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FunctionalJazzGuitar PDF
FunctionalJazzGuitar PDF
JAZZ GUIT AL
Linear J
azz Imp
AR rovi sation S
eries /
Ed Byrn
e
LINEAR JAZZ IMPROVISATION
Functional
Jazz Guitar
LINEAR JAZZ IMPROVISATION
Functional
Jazz Guitar
—Ed Byrne
Copyright © 2009 Dr. Ed Byrne
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher. For more information, contact the author at
Ed@ByrneJazz.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 9
INTRODUCTION 11
1. JAZZ THINKING 13
Primary Activities of the Jazz Practitioner 13
Jazz as Language 14
Approaching Jazz 15
Essential LJI Elements 17
Easy Method for Deriving Scales from Key 18
Developing a Style 19
Identifying & Fixing Limitations 20
Band in a Box and Play-Along CDs 21
Praxis 22
Practicing with the Playback Files 23
CONCLUSION 233
PREFACE
Most of the guitar students I have taught had, when we met, been
frustrated by contemporary jazz education, namely Chord Scale Theory, the
reigning pedagogy through which students are taught jazz improvisation,
since it doesn’t offer a clue as to what to say, supplying only the correct
notes—seven at a time. The student who is left to figure out meaningful
linguistic content on his or her own too often tends to flounder from having
been sidetracked by practicing scales out of theoretical books in their back
rooms, never even venturing out to play with others—the very point of
learning guitar.
The latter begins with the blues forms and such functional skills as
comping and soloing on cadences in various rhythmic styles. It is these
essential skills that we shall attack head-on in this volume. We will do this
artfully, and it is hoped that you will find these etudes to be as fun as they
are educational.
Ours is a unified approach to learning all aspects of the basic cadence and
blues forms, skills which can be readily applied to all jazz repertouire,
including standard tunes from the Great American Songbook. We will
address all the essential ensemble roles, such as the fundamental bass role,
the linear accompaniment role of the guide-tone line, and the voiced chord
and rhythmic accompaniment (comping) styles of swing, bossa nova, and
funk. Finally, we will learn extended solo lines on all of these basic
elements.
We shall not attempt here to be ground breaking—or to demonstrate all
possibilities or new paths. Neither shall we offer fingering positions or
special guitar techniques. But if you learn these exercises by rote with the
sound files, you will be able to play real jazz with others.
10
11
INTRODUCTION
This is the traditional way in which jazz practitioners have learned their
craft, besides apprenticing with master practitioners. The challenge is to then
personalize jazz idioms and link them to the essential compositional material
of specific tunes, which constitutes the second tier: the Linear Jazz
Improvisation method—developing a specific melody in particular.
It is the former skills that we shall address in this volume: How to master
the various basic skills and roles jazz music requires, and to use them in
performance with others. This book will give you a firm foundation in the
generic language, necessary understandings, and skills you will need in
order to function well in playing jazz with a group.
In an extemporaneous art form such as jazz, how one thinks has a direct
and profound impact on performance. Jazz is a language; its practitioners are
public speakers. When you learn to speak, you first learn by listening and
picking up figures of speech; then you learn to use them in your own
personal manner by combining them into sentences and paragraphs to tell
your story. The process is the same when learning jazz.
The public speaker must have stories to tell (a repertoire), know them
(the compositions), and have the vocabulary necessary to tell them in a
compelling manner. We therefore practice telling each story, work out the
rough parts, and then learn how to vary it in a variety of ways: short versus
long versions, various introductions and endings, substitute words, phrases,
rhythms, moods, and pacing. As with public speakers, there are all kinds of
jazz performers: insincere, slick, spontaneous, those who use easy-to-
understand vocabulary, those who use complex language, and those who
deliver memorized statements.
12
This book contains nine Finale files to practicing with. These are a
succession of idiomatic paradigms on each basic role, based on given major
and minor guide-tone lines and common cadences, 12-bar blues types, and
sophisticated melodic formulas to the same, in addition to modal planing. In
this effort, all etudes here are interrelated. The book closes with strong lines
on everything covered previously. There are different rhythmic feels in
sections, so the document has been broken into nine separate sections for
ease in practicing. These are basic yet hip lines, paradigms of each function.
Sing and play with the supplied play-back files in all keys, and you will
learn everything you need to know to get started playing guitar in a jazz
group. First read, then visualize, then just sing and play. Then play them
without the files, with a metronome alone.
Ed Byrne
13
CHAPTER 1
5. Listen. Transcribe.
8. Build a repertoire.
The only difference between jazz and any other spoken language
is that you can't order a cup of coffee with it.
Jazz as Language
There are many things to practice, and a lot of different ways of going
about it. Don’t limit yourself to any ideology, or any one way. When you
feel the need to expand in one direction or another, adopt new strategies for
the woodshed. Seek out new vocabulary, and do trial runs to incorporate it
into your story.
