Comping
Playing chords, rhythms and small melodic figures to accompany a soloist or a singer rather than taking the lead.
Comping, short for accompanying, is the jazz and session player's core skill: the guitarist supplies harmony and rhythm while leaving the melody alone. Good comping is sparse, rhythmically placed and sensitive to the soloist, and it uses a wide range of voicings rather than the same barre shapes. Many players never practise it because it is not virtuosic, yet in real performance it occupies far more of the night than soloing does.
Example: Behind a horn solo, a guitarist playing short chordal jabs and leaving space for the soloist is comping.
Related
- PageAccent
- PageAction height
- PageAlternate picking
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley
- PageAd-Rock
- ReferenceCircle of fifths
- ReferenceIntervals