Jazz Improvisation Forum

The secret of jazz phrasing, I

Miguel Andres Tejada
Music is in the air and you find it, or music is in the air and you dont find it Keith Jarret I believe that many of us have been taught how to improvise in a jazz context in the wrong way. First, we heard about scales or a mode that works over a particular chord or progression and then hope for some good musical idea to come out unsuccessfully. Months and years of practicing in this away only to attain mediocre results, not fair, right?! There are many books and methods out there using this approach. As pianist keith Jarret, said during his speech at NEA jazz masters award 2014 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDbOKHOuy9M) , this method is useless, and I know some of you may be thinking what? Well, he is right on the money. This scale-oriented approach does teach you some things but in the wrong order, to say the least. The way J. S. Bach composed his great music is not so distant the way Charlie Parker improvised his hip lines in the sense they understood something about music that is more than scales, something that is beyond what works well, they discovered something that was meaningful. Do you know what meaningful is? A meaningful song, a meaningful gift, a meaningful moment in your life, a meaningful whatever So, what does meaningful mean to you. Does a song deliver something important like a message, a feeling or you just dig the melody a lot. What about a meaningful gift? Why was it so important to you? What about a meaningful moment in your life? A clear intention, a particular feeling, a direct message, all of this seems to deal with how meaningful things are, in my opinion. Do the exercise by yourself and try to find other attributes. Let me show you this now. All the ex. are in the G clef:

Everybody knows it. You may know it as the Ionian mode and you may know that it works well on a C major chord for example. Good, now try to improvise something that has a clear intention or a particular feeling or a direct messagecan you?, How long it takes to make it possible? Days, months, years?

Now, look at the beginning of Parkers Ornithology transposed to fit on the key of C major:

Is there a clear intention or a direct message? Of what? Is there something behind or beyond the scale? What is it? Note: for those who are really beginners let me point out that jazz rhythm is different from traditional one, so if you dont know this please google it before you continue. Now lets take a look to the C major seventh chord:

This Cmaj7 chord example spells the primary notes of the chord: 1, 3, 5, 7. The 1 is the root, from where the other notes come from, like the root of a tree. The 3, is what makes the chord sound major or minor, in this case has a major third of course. The 5 is the next note after the root in the Harmonic Series or overtones, hence it makes the root sounds stronger and compliment it, but doesnt really defines the quality or function of the chord from a diatonic point of view. The 7 has an important role to define the function of a chord, where is a Dominant Chord or a Tonic chord. Of course there are other uses for the 7 as in the Blues, for example. Before we move forward I want you to focus on improvise on this four notes of the Major Chord in different keys. 1, 3, 5, 7 is all you need to play for now. It is very normal wanting to play all the fancy lines Charlie plays on his solos, but trust me in this one: He knew and understood how to play with chord tones creatively and, obviously,much more than that. Until you dont understand and HEAR those notes in your head, you will not get anywhere. If you write the notes between this chord tones you get the Ionian Mode. And this scale is what you should use to improvise on Major chords diatonically right?Well, thats exactly what I DONT want you to do. It is the other way around, is not the scale or mode but the harmony (root, quality and function) what tells you what to play in general. Of course you can play atonal music over a chord or progression, but I know for sure that those who sound good playing out, know how to play in. I want you to practice these lines and transpose them to as many Major Chords as you can: Cmaj7 try to create different rhythms with the same line (CT)

This ex. starts on the 3 and ends on 5, focus on the color of those notes. Notice how I approach the C in the third beat and the G in the second measure.

You may have heard this from the traditional jazz vocabulary; it starts and ends on 7.

Play them as much as you can and listen to them a lot, memorize them, and then create from them. Apply what you learned on Standars (you can use a play along to make it more interesting and a little more real or practice with other musicians better) These are examples for the I chord. Next we are working with the V and the II chord to see how they function together. The sounds of these examples will be in my Blog pretty soon Tunes you can work on: -Take the A train -All of me -Forest Flower