Contrapuntal Improvisation

Juampy Juarez shares his own investigations and variations on Jimmy Wyble's concept of two-line, or contrapuntal, improvisation — playing two independent lines on the guitar at once. He demonstrates everything over a Bb blues and famous standards, explaining each idea after he plays it.

What's covered

• Hybrid picking technique (pick plus ring/middle finger) and why it suits two-line playing better than fingers alone
• Breaking chords into fragments and intervals — seeing a Bb7 as a perfect 5th, minor 3rd, and flat 5 — and turning those fragments into blues licks
• Contrapuntal scales: sustaining one note of the blues or major scale while playing melodies around it
• Pivot-note ideas inspired by country guitar
• Counterpoint ideas applied to jazz blues and standards, plus balancing the two voices dynamically so it sounds like two guitars
• Expanding your harmonic vocabulary for solo guitar or combo playing

This advanced class opens up a completely new way of looking at the guitar, and includes written materials in standard notation and TAB.