Your ideas must also contain the language of jazz: its phrases, rhythms,
articulations, inflections, vibratos, and clichés. If they do not, you need to
listen to jazz recordings of masters, sing and transcribe them. If your written
ideas already speak the jazz language, translate them into a more
spontaneous idiom. Begin by creating several ways to paraphrase each
phrase. You don't have to recompose it drastically at first. Just leave a note
out here and there, change a rhythm slightly, begin the phrase a half or
whole beat later and adjust the rest of the phrase to make it fit within the
meter and number of measures in each phrase. Do this without writing it out,
by repeatedly singing and playing it spontaneously. In this way your original
ideas will evolve organically into altered—and then new—ideas. This is the
nature of improvisation, which begins with paraphrase.
rhythms that can be found in the piece, and develop and permute both. This
results in an ability to identify your basic ideas. Develop them.
Essential Elements
The result is that you quickly learn the most pertinent aspects of a
composition, so that when you improvise, it has meaning with regard to the
piece you are playing, beyond improvising generic licks and patterns. This
method works without Greek names and theoretical jargon that is non-
essential to your mastering of improvisational skills. If you practice the
manner in which is presented in this method, you will gradually and
organically shed the merely technical; and the composition will begin to
speak to you.
18
While the Linear Jazz Improvisation method is not about scales and
modes, there is a much easier means of deriving them than through the
complicated chord scale theory.1 Begin by employing the scale of the key of
the composition. When chords appear that contain notes which are chromatic
(foreign) to that key, alter those pitches accordingly. For example, when a
G7 appears in a progression in the key of F, use the F scale, only change the
Bb to B (the third of the G7, which is chromatic to the key of F). While the
results are often the same as with chord scale theory, they are sometimes
profoundly different. For instance, the last chord of the A section of
Desifinado in the key of F is a Gb∆. Berklee College would call for a Gb
Lydian Mode, but with my approach you have: Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, E, and F.
There are no Greek names, no theories necessary: simplicity itself. An added
benefit of this approach is that, rather than thinking locally (from chord to
chord), you are liberated to think more globally (through the key of the
entire phrase). Incidentally, the scale cited above is actually called the
Persian scale, but it just came up as a natural consequence of the
progression.
While chord scale theory is the prevailing pedagogy in jazz, it is not the
most direct path to meaningful improvisation, which would be to address the
essential elements of specific compositions. Moreover, seven-note scales
often present too much meaningless information to the listener, especially
when these scales are derived from chords rather than melodies. They also
tend to be too conjunct. How often, for instance, do you hear a good melody
or line that moves exclusively stepwise? Many artists agree: Joe Henderson,
for example, used to say, I don't want to sound like the index of a book,
meaning that the graduates of college jazz departments sounded to him like
they were demonstrating their knowledge of scales out of a book, rather than
improvising meaningful statements on the specific song. Good lines,
moreover, are usually propelled forward by means of chromatic non-
harmonic tones (as with Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Parker, Davis, et al), and
chord scales don't address the blues, which can be played over virtually any
harmony.
1
For a detailed discussion of chord scales and jazz modes, see Understanding Scales and Modes in the
appendix below.
19
Developing a Style
The most important factor in reaching music mastery isn't talent, it’s
consistency and hard work. This is especially true for contemporary jazz
musicians, since rehearsals are at an absolute minimum. People are now
recording and performing a greater variety of styles than before, making it
essential to be solid on fundamentals in order to be able to digest a great deal
of sophisticated information in a hurry. Fixing your limitations relieves
stress and gives you confidence as a player, but you have to put in the time,
since being aware of your limitations and actually taking action to fix them
are two very different things.
Even with the knowledge of how to play something, you still must
consistently sit down and do the kind of slow, painful, repetitive practice
needed for improvement to occur. Go back, slow it down, and reconsider
your options; then persevere until it feels comfortable. Fix weaknesses by
slowly working through a tune to find out what you really want to be
playing, instead of just what your hands are comfortable finding. This kind
of practicing is mentally draining, but it is necessary, direct, and effective.
21
While Band in a Box and play-along CDs are valuable tools to help one
get started on the improvisation process—to hear the chord changes and the
groove, perhaps—do not over-rely on them. Ultimately, we must wean
ourselves off these tools before the become crutches. The only way to be
truly independent in group interplay is to first be able to play by oneself and
hear the rest. Then go out and play with others or the entire enterprise is
meaningless.
This book supplies no fewer than nine sound files to make the learning of
these skills easier and more fun. However, they primarily serve the function
of allowing you to practice comping rhythms, for example, against the
different rhythms and functions of the bass and drums. These files, too, are
intended only to serve to get you started. Ultimately, you should be able to
play all of this material without them, with merely a metronome. Then you
should improvise on all of it extensively.
22
PRAXIS
All keys
Sing to Internalize
.
23
This book is best learned with the supplied sound files, intended to be
played back in Finale Reader, a free and easy download. These are not Play-
Alongs, though, but rather, Practice-Alongs, so please don’t expect pseudo-
music here.
4. To stop and go back to any place in the document for more replays, press
the stop icon, and then type in the measure numbers.
