I'm Gettin Sentimental Over You (Part 3) - Peter Bernstein Solo Guitar Performance

Let's look at bars 8 and 9.

The chords are a simple chromatic approach from Am7 to C7. Peter plays G dim7 chord on C7. This is a same chord with C7b9/G.

Bars 10 and 11.

This is very good example of how Peter uses quartal voicing for supporting melody note. Top notes are simply melodies and supported by quartal voicings.

Little movement on E7 is a chromatic approach to a typical E7 voicing (root on 5th string). The approaching little chord is also a quartal voicing.

I'm Gettin Sentimental Over You (Part 2) - Peter Bernstein Solo Guitar Performance

Today, let's look at the bar 6 and 7.

On bar 6, the melody note is E, Gb, Ab, B then E.
Peter plays a breakdown of augmented triad for each melody note. Why he does that, is E, Gb, Ab is whole tone apart from one another, augmented chord and whole tone scale is strongly related. Starting on any note on whole tone scale, skipping every other note you'll have an augmented triad. Also, augemented chords will work pretty much in any ways on altered dominant chords if the top note is right. For this case, the melody E, Gb and Ab is in whole tone scale order, so it's perfect to utilize augmented triads.

 Bar 7, Peter plays a simple E7 chord at 12th fret position, root on 6th string. Little chord he plays between single notes are 3rd (G#) and 7th (D) slid from half step above. This is another little harmonic device Peter uses alot for comping. Below are few examples.

The first chord is a typical E7 chord on 12th fret positon. The following little chords are what Peter uses alot when he comps. Bass note is G# (3rd of E7). 

I'm Gettin Sentimental Over You (Part 1) - Peter Bernstein Solo Guitar Performance

Full transcription with TAB.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0lpl99xtn3q5u7/Peter%20Bernstein%20-%20I%27m%20Getting%20Sentimental%20Over%20You.pdf
 This transcription is from Peter Bernstein's solo guitar performance at the Small's Jazz Club on September 2nd 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxIXXa2SKDo&feature=youtu.be
This was originally stream casted and archived on Small's Youtube channel. Peter played two sets in the evening and all songs were played stunningly beautiful. It is very rare to see Peter play solo guitar on Youtube and is a rare occasion for a jazz guitar learners to learn his ways of playing little chords between single note lines. I actually learnt a lot from this transcription. This article is an attempt to provide an analysis on Peters playing and hoping readers would gain his/her own ways to integrate these ideas in to their practice routines.

Let's get started.

Here's the first line. Peter started off an intro on E7 chord by using a simple E7 13th chord which root note on the 6th string is omitted.

Peter decsends this simple scale consists of Root, b7, b5, b4, b9 down over 2 octaves. Then land on A note in the next bar which is the root of the next chord Am6.

Let's see the next line.



A line on Am6 is simply a head.
A chord Peter uses on B7 is a quartal chord consists of F, Bb, Eb. The bass note is F which is b5th note of B7. I strugled a bit to get why this chord can be used here. What I understand now, is Eb (or D#) is the melody note, whatever underneath the Eb note is to support the melody note. Quartal chords has less color or function itself, which basically means if the top note is right it can be used almost at anywhere in anyways. The chord is supported by the F note, the b5th, usually works perfect as a bass note with any dominant 7th chords.

A small melody which follows the chord, B and D, is I think a breakdown of a diminish triad. On any altered dominant chords, diminish triad which the top notes are b9th, 3rd, 5th or b7th can be used automatically. Let me show you an example.



This shows few examples of how diminished triads can be used over E7 chords. Top notes are D (b7th), F (b9th), G# (3rd), B (5th). You can find inversions of diminished triad throughout the neck yourself, and should experiment on a different strings sets, but this is one of the most important comcepts Peter use throughout his playing. He often times approaches these diminished triads chromatically from half step above (or below).

The following small disonant movement on E7th is a combination of G# (3rd) and Bb (b5th), which Peter slides in from half step above. Sliding in half step, or even from far more distance is what Peter does a lot.