Welcome back everyone! If this is your first time visiting this site, welcome and please feel free to check out some of our past posts and improv tip series. If you’re one of our returning friends…welcome back! I will be continually updating this site with new information, updates, tips and starting this week: adding video to past weekly jazz tips. The video below will accompany Week 1′s topic: Guide Tones and Targets. The original tip is posted below the video. Enjoy!
If you’ve ever heard someone improvise and it sounds like they’re wandering….guess what? They probably are. One of the reasons improvisers wander is because they’re not aiming at specific targets. What are good targets, you ask? Guide Tones, of course!
You may be wondering, what is a Guide Tone? Traditionally speaking, a Guide Tone is either the 3rd or the 7th of the chord of the moment. However, if you’ve ever listened to great improvisers…they never limit themselves to just the 3rd or the 7th (but they’re a GREAT place to target if you’re starting out). They often expand their guide tones or targets out to other chord tones or upper structures (i.e. root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, etc).
To implement Guide Tones, take a song you’re working on and figure out all of the 3rd and 7ths for each chord. When you’re practicing your improvisation with that song, target or aim with purpose for those Guide Tones. Just targeting the 3rd and the 7th is not going to make you an instant improvising sensation. But, they will help keep you on track of your improvisation and limit your wandering. One way to think about this is like planning a road trip on a map. You’re leaving point A (the beginning of your improvisation) and need to get to point Z (then end of your improvisation). You need destination points along the way to gas up or to eat. Those destination points are targets on your map. Those targets in your improvisation are your guide tones!
For more information on how you can creatively get to your targets, check out Targeting: Improvisation With Purpose at our Digital Store
greetings from linkedin, Jazz education network ! great blog, very useful and informative. i too am teaching a jazz improvisation class and found many useful pointers here.
jamila
Thanks Jamila!