5. Play the entire book back in Finale Reader, singing it until memorized.
Then gradually learn each exercise with each of the complete playback files,
both vocally and on your instrument. When that is learned, play it from
memory with a metronome alone.
8. Set the document’s playback for specifically what tempo you’d like for
each exercise by selecting the tempo menu and typing in your desired tempo
numbers.
11. Insert repeats into the Reader document to work sections out.
CHAPTER 2
One can combine guide tone lines in a variety of ways for more complex
results, but to create a background line, make a simple counter line. While
making it swing, still don't be afraid to leave some notes sustained and on
the beat. For best results, sing while creating. Add rhythm. Paraphrase it, and
it will gradually evolve organically into an improvisation. This
embellishment process can also be practiced systematically by applying
chromatic targeting.
CHAPTER 3
In this and many other ways, one formula evolves into many—however
related. In spite of our systematic practice of idioms in every key as a basic
praxis, in the heat of performance they find a great many unique ways of
coalescing, the end of one becoming the beginning of another, for instance.
This is especially true of all the traditional rhythms from which all African-
American music is derived. Create your own licks from the learned formulas
below.
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Circle of Fifths
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ii7 V7 I∆ Cadence
Triads are rarely used in jazz, in favor of the richer 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th
chords. A seventh chord can be placed in root position, first inversion with
the third in the bass, second inversion with the fifth in the bass, or in third
inversion with the seventh in the bass:
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Seventh chords in close voicing require long stretches for the left hand,
especially when inverted.
Inversions of seventh chords become far more user-friendly for the guitar
when using drop two:
So expedient for the guitar is the drop two voicing that we will begin by
focusing on specific examples of both first and second inversion drop two
cadences.
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Most of the time we avoid sounding the chord roots in the lowest guitar
voice, since to do so both interferes with the function of the bassist, but also
tends to ground the chords, having the effect of impeding the forward
motion of the rhythmic groove, especially in swing feel. On the other hand,
in Latin, funk, and other even-eighth-note feels in which melodic ostinato
bass lines are prevalent, octave doubling can sometimes actually enhance the
bassist’s line.
Altered to iiø, V7-9 i7(6/69), the ii7 V7 I∆ cadence works in the same
way in minor keys. It is not uncommon to combine major and minor
cadences, for example, the minor iiø, V7 resolving to major I∆, and major
version of ii7 V7 resolving to the minor key i7.
2
See Appendix 2 for an extensive list of harmonic clichés, to which you can adapt and apply all of the
same voicings found in this book.
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1. Withhold your forces: Don't comp on the head in the same way as you
would the solo sections. Play fewer attacks, and place more of them on the
beat than off. Use the compositional elements in your accompaniment, as
Herbie Hancock does best.
2. While the head is often about creating tension with hits, the
developmental sections (solos) should level off and swing with fewer
interruptions. It should also make you dance. Use rhythmic repetition in your
accompaniments. It has to be felt physically in order to be effective. Since
lines should not become redundant, sounding as filler to keep it all going,
allow them to breathe.
Written
Played
Applied
3
For pedagogical reasons we do not vary the pattern in these pages: This basic comping skill begins by
learning to control the consistent placement of these anticipations. Moreover, beginners almost always
over-vary this pattern to the point that the effect is ruined, before having learned to control the placement of
these pecks.
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In the pages below we have the basic major and minor cadences for you
to learn in all keys, applied to the rhythm above. In addition, we will learn
paradigm versions of all their related root progressions, as we will do also in
the chapter on blues forms which follows.
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CHAPTER 4
BLUES
The blues has been an essential element of jazz since its inception,
sometime at the beginning of the 19th century. Blues tunes can take many
different forms, the most common of which is the 12-bar blues (found both
in major and minor keys). There are also 16, 24, and 32-bar blues—and
blues ballads as well. Summertime, for example, is a minor 16-bar blues;
Watermelon Man is a major 24-bar blues; Angel Eyes, You Don't Know What
Love Is, and Willow Weep for Me are all minor key 32-bar blues ballads. I've
got Rhythm and Confirmation are 32-bar blues, but with common tonal
bridges.
In the traditional 12-bar blues the lyrics follows an AAB form: a 4-bar
statement (A) that is repeated (A), followed by a different, concluding,
statement (B). The basic progression involves movement from I to IV, back
to I; and then IV, V (or V, IV), back to I. The 24-bar blues is usually an
augmentation of the 12-bar type, with each measure occupying two
measures instead of one. In the case of Watermelon Man, the V7-IV7
progression in measures 9-10 is played three times instead of once. Sevenths
were added as blue notes, rather than for their dominant functions. By using
this basic formula as a template and substituting other chords that function in
similar fashion, or by adding additional secondary cadences, you can easily
find alternatives to this, but a blues progression will still most often at least
suggest the basic I, IV, V form.
