The idea of the practice is to only use the 3rd and the 7th (or equivalent of the intervals such as major 7th or minor 3rd) of the chords in the progression and alternate between 3rd on the bottom and 7th on the bottom on each chord change.
As I was doing this with "Like Someone in Love (Van Heusen, Burke)," I found something interesting happening with this specific composition.
Take a look at the chart below, take note, for example on the measures 2 and 3. You can see that the bottom note is moving from G to Gb to F to E. This is a perfect chromatic down movement. And that's not even considering chord alterations in place. Just the notes in the 3rd and 7th.
From the measures 9 through to the ending of the first verse, both top and bottom notes are going down very smoothly taking no more than a half step. Contrast to that with the root of chords written, it's all over the scales like Ab - D - G - C - Bb. To me is was not very obvious by just looking at the chords how these harmonies are built around these chords.
The idea of Guide Tone Lines is very important in Jazz improvisation technique as my former teacher Gary Burton taught us that it is the "Clothes line to hang a melody on." So here it is, try this technique on some of the tunes you know and you might be surprised for finding some hidden clever harmony to hang your melodies on!
I think this technique works especially well with compositions that have II-V-I (e.g., D, G, C) chord movements.
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