.”
5. Single String Soloing Exercise
The last exercise that we’ll explore over Blue Bossa is soloing on 1 string at a time.
Here, you are still soloing over each chord in the progression, or each key center, but
you are limiting yourself to only playing on 1 string during your solo.
I’ve written out a sample solo in this style over the 2nd string of the guitar. But, in your
own practicing make sure to work on all 6 strings in this exercise to get a full
understanding of how beneficial this exercise can be in opening up your neck and
pushing you in new directions when soloing over any tune.
Start slowly and use a backing track when possible. Starting with the 1st or 6th strings
will be easiest, since we tend to know those strings better than the others, so begin with
those outer strings before moving on to the inner strings from there.
To dig into this concept further, check out my video lesson “Breaking Out of Box
Patterns - 1 String Scales.”
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Chord Melody Arrangement
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Bossa 1 Rhythm
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Bossa 2 Rhythm
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Melodic Rhythms Exercise
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1-String Soloing Exercise
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Blue Bossa is a must-know tune for any jazz guitarist as it often comes up in jam
sessions or in gigs with other musicians.
By having an understanding of the chord progression, a chord melody arrangement, two
authentic Brazilian rhythm patterns and a few improvisational exercises for this tune,
you are giving yourself a full understanding of the building blocks and devices needed to
smoke this tune the next time it’s called at a jam session or on a gig.
If you have any questions about Blue Bossa, or anything jazz or jazz guitar related,
head on over to the Matt Warnock Guitar Facebook Page or Matt Warnock Guitar
Twitter Page and post a question on my wall and I will be happy to answer you asap.
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