Beyond these, there are no empirical rules. Many blues melodies contain
blue notes (b3, b5, b7), such as Summertime (a minor 16-bar blues with b5 in
the melody), but not necessarily. Overall, there is a mood of sadness or
hardship—but not defeat or self pity; and if the melody doesn’t specifically
contain blue notes, it usually nonetheless lends itself to their application in
improvisation. There are often chords in the chord progression that contain
or suggest blue notes, such as the added sevenths to the basic progression
cited above, or the Ab7 appearing in the key of C or C minor, suggesting the
b3 and b5 blue notes (as we will find later in the Equinox-type minor blues.
In the post bop period (1950s), one procedure was to do a 12-bar blues as an
AABA form, using a common blues progression for the A sections, while
inserting a tonal bridge to add relief from the blues in the middle of each
chorus.
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Twelve-Bar Blues
The twelve-bar blues is still perhaps the most common form in jazz
today, and the kinds of things one plays on a blues are the same as what
practitioners do on jazz standards. As stated above, the most basic blues uses
only three European chords, those built on scale degrees I, IV, and V. While
I functions as a tonic chord (T) at rest, IV active subdominant (SD), and
most active is V dominant (D). The chords most commonly take the form of
seventh chords, such as C7, F7, and G7, but the sevenths function as blue
notes, rather than as part of the tritone, the characteristic augmented fourth
(flatted fifth) interval between the seventh and third that defines the D
function.
Below is the most basic traditional 12-bar blues. If you know it well, it is
relatively easy to adapt to other forms.
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Jazz Blues
The jazz blues will most often employ more than the three basic chords,
with substitutions either replacing or enhancing the original blues chords.
These substitutions are usually related to the original chords. Common chord
substitutes are secondary ii7 V7 I∆ cadences, passing diminished chords,
and turnarounds such as I vi ii V, which is a cliché cadential device used to
smoothly return to the first chord at the tune’s beginning.
When you play a blues in a jam session today, the progression below will
most likely be used—or something close to it. It is this major blues
progression that we assume in this chapter:
In the example above, the C7 in m.1 is the I chord; but rather than
remaining on I in m.2 as we did in the basic blues above, this example
moves to F7, IV. M.3 returns to I, and in m.4 we find a secondary cadence,
ii7/IV7 V/IV7, instead of remaining on I∆.
can be found in mm.8-9. Count up the scale from D to find the ii7 V7 I∆
progression. In mm.11-12 the I vi ii V progression acts as a turnaround to
the I chord.
We will also learn a few variant ways of voicing the chords of these same
cadences. We will not, however, attempt to offer an anthology of voicing
possibilities. Instead we shall focus on essential three and four-note voicings
with no roots on bottom, often substituting 9 for 1, 13 for 5, or 11 for 3. In
actual practice, added tensions and color notes in chord voicings need not be
specified in their notation, since their interpretation is usually left to the
individual player’s discretion.
77
As with the major blues, there are many variants. In this chapter we shall
learn the ubiquitous minor blues form below:
Notice that, like the major blues, the minor blues is still based on I, IV,
and V. As with the essential cadences, both versions retain these basic
chords, only in a different version. As we observed with minor cadences, to
the ii7 is typically added a flatted fifth, while the V7 gains a flatted ninth.
The tonic and subdominant become minor seventh chords (i7 and iv7), and
the ii7-5 often replaces the iv7 chord in measure 5.
We will also learn the now standard minor blues form of John Coltrane’s
Equinox, which is a basic I, IV, V blues, only in minor. Instead of the typical
minor cadence in measures 9-10, it employs (in C minor) Ab7 to G7, in
which the Ab7 substitutes for Dm7-5.
For the most common major and minor blues, we will also learn specific
riff-style comps, in which the chords are played in swing rhythm with
somewhat varied repetitious four-measure sustained rhythmic phrases.
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CHAPTER 5
BOSSA COMPING
While the even eighth-note feel of the Brazilian samba, from which the
North American Bossa Nova developed, is most often played in cut time (2/4
or 2/2 meter), the bossa nova is in common time (4/4 meter), and is usually
performed at a moderate tempo. We shall now apply to the cadences covered
earlier the two most basic Brazilian comping rhythms of this style, each with
its most common variant in which each two-measure rhythmic pattern is
displaced,.
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CHAPTER 6
The special challenge of playing meaningful ideas on the guitar is to avoid mindless
scales and patterns. Since it's easy for your fingers to run amuck, singing everything you
practice, both with and without the guitar, will help you focus directly on melodicism.
Melodic Formulas
We begin with the common cadences, and then cover some with colorful
melodic tensions, before learning a few very hip blues lines that go with the
blues styles we learned earlier. Since the final blues line is entirely based on
the most common (minor) blues scale, it will work on both the major or
minor blues tunes.
Swing
Written
Interpreted
Each rhythmic style, moreover, has its own definitive generic rhythms,
basic rhythmic patterns for each of the most common jazz rhythmic styles—
what we have been learning.
