“Got a Match?” is a composition by Chick Corea, recorded with his Elektric Band in the 1980s. It’s a fast, bebop-influenced tune with a challenging, virtuosic melody that showcases Corea’s love of both bebop and fusion.
The tune moves through quick chord changes at a brisk tempo, with a dense melody that requires precise technique.
For improvisation, practice bebop lines and arpeggios over the changes at slower tempos first. Focus on accuracy and clean articulation.
Practice the melody in small sections with a metronome.
Section by section: break the head into four-bar chunks and loop each one until it’s clean at a slow tempo, then string them together. Over the faster chord changes, play arpeggios from the root and then from the third to hear each chord clearly. In the solo section, Corea’s own approach mixes bebop vocabulary with Latin-tinged rhythms and wide intervals, so experiment with fourths and pentatonic shapes that move up and down the instrument. Keyboard players should practice the comping figures with a tight, percussive touch, while horn players should focus on clean tonguing at speed.
Practice tip: use a metronome on beats 2 and 4 to lock in the swing feel even at fast tempos, and record yourself to check that your eighth notes stay even. A tune like this rewards patience: a few minutes of slow, accurate practice each day beats an hour of sloppy repetition.
How to use this Got a Match Lead Sheet PDF: print it or keep it on a tablet, mark the form sections and key centers in pencil, and write the guide tones you want to target above the tricky bars. Revisit those notes after each practice session so the tune gets easier every week.
Is it hard to play? It’s advanced. Recordings to study: Chick Corea Elektric Band recordings. Learn more about the composer on Chick Corea’s Wikipedia page, and find more fusion lead sheets on Minedit.