A Guide to Melodic Improvising – Text and Play-along Set

There are many books, practice methods and play-along CDs that discuss jazz
harmony and jazz rhythm, but few that deal with melody at any comparable level of
detail. Jazz educational methodology focuses almost exclusively on harmony, and few
improvisation courses discuss what the essence of a solo really is – melody. I’ve
always felt that melody is the most emotionally direct and powerful element in
music, especially in improvised solos, so this book seeks to fill that educational gap
by focusing on melody as a learnable and improvable attribute, and as a key to greater
enjoyment of music as a listener and performer.

Any improvisor, beginner or advanced, can increase the interest level and
emotional impact of his or her solo by prioritizing on its melodic development rather
than on merely trying to express the complexities of the harmonic progression.
Greater harmonic and rhythmic knowledge and facility lead to greater melodic
sophistication, of course, but without an essential melodicism any jazz solo risks
becoming more abstract and less memorable. After all, when you whistle or sing
along with a tune, what is it but the melody with which you connect?

In this book and play-along CD, I have set out to help jazz improvisers
understand how to increase the melodicism of their playing by presenting what I
believe to be a thorough look at the principles, techniques, concepts and
fundamentals of melody and melodic improvising. The book begins with a general
discussion that defines melody and its component elements, then progresses into
more specific explanations and techniques for melodic improvising. I have also
included some relevant historical information to illustrate several very important
developments in jazz composition and improvising.

The text is illustrated with musical examples throughout, and there is a

section of practice exercises drawn from the text at the end of most of the chapters
so that you can directly begin to apply the information to your playing. I have
integrated the play-along CD with the text, so that topics discussed in the book are
demonstrated on the CD. This CD, along with the practice materials both in the
text and in the play-along section, will give you the opportunity to hear, practice and
then play for yourself the principles of melodic improvising about which I’ve written.

CHAPTERS:

1. Melodic Techniques in Jazz Improvisation

2. The Materials Of Melody
3. Materials of Melody, Part 2
4. Techniques of Melodic Development
5. Thinking Compositionally
6. Melodic Sources
7. Melodic Improvising Over Complex Chord Changes
8. Melodic Improvising Over Complex Chord Changes, Pt. 2
9. Modal Improvising
10. It’s Not What You Play, But How

APPENDICES:

Episodes in solos or compositions that embody truly melodic use of the

intervallic, rhythmic or phrase concepts developed in the book. - a partial list
intended only to be illustrative, not complete.

I. Jazz compositions with notable melodic content

II. Classical compositions with notable melodic content

III. Standards with notable melodic content

IV Melodic soloists and solos, by instrument - presented by leading New York

musicians Pete McGuinness, John Hart, Andy Ezrin, Owen Howard, Bill Mobley and
John Hebert

V Modal Chart - Major, diminished, melodic minor (ascending), harmonic minor,

augmented, harmonic major