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Feel 4/4 straight-ahead swing time on beats two and four—unless it's real
fast, and then think in a normal half-time (on beats one and three). Notice
that the very count-off by the band-leader involves finger-snapping on beats
two and four. This is because in swing feel the strong beats are reversed
from the normal Western 4/4 meter in which beats one and three are the
strong beats. It only takes a little getting used to once you have this
understanding. This turned-around effect is not present, however, in most
other rhythmic styles, such as samba and funk, which tend to maintain the
usual hierarchy of metric stress. If you must tap your foot, do it inside your
shoe so it can't be seen or heard.
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Inflections and articulations are the most overlooked aspects of jazz education.
Bend
Scoop
Fall-Off: lip, half-valve, chromatic evaporating
Rip
Portamento/Glissando
Tremolo, Shake, Trill
Doodle Tongue
Growl
Flutter Tongue
Grace Note
Vibrato(s)
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The Blues Scale is based on the Pentatonic Scale, which contains five of
the Blues Scale’s six notes.
Blue notes can be played over virtually any harmony. Try, for example,
sounding the Cm Blues Scale over every C chord (C, Cm∆, Cm, C7, C ∆#5,
and so on, one at a time).
We have a 12-bar blues based on this scale for you to learn below. It will
work over both the major and minor blues progressions in this book.
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CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
ADVICE
Pay Attention
4 Triads
∆
∆-5
m7
m∆
ø
7
7sus4
7-5
+7
+∆
o7
o∆
These chords are the basic harmonic vocabulary of jazz. Linear Jazz
Improvisation Books II and III will help you internalize them by applying
ten different chromatic targeting patterns to each one.
221
Internalizing Intervals
Get Over It
Sight Singing
Transcription
If you copy one artist too much you could become a clone, but most of us
learn a great deal from this process by drawing from a variety of players. To
get started, memorize Miles Davis’s solos on So What and Someday My
Prince Will Come, and Kenny Durham's solos on Recorda-Me and Blue
Bossa—improvisations which are melodic and do not contain too many fast
passages. Learn also to sing their inflections, articulations, and vibratos.
You could write them out, but that is more difficult and less to the point
with regard to learning vocabulary, since the latter focuses on developing
notational skills as well. Many ideas that you transcribe would never occur
to you otherwise. Each phrase learned in this manner can be paraphrased and
recomposed and combined in ways that bear your own sonic fingerprint.
Listen to jazz recordings with particular attention to what rhythms are used.
In this way you will learn the rhythmic language and also the particular
rhythms found in the tunes you're working on. Study also recordings of
traditional African music, as well as its Brazilian and Cuban relatives.
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Internalizing Tunes
7. Go through the entire tune in this manner: simply, so that it will stick in
your memory.
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Do all of the above with a metronome. Since you want to program your
subconscious mind to remember the exact melodic rhythm for further
development, take care never to add or drop a beat. There are usually only
two primary ideas in a given song. It helps to study recorded performances
of the tune. After you finish with this preliminary process, you can then
concentrate on developing your own personal phrasing style and
improvisations on the piece without fear of forgetting its essentials or getting
lost.
Use the same process to internalize the chords. Guitarists and pianists in
particular must remember the chords in some fashion, since they will need to
accompany as well as solo. Develop the ability to remember both the melody
and the chords, but first learn the melody, then the chords, and then put them
together in the manner cited above. As you get more practice at it, the
process will become easier, and you will eventually be able to do both at
once.
Transcribe and analyze many songs of different types. The more different
tunes you examine, the easier it will be for you to recognize their various
types. Gradually you will be able to adapt to new tunes rapidly, whether
reading or hearing. Once you are capable of recognizing the various song
styles, you will only need to remember those things that are different from
its type. Try to get past the intellectual and analytical. After the tune is
learned, forget all calculations and work by ear. Eventually, you’ll be able to
skip the intellectual process altogether.
The talented and illiterate often develop the essential memory skills much
faster than the literate, since the former have gotten into a habit of relying on
their ears out of necessity. Intellectual skills, although helpful in many ways,
are not essential to an extemporaneous art form such as jazz. Many masters
have been musically illiterate. Moreover, no matter how intellectual and
literate one becomes, one still needs to ultimately lose such thinking in order
to tap into the most direct and spontaneous forms of improvisation.
Therefore, internalize progressions by singing them in the form of arpeggios
through the entire form, and sing the guide tone lines and root progressions.
First you need to be able to sing arpeggios of each and every chord
separately: the four triad types, the twelve seventh chords, and the various
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ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords. The more you develop and rely upon
your tonal memory, the less you will need to intellectualize and analyze:
You just know.
This process begins with the blues and standard tunes, which are still the
types of tunes most often used in jazz. Tunes containing late nineteenth-
century extended harmony and twentieth-century non-functional chord
successions are more advanced and therefore more difficult at first to learn,
yet they too can be memorized in this same manner. It just takes dogged
determination, hard work, and time to develop. In transcribing chord
changes, transcribe the lead line first, then the bass, and then ascertain the
chord quality (sing the thirds and sevenths). After enough such
transcriptions, you will get to where you hear entire progressions as clichés.
