I wanted to talk today about a very practical tip that can improve your improvisations on the bandstand. Everything we do in jazz improvisation is about creating music in the moment. Today’s tip is simple, yet one that is often overlooked with younger or intermediate level players. That is the importance of starting out strong…
Part 2. Simplicity is one of the key ingredients in teaching young children about improvisation. While some kids might soak up theory information…most do not. Most, in my experience, just want to play. They want to improvise. Try keeping the theory information as simple as possible (like the first 5 notes of a major scale…
Here we are at week #20 already! I truly hope you’ve been enjoying these tips (and those that have checked out the book too) and continue to check back in and share this blog with others. This is the final week of our Using the Melody series, so let’s dive right in. In this week’s…
Hey Everyone…welcome back to Week #19 where we’ll be going into the second part of our multi-week series on using the melody. But before we do that, I wanted to thank every one again that was at my clinic at Drake University’s Turner Jazz Center on Friday (Oct. 7th). I had a great time and…
Hey Everyone-here we are again with week #18’s tip-Using the Melody. This is the first week of another one of our multi-week series. If you’ve done any studying of improvisation in jazz, you’ll hear or read at some point the suggestion of “use the melody as your guide.” This is an excellent suggestion, especially for…
Welcome back to week #17 where we’re going to finish up our current mini-series on motifs. We’ve looked at how we can develop motifs by changing up the rhythm and probably the most obvious: notes. This week we’re going to look at what we can do with changing the intervals and the shape/contour. For those…
Welcome back to our current series on motifs. Last week we talked about some of the different elements we can manipulate to develop a motif. This week, we’re going to look at how we can develop motif’s by changing up their rhythm. There’s a number of different ways we can change up the original motif’s…
Welcome back to the blog! This is the 15th consecutive week of improvisation tips and we’re going to start into a multi-week series on motifs. A motif is a recurring subject, theme or idea. In the case of improvisations, motifs become great vehicles for improvisation because we can develop a simple idea into something more….
End of content
End of content