VIDEO MASTERCLASS
This month, guest artist Rocco Zifarelli provides a stunning solo that’s both smooth and raging over Jason Sidwell’s brand new rock-fusion shuffle, with Jon Bishop as your guide.
ON VIDEO
This month we are delighted to welcome back Italian virtuoso Rocco Zifarelli to take on another Jason Sidwell penned backing track. This brand new backing track is entitled Lickety Split and features a slick sounding 100bpm tempo with a shuffle 16th-note rock feel and a healthy amount of chord changes and modulations.
As the track weaves through multiple keys we have used an open key signature (no sharps or flats). This will allow you to clearly see the note choices in relation to the underlying chords and not keep reverting back to the start of each music line to see what notes are altered.
As mentioned, the track is more harmonically advanced than just one key so the melodic and improvisational approach requires a variety of scales and concepts to be used to navigate it effectively. Therefore it’s well worth having a fingerboard roadmap established prior to setting sail on a freeform-improvised solo.
As Rocco explains in the video, his approach was to write out a main melody for the Theme 1 section, considering the chord changes and where he could create a call and response element between his lead lines and the band’s rhythmic statements. After this, his strategy was to memorise the chord changes and the various syncopations and arranged hits. This way his musicality could be free to improvise with a number of rock and fusion-style ideas.
Graciously, Rocco talks us through some of the various options and demonstrates them in the video. To help you conceptualise these on the fretboard we have notated the demonstrated examples from Rocco’s discussion following his performance (see Boxout examples 1-4).
By studying these examples you will be able to memorise the various fingerings and shapes required. The first concept Rocco shares with us is the use of Quartal harmony. Instead of harmonising a scale in intervals of 3rds (R-3-5) we can harmonise it in 4ths (R-4-7). See examples 1 and 2.
Rocco also demonstrates the use of open-voiced triads. Here the 3rd of the triad is taken up the octave (also referred to in the video as melodic open chords). Rocco also demonstrates playing Pentatonic scales in double-stops (two-note chords).
There is a lot to remember here and memorising the whole solo would certainly be quite a substantial technical and theoretical undertaking. So if you’d prefer a more simplified way to tackle Lickety Split we’d recommend the following...
The Theme 1 section moves its way through several keys so learning Rocco’s melody here will ensure the results are musical and fit the underlying harmony.
For Verse 1, the D Minor Pentatonic scale (D-F-G-A-C) and also