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Internalizing Chords
Solfegge the reduced melody, guide tone lines, and root progression of
standard tunes. Memorize everything, unless time restrictions make it
impossible. Minimize the symbols and reading as a step towards
internalizing a song. Know all the basic song types. Be able to recognize and
sing chord phrases (harmonic clichés such as I, vi, ii, V—see Chord
Appendix 2 below). When sight-reading, first look over a lead sheet, and
then put it away.
It's easier to transcribe chord changes when you first know the basic
formulas. Start with the lead voice, then the bass, then the second from the
top on down. You should be able to deduct some of it after you recognize its
inner patterns. Try also writing down a tune you already can sing.
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8. Classic: Summertime
1. Go to the local clubs on open mike night. Meet the players, and then find
out who seems to be like-minded and might want to jam. Setting this up in
advance to meet once a week is best, since it sends the message that the
activity will continue regardless of any individual’s absence. It also
minimizes the necessity for phone calls, which are convenient opportunities
for participants to cancel under pressure from family. Most important,
though, is that with a regular schedule it becomes part of the participants’
schedules.
3. Invite everyone who can play—especially those better than you. Find out
who is reliable and cool. Invite them back. Schedule it for every week at the
same time and place regardless of who comes. Make music, learn, and have
fun. The word will get out that there is playing going on.
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Ideological Preconceptions
Ideology is the kiss of death to the artist, along with preconceived notion
and over-stylization. Some jazz artists limit their music for various
ideological reasons, such as the black artist clinging excessively to quartal
voicings and avoiding the rest of the harmonic vocabulary presumably
because it's white, or the white artist avoiding cliché jazz rhythms and blue
notes because that's black and he wants to be original.
When playing in a group that includes both guitar and piano, some basic
accommodations are needed. Since jazz pianists usually take over the
comping role, leaving the guitarist to find another dimension in which to
create background interest, guitarists should bear the following suggestions
in mind:
1. Work out ahead of time which of you will comp for which soloists. One
can comp while the other rests.
2. Let the pianist comp while the guitarist plays guide tone lines. The
guitarist can, in this way, supply the essential harmonic movement in a
melodic and rhythmic fashion, while the pianist does the bulk of the
chording.
3. Play bits of the reduced melody (reduced to whole or half notes placed on
the beat).
5. Have the guitarist supply effects that do not interfere with the piano
comp—rhythmic, motivic, and electronic.
4. Analyze the syntax to each and every melody note with regard to the key
it's in, as well as the chord over which it resides.
In practicing, it is better to think globally (in the overall phrase and key)
than locally (chord to chord, or chord-scale to chord-scale); the results will
be more musical and logical. Once you have internalized a tune, begin
running choruses while keeping the themes in mind. Learn to recognize the
licks that you continually attempt to play, and when they are rough, stop and
work them out; then continue the process, putting them back into context. As
you internalize a tune, you will not have to think about any of these things in
performance.
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CONCLUSION
You are now ready for Linear Jazz Improvisation, Book I, where we
explore melody reduction and rhythmic development in depth, based on the
salient elements of specific compositions.
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235
APPENDIX 1
HARMONY
Early in the tonal period, it became obvious that the seven diatonic
chords were predictable, and that secondary key areas (cadences borrowed
from keys other than the primary key) were needed for variety, movement,
and interest. By employing a dominant of a diatonic chord, you increase the
need for resolution and further propel the progression forward towards the
primary cadence. Since secondary cadences do not last long enough (usually
fewer than four measures) to establish true modulations, they merely suggest
temporary chromatic key relationships that enhance the primary key; but the
tritones (augmented fourth intervals) of the secondary dominants
dramatically increase the need for resolution into momentary secondary
keys. This form of harmonic enhancement is commonly applied to any chord
in a progression.
Modal Interchange
From the earliest days of tonal music, composers have observed a close
relationship between the relative major and minor modes in key
interchanges within a given progression or overall composition, since they
share the same key signature. There is a similar close relationship between
the parallel major and minor modes, since they share the same tonic (but
with different key signatures). These are used as color additions to the
composer’s palette. By extension, any of the diatonic major and minor mode
chords in a given key can be interchanged, and are often found juxtaposed in
successive passages.
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Chord Substitution
Chord substitution involves the replacing of one chord with another. The
simplest form of this would be to replace a diatonic chord (having only notes
within the key) with another of the same or similar function. For example, in
the key of C you could use any of the following tonic chords (at rest)
relatively interchangeably:
The next most common type is the Tritone Substitute Dominant (SubV7),
a dominant chord whose root is an augmented fourth away from V7,
resolves down a minor second instead of up a perfect fourth. The (bII7-5) is
used interchangeably with V7. As with secondary dominants, there are also
secondary substitute dominants. The reason these two chords are similar is
that they share the same tritone, the characteristic interval which defines the
dominant function, since the tritone wants to resolve to tonic.
