Experiment with Rock Accompaniment

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I’ve decide to continue on the accompaniment idea some more and exam an idea where your bass player has taken on the foundation role for your chords and he gets the root note and you are the rhythm on piano or guitar.

Often times a rock song will drive back and forth on ii7 and V7 pattern say in the key of D on an E minor chord such as an em7 and the A7 chord.

One rock style is to bring the rhythm in on the 2nd beat and then pick up an off-beat as well, say at the “and of 3” or somewhat common is accenting the 2 and 4 beats.

In the following examples we show the idea with both of these situations.

The last measure is resolution back to the root of DM7.

Listen to the two styles in this clip.

[audio:https://mlblog.musiclearningworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/rock-accomp.mp3|titles=rock accomp]

Listen to a few rock songs and get the feel for the rhythm section and then take a couple of chords changes, voice as seventh chords, and see what you come up with.