Jazz Improvisation Study #1

One of my main reasons for starting this blog was to share all sorts of jazz improvisation ideas. There’s not going to be any particular sequence to these studies. Some will be rather complex, others pretty mundane, probably nothing all that original. But these are all things I put through my horn, and if it inspires somebody else to do the same or build upon what I’ve learned, then super! I’m going to start off with a fairly simple pattern I worked out today while warming up. Patterns to me are a way to open pathways through my instrument that unpracticed would pose a technical challenge. By playing systematic exercises that go through each and every possible interval and combination on the horn, I prepare for playing any passage during spur of the moment improvisation. Additionally, I familiarize my ear with new shapes and sounds.

The essence of this pattern is the 5-note spelling of the 4-tone minor 7th chord. This pattern repeats downward in minor thirds. To truly absorb any pattern, you must work it out in all other keys, as well as ascending and descending in other intervals. So try it descending in half steps, or ascending in perfect fourths. I wouldn’t generally spell this pattern out verbatim during the course of an improvisation. That sort of playing ends up sounding robotic. (Though, a splash of robot music can be a nice touch! Always let your taste guide you, not ‘rules’.) I do like to use fragments of patterns as launching points for lines, or to mix them with other patterns non-repetitively. Thus, the exercises you practice can serve as seeds for your musical imagination. It is worth noting that any time you create a line using minor seventh arpeggios minor thirds apart, the resultant note set is that of the diminished scale. So the pattern above could, for instance, be applied to a G7^alt tonality. However, when doing so, I advise you to not lose sight of the scale tone functions within the context of the harmony chord. For instance, C# is the root of the C#min7 pattern, but is still the #11th of the G7, so it is a tension in relation to the harmony chord.