For example, in the key of C the F leans towards E, while B, the leading
tone, leads to the tonic, C. These notes retain the same tendencies regardless
if they appear in G7 or Db7. Both G7-5 and Db7-5 share the same four
notes: They differ in that D moves up a perfect fourth (or down a perfect
fifth) to the root of the tonic chord, while SubV7 descends chromatically.
While the ubiquitous ii7 V I cadence offers the strongest possible root
progression (through the cycle of fourths), ii7 bII7 I is the second strongest
root progression, descending in minor seconds.
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APPENDIX 2
HARMONIC CLICHES
Note: For convenience of reading, all examples are in C. All major or minor
chords can take the form of a triad, 6, 69, 7, or ∆.
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Cliché Cadences
ii7 V7 I∆
Dm7 G7 C∆
iiø V7-9 i
Dø G7-9 Cm
ii7 V7 i
Dm7 G7 Cm
iiø V7-9 I
Dø G7-9 C
ii7 bII7 i
Dm7 Db7 Cm
iiø bII7 I
Dø Db7 C
iiø bII7 i
Dø Db7 Cm
bvi7 bII7 I
Abm7 Db7 C
bvi7 bII7 i
Abm7 Db7 Cm
bviø bII7 I
Abø Db7 C
bviø bII7 i
Abø Db7 Cm
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bvi7 V7 I
Abm7 G7 C
bvi7 V7 i
Abm7 G7 Cm
bviø V7 I
Abø G7 C
bviø V7 i
Abø G7 Cm
IV V I
FGC
IV V i
F G Cm
iv V i
Fm, G, Cm
iv V I
Fm G C
ii7/iii7 V7/iii7 I
F#m7 B7 C
ii7/iii7 V7/iii7 i
F#m7 B7 Cm
ii7ø/iii7 V7/iii7 I
F#ø B7 C
iiø/iii7 V7/iii7 i
F#ø B7 Cm
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Cliché Progressions
I vi7 ii7 V7 I IV
C Am7 Dm7 G7 F
I #i°7 ii7 V7
C C#o7 Dm7 G7
I biii°7 ii7 V7
C Ebo7 Dm7 G7
i bII7
Cm Db7
I bII7
C Db7
Cycle 5:
C7 F7 Bb7 Eb7, etc
Line Cliché
(VI7 over b2 bass) V7/II7, (II7 over 1 bass) V7/V7, (V7 over leading-tone
bass)
APPENDIX 3
To learn what Miles Davis thought of his music from his so-called modal
period (circa 1958-63), the best source is his own account in Miles: The
Autobiography, in which he states that he was prompted toward improvising
on fewer chords by Gil Evans' arrangements of George Gershwin’s Porgy
and Bess, for which Evans in places wrote Davis only a single pentatonic
scale on which to improvise. He also writes that George Russell
recommended pianist Bill Evans (no relation to Gil) to Davis in 1958 for
Davis’s small group LP, Kind of Blue, on the strength of Evans' knowledge
of the music of French Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and
Maurice Ravel. Davis subsequently became infatuated with Ravel’s
Concerto for the Left Hand, and spent roughly the next thirteen years
incorporating his musical devices from that particular piece into a distinctive
Davis style of what some historians (Winthrop Sargeant, for example) aptly
termed Impressionist Jazz, in which Davis used unresolved melodic
tensions, quartal harmony, non-functional chord successions, extended pedal
points, bi-tonality, and other salient characteristics of early twentieth-century
Western art music.
To summarize: From 1958 on, Davis was searching for a way to play
more motivically and to be less constricted to running chord changes while
improvising. In the process, he became captivated by Ravel's various
devices. While he thought that this constituted modality, he was in reality
incorporating early twentieth-century Impressionist devices into jazz.
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PRACTICING MODES
The easiest way to think scales is as follows: harmonic minor for the first
two chords, Dorian (for i7), melodic minor (for m∆), and the pentachord
itself for m69 (Cm69 = C, D, Eb, G, A). There are, however, many other
solutions, and a great many other alterations can also be employed— mostly
for their color qualities. It should be kept in mind, however, that the more
pitch classes one includes in the harmony, the more restricted the soloist
becomes. In addition, approach those alt fake book symbols with skepticism,
since they are often there unnecessarily.
Practice scales through all keys, the entire range of the instrument, with a
metronome. After learning scales, improvise on them one at a time until they
246
are internalized. Below is a short list of the most common scales. Regardless
of the mode, or the number of notes in that scale, they should all be practiced
in all inversions (modes).
Ionian—scale 4
Dorian—scale 6
Phrygian— scale b2
Lydian— scale +4th
Mixolydian— scale b7
Aeolian— scale b6
Locrian— scale b2 and b5
As a practical matter, fingerings for any or all of the modes based on the
C scale, for example, will be the same, regardless of which mode it is, since
they are all inversions of the same seven-note gamut. In practicing these
scales, keep track of all the keys and inversions you do, to ensure you cover
it all. Try to get all to a similar level at first, and then return repeatedly to all
of it again at later times at increasingly faster tempos. You could stay on
each key for longer periods of time, or you could try to get through a given
scale in all keys (or transpositions) in a given day. Both ways are beneficial,
yet have somewhat different results. Therefore, do them both ways. After
learning each mode, add non-harmonic tones to each, starting with leading
tones; then improvise frequently, both vocally and instrumentally, on each
mode—especially to get used to hearing one note at a time as the priority
note.
