Jazz Improvisation Building Blocks

Listen to the language

• Gravitate to what you enjoy

• It can be any instrument not just your specific instrument

• Create a mental check list of what you like about it

Transcribe by ear

• Use your ear in real time to learn specific parts of solos directly

on your instrument

• Use an app to slow down difficult fast passages (if needed) (Amazing slow downer is a good one)

• Patterns that are especially interesting to you can be

transposed to multiple keys

• Ultimately, licks and patterns that you transcribe can be used in

your own improvisation.

Play by ear

• Play tunes that you can sing or are familiar enough with to

navigate on your instrument using your ear only

• Play that same tune starting on any other note and use your ear to successfully play it in as many different starting notes as you can

Create random melodic content

• Start playing any melodic ideas that come to mind and emotionally connect with what is coming out of your instrument

• Think in terms of breaking it into musical phrases and perform with as much musicality as you can

Learn Jazz Standards

• Memorize heads to standard tunes from the American Song Book

• Memorize the chord changes

• As you are listening to recordings of these tunes, play along with them to get the feel and inflections.

Practice the chord and scale relationships to the changes

• Start with root motion

• Evolve to scale relationships

• Evolve to arpeggiated relationships

Think the collections of notes but create melodic content

• emphasize the thirds and sevenths

• leave space (silence is a welcome break)

• try to "pre-hear" what you are about to play

• always try for the most musical statement possible

Nuts and Bolts

• Major scales

• "All keys are created equal" break down the barriers of comfort

• Once you have them, individually practice shifting to new keys

spontaneously (Need to be nimble)

Arpeggios

• All forms of seventh chords

• Major

• minor

• diminished

• half diminished

Blues Scales

• Start with Bb and F

• Eventually learn them all

Pentatonics (Not the singing group)

• Major and minor

Focus on time

• Random improvisation with the metronome felt on 2 and 4

• Focus on feel and groove

• Make musical phrases

• Don't worry about note choice as much as the pocket

• Change subdivision duple, triple, double-time