Improvisation I
Build a first jazz solo from the inside out: arpeggios in position, guide-tone lines, chord-tone targeting, approach notes and enclosures, and motifs that turn notes into phrases.
- Play two-octave seventh-chord arpeggios (maj7, 7, m7, m7b5, dim7) from the 6th and 5th strings without looking
- Write and play a guide-tone line (3rds and 7ths) through a ii–V–I, a turnaround and the F jazz blues
- Improvise lines that put chord tones on the strong beats and land on the 3rd of each new chord
- Decorate chord tones with chromatic and diatonic approach notes and enclosures
- Develop a motif by repetition, sequence, inversion and rhythmic displacement into a two-chorus solo
Improvisation is not a talent you either have or lack; it is a set of habits, and the first habit is knowing where the chord tones are while the chords go by. This module builds that habit in five steps. First you learn the arpeggio shapes that put every chord tone under your hand. Then you reduce each chord to its two most important notes, the 3rd and 7th, and learn to connect them. Next you improvise with chord tones on the beat, then surround them with approach notes, and finally you turn your notes into music by developing short ideas over the F blues and the Autumn Leaves progression. Work through the lessons in order; each one assumes the previous one is under your fingers, not just understood.