Modes of Major
I∆ C∆ ~ Ionian
ii7 Dm7 ~ Dorian
iii7 Em7 ~ Phrygian
IV∆ F∆ ~ Lydian
V7 G7 ~ Mixolydian
vi7 Am7 ~ Aeolian
viiø Bø ~ Locrian
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All of the modes of the major and melodic minor are frequently used. The
harmonic minor, however, is usually preserved for its fifth inversion (V7-9
in minor key areas). Other symbols could be added, and they are numerous.
In most cases, however, it's best to ascertain which scale is involved without
all the extensions, since they are not usually all needed in the voicing itself.
repeatedly until they are internalized. Sing all adjacent and non-adjacent
intervals of each. In addition, all their chords and all chordal voicings can be
memorized in the same fashion as with scales. Do the same with virtually
everything you are learning—then lose the visual and mental intellectual
thinking.
While we have added six and six/nine to the list for major, they usually
take pentatonic forms. Tension 11 works well in the bass of any m7 or ø
chord. Since there are three different m7 chords and two ∆ chords, in order
to know which mode to apply, you need to understand how each chord is
functioning within the progression (since, for example, ii7 takes Dorian,
while iii7 takes Phrygian, and vi7 takes Aeolian). This can sometimes be
important in certain secondary cadences, keys of the moment, for example, in
the key of C:
|| F#ø B7-9 | Em7 || is ii7/iii7 V7-9/iii7 | iii7 (F# Locrian, E harmonic minor
over B, Em7 Phrygian—usually not Dorian). There are always exceptions,
however. Analyze many tunes of different types at the piano.
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Im∆: Cm∆, Cm, Cm6, Cm69, Cm∆9, Cm∆, 9, 11, 13 ~ Melodic Minor
ii7: Dm7, Dm, Dm6, Dm11(no9) ~ Dorian-9
bIII+∆: Eb+∆ ~ Lydian Augmented
IV7+11: F7+11, F9+11, F13, F7-5, F9-5 ~ Lydian b7, Overtone Scale,
Lydian Dominant
V7-13: G7-13, G9, G7sus4, G9sus4, G7-13, G9-13 ~ Mixolydian-13
viø9: Aø9, Aø, Aø11 ~ Aeolian-5
VII+7-9, +9, -5, +5: B7-5, -9, B+7, B7-9, +9, +11, -13 ~ B+7 ~ Altered
(Superlocrian)
Due to the resultant minor ninth interval, avoid -9 in any minor chord
voicing, even when it is in the scale. Avoid 5 and -5 (or 5 and #11) in the
same voicing on dominant chords. In the melodic minor mode, some use
7sus4-9 as a form of ii7 chord. This is misleading and illogical, though,
because that symbol would indicate a dominant type chord, implying a
major third (F#) in the collection (if there were one). The A7sus4-9 chord is
in reality a V7-9, only with its fourth degree sustained and not resolved to
chord tone major three. The pitch collection would implicitly be D, Eb, (F#),
G, A, C, with the B pitch class unspecified. A better solution, perhaps,
would be to call it instead a Cm69/D.
In a minor cadence such as ii7ø, V7, i7, use Locrian on the iiø. The
melodic minor mode suggests a major ninth, which is a good option at times,
creating a momentary major third of the key in a minor key. The V7 usually
takes the harmonic minor (-9 only). The i chord could imply any minor
scale, depending on context. Don't use the alt symbol, because it isn't a
chord symbol, but rather, a prescription for a scale. Be specific: VII+7 (with
any of the following, in any combination: -9, +9, -5 (+11), +5 (-13)—and
only use the tensions which you specifically want to be sounded. The
remaining notes should be left to the players’ discretion.
Linear Jazz Improvisation
Ed Byrne
• Blue Funk
• Blue Pasa
• You Are All Things
• Selma by Searchlight
• I'm Near a Rhapsody
• Riffraff (F Blues)
• Blue Rendezvous
About Ed Byrne:
Ed Byrne is a trombonist, composer/arranger, educator, and author who has performed
and recorded with most of the jazz world’s leading musicians during a career that has
spanned four decades, including Chet Baker, Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus, Dizzy
Gillespie, James Brown, Eddie Palmeri, and countless other international artists. He
earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of
Music, and is the recipient of numerous honors.
Ed has sat on the faculties of Berklee College, Baruch College, University of the Arts,
Greenfield Community College, and the University of Rhode Island, and has written
many texts on jazz improvisation. He is an active and innovative educator and clinician,
with many of his students going on to high-profile careers, including Kenny Werner, Abe
Laboriel, Chip Jackson, Freddie Bryant, Mark Elf, Papo Vasquez, and Gary Dial.