Summertime Melody & Solo Study

Summertime is one of the most popular jazz tunes at jam sessions and on pick-up gigs. It’s also one of the most fun jazz tunes to play on guitar. Because of this, Summertime is an essential tune to have under your fingers. While is a popular and fun jazz standard, it’s often hard to know where to start. To help you get your hands and ears around Summertime, here’s the melody and a few soloing concepts to explore.

These concepts will help you navigate the chord changes of Summertime with confidence. Learning the melody ensures you always know where you are in the tune and enables you to quote the melody in your solos when inspiration strikes.

Summertime is a fun song, but it’s harder to play than it looks, so studying this material builds your confidence and skill set to navigate this jazz standard.

Have fun exploring the melody, sample solos, and improvisational concepts over this classic Gershwin tune.

 

Video

 

Summertime Melody

Here are the tabs and notation for this easy arrangement of the Summertime theme, where I combine the melody with simple jazz chord voicings.

 

 

 

Summertime Scales

There are 2 guitar scales that can be used over the entire chord changes of Summertime, the A natural minor scale and the A minor blues scale.

 

A Natural Minor Scale

The first is the A natural minor scale (aka A Aeolian scale). This scale has the same notes as the C major scale.

 

A Natural Minor Scale	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
	1	2	b3	4	5	b6	b7

 

Here is the most common fingering on guitar (but always learn to play all guitar scales over the entire fret board):

 

A Minor Blues Scale

The minor blues scale has the same notes as the A minor pentatonic scale, but with an added blue note.

 

A Minor Blues Scale	A	C	D	D#	E	G
	1	b3	4	#4	5	b7

 

Here is the most common fingering:

You can get by using only these 2 scales in your improvisation, but your solos will sound repetitive and not very interesting. One way to spice things up a bit is to add some other scales, especially over the dominant chords…

 

D Minor Harmonic Scale

This scale can be used in the 4th bar, over the ii V in D minor (Em7b5 A7):

 

D Minor Harmonic Scale	D	E	F	G	A	Bb	C#
Played over A7	11	5	b13	b7	1	b9	3

 

Here is the fingering in 5th position:

The harmonic minor scale can also be played over the ii Vs in A minor, but here we have to use the A harmonic minor scale:

 

 

Summertime Arpeggios

Another way to add interest to your solos is using arpeggios. While explaining how arpeggios work is beyond the scope of this lesson, here’s one example you can use over the ii V in D minor in the 4th bar.

A common arpeggio to play over a dominant chord is the diminished arpeggio starting on the 3rd of that dominant chord.

For example, you can play a C#dim7 arpeggio over A7:

 

C#dim7 Arpeggio	C#	E	G	Bb
Played over A7	3	5	b7	b9

 

Here’s a possible fingering:

 

Summertime Backing Track

Here’s a backing track you can use to practice:

 

Summertime Solo Study Chorus 1 [0:35 in the video]

 

 

Bar 20: here I use an Am(add 9) arpeggio:

 

 

Bar 26: here I use a G triad arpeggio:

 

G arpeggio	G	B	D
Played over Am7	b7	9	11

 

 

Summertime Solo Study Chorus 2 [1:02 in the video]

 

 

Bar 38: here I play an Fmaj7 arpeggio over Dm7.

When playing over minor chords, play a maj7 arpeggio starting on the 3rd of that minor chord to get a 9 sound.

 

Fmaj7 arpeggio	F	A	C	E
Played over Dm7	b3	5	b7	9

 

 

Bar 40: here I play the E altered scale, with a chromatic note in between (click here to learn how to use the altered scale).

 

E Altered Scale	E	F	G	G#	Bb	C	D
	1	b9	#9	3	b5	b13	b7

 

 

Bar 45: this is a Chet Baker phrase.

 

Summertime Solo Study Chorus 3 [1:30 in the video]