Comping is the art of playing an accompaniment behind a soloist.  As a piano player, it's a skill I have struggled to develop for many years and am still working to get better.  For me the challenge is not so much choosing what to play as the accompaniment, but rather being able to maintain a steady, consistent, independent rhythmic pattern in the left hand providing providing the harmonic context with either a broken chord pattern or some type of bass line while the right hand goes off and does it's own thing as the soloist.  Over time I will share with you my thoughts and observations, patterns and how I came to develop those patterns in the hopes that it will give you some insight into some ways you can go about creating your own comping patterns.

In the coming week I will present the first two comping patterns that I tend to use as 'go-to' patterns when I improvise over a standard I - IV - V progression.  The first is a walking bass pattern that would be appropriate for a bass player to use while the second is a fairly standard comping pattern you might hear a rhythm guitarist play using the same progression.  I will also present a technique I use for building a rhythmic comping pattern using broken chords that is derived from selecting almost any given drum rudiment and applying the LR sticking pattern to little finger and some other finger or fingers of the left hand to the various tones of the chord being played.   It will likely take me the week to get this recorded and notated but all good things in life take time.  Until then, keep practicing and check back.