Breaking jazz practice into easy chucks
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Practicing jazz can be a hazardous journey with so many different views on what and how to practice!
I am going to share with you what works for me and many of my students!
For this blog post I am going to use a II V I. For more information on practicing those I have created this post - https://www.jazzetudes.net/post/how-to-practice-ii-v-i-s
Okay, if you are a beginner or intermediate student I highly recommend developing your ear finger coordination by simply playing the changes!
Check out these examples! A, B, C & D.
Really get to know the changes and the notes that are in them!
I highly recommend doing this over a simple jazz standard, something like 'When the saints', 'Autumn leaves' or 'Blue Bossa'.
Something else I recommend is to play the guide tones, learn to actually hear the guide tones (I spend a lot of time developing the ability to hear the 3rds of many jazz standards I play in performances).
Check out these exercises! E, F & G.
To truly feel like you are composing or improvising in the moment, I believe these skills are essential to master! Many people say I don't know the chord notes!
Well, learn them! I wasn't born knowing them either! By learning them and being able to instantly recognise the different intervals of the chord gives you a massive advantage when wanting to improvise melodically.
So, so far we have a good idea of what the chord notes are!
The next step is to start to think about adding rhythm.
Let's use 2 rhythms taken from famous jazz standards, remember you can practice this with many, many different rhythms!
If you play through the rhythms for Charlie Parker's 'Yardbird suite and George Gershwin's 'I've got rhythm' you will find you instantly have great syncopated rhythms already their for you to use.
This is almost like painting by numbers, just try to use the chord notes with the rhythms and you will instantly sound melodic and authentic! Check out the examples – H, I, J & K.
So, next we can add some leading notes, what do I mean by that? Simply approaching any chord note by a semitone from below or diatonically from above, either by an 1/8 note and1/4 note or a dotted ¼ note! Check out examples N and O.
The exercise for P is something I first noticed the great Trumpet player Tom Harrell using, so I now practice it thusly! Just start on a chord note and then play three notes and the skip one, sort of 1 2 3 5. Again diatonically (within the key centre) for this example C major!
Q shows a simple 2 note enclosure which I have taken from the vocabulary of Clifford Brown! Diatonically from above and a semitone below.
Next, again from Clifford Brown, I practice chromatic enclosures. Check out this video where I break it down a little – Enclosures video
R focuses only on chromatically enclosing chord notes! This type of vocabulary is great when playing more 'bop' orientated standards.
The example in letter S is vocabulary I first noticed (many years ago) the great trumpet player Fats Navarro use.
Something else I try to use in solos are motifs, basically rhythmically based but with that repetitive element to help hook in the listeners!
Check out examples T & U for motifs.
Examples V, W & X are a mixture of all the vocabulary and practice elements covered in this blog post!
Remember, the more you practice this type of vocabulary and chord notes, especially over famous standards, the more chance you will have of
1. Knowing the changes.
2. Have something meaningful to play over the changes.
3. Not get lost in the solo as you know the changes so well!
I hope you find this type of practice helpful.
Remember, this (like anything worth while in life) will not come quickly. Most people deviate or lose interest because it feels hard or they can't hear progress! This stuff takes time but the beauty of it is it can all be measured! If practiced properly, you can hear progress!
What else is great about this method (again many more on too quickly) unless you really know the changes, you can't apply the vocabulary!!
Practicing this way, in my opinion, gets so many aspects of your technique, chops, instrument knowledge, vocabulary & theory together! You just need to be patient and practice it thoroughly!
Here is a training video I created on 'A simple blues' using the same concepts.
If this blog post has helped you, please feel free to leave a comment and share it with your colleagues and friends!
In this post we haven't once mentioned scales. Make sure to subscribe to the blog for future posts!
Darren.
Thank you, Darren, finally someone who explains things very clearly. I've been trying to improvise for years with poor results. I certainly lack the basics that you describe excellently. Truly a method to recommend.
Thanks for this step-by-step breakdown Darren. With most jazz education (and maybe this is just me) I get drawn to the instruction that is essentially given by the jazz professional who leads off with “what do now in my practice to play well” rather than “what did I do when I was a beginner/intermediate to get me to the level where I am at now “.
Very different approaches, and I do find myself struggling with the high-level techniques without having first embedded the solid foundations you describe (being able to recognise and play the chord tones without necessarily thinking about them).
I’m going to bookmark this blog and keep coming back to it. Thank you again Darren.
Great!