For any style goes: tracing it back through time, back to the origin of the style (before even), will reveal simpler versions. Simpler melodies and chords. Simpler improvisations. Handy!
So blues, ragtime & Dixieland are a great way to start your listening adventure. Followed by Swing, Bebop, Bossa Nova and Modern Jazz.
Listen to music consciously – conscious of base, topping and spice.
Other great ways to start
- Use 1 note per chord maximum. Long, short, rhythmic figures, hard, soft: have a ball! Later max. 2 notes per chord, then max. 3, etc. No, that won’t sound like you’re idols at the beginning. It will sound like they sounded when they began ?
- Play or sing along with slow tunes. Play/sing a note, hold it or repeat it and listen. Is your note base, topping or spice? If it’s spice move a semitone up or down and listen again. When the chords change, keep doing this.
- Play/sing the theme melody of a song and try to make variations on the theme.
- Sing along with music – but don’t sing the melody, try singing a second voice that goes well with the melody – one of the best exercises available.
- Practice with an app like iRealPro (iOS & Android) – your own simulated band to practice in any tempo, key or style: ideal!
Steal!
A gigantic disillusion. No one comes up with 100% original new stuff. It’s always a result of acquired inspiration. Give it a twist, a unique combination for example, and that’ll be new. Just not 100% original. So…
…steal every lick or trick you like. You’ll be the combination of those licks and tricks and your unique way of making music.
Sing-along exercises
Yep. Doesn’t get any easier than this. With this course comes access to about 150 sing-along exercises plus 15 blues impros. And they are tailor-made to help you get a feel and an ear for improvising.
SUMMARY: just to be clear
This recipe goes for harmony, rhythm, patterns and entire solos.
- Base: what’s already there;
- Topping: what’s to be expected with what’s already there/what we find fitting withwhat’s already there;
- Spice: what’s not to be expected with what’s already there/what we find unfitting with what’s already there.
Dialogue
Consider improvisations to be like dialogues, conversations. With yourself or the band. Some sentences are long. Others short. Sometimes you want to say something, but the other interrupts. You respond. You agree. You disagree. You take a breath. You think. You emphasize certain parts or words, to make them more important You stutter. Laugh. Shout. Angry. Sad. Playful. Go for it. Improvising is like acting.
Not every melodic phrase has to be complex. Diversity is key.
Use 1 note. “No. no. no.” Or a few. “I said no!”
Or 2. “Yes but, yes but, yes but…”
Long. “Oooooooooooooooh!” Or short. “Nice.”
Be creative!
The popular recipe contains base, some topping, a touch of spice. But these are perfect sentences. Great for themes and also for improvisation. But we don’t speak in perfect sentences all the time. So you can do anything. Anything.
And the chord – thus the chord tones (base) and possibly some chord extensions (topping that becomes base – because it’s already there!) – is likely sounding already. So you don’t have to add more base to that. It’s possible. It creates rest. A melodic phrase sounds finished when you end it on a chord tone. But it’s not mandatory.
Grandmaster of tensions
Once you are fully aware of the tensions in ‘what’s already there’ and what would be best for you to add to that at that moment – to optimize the ratios of base, topping and spice; at that moment and in the context of the whole -you can forget about everything else. Then, music has become your playground.
Now express yourself freely!
What?
I’m pretty sure that by now you feel this course has let you down. No step-by-step training program. No safe practicing of ‘licks’. No plethora of ready to use melodic phrases.
But those ready to use phrases are everywhere. In all music styles. Just listen. To music. A lot.
And specifically to the 150 sing-along exercises that you have access to! They are tailor made for that purpose. This part was about understanding improvisation. A crucial insight.
Ok, time to leave your safe haven.
Time to embrace uncertainty. Time to face your fear of making mistakes. Trust your instincts and the recipe. You can do it.
Improvisation
Never forget this is improvisation. It means you come up with something. Unprepaired. On the spot.
Enormous freedom. Comes with enormous responsibility. You have to do it. Yourself.
But if you do, if you dare, it’s an adventure. Priceless.
Pentatonic
Remember, if you have any talent for music, you’ll naturally sing at least mostly right notes and in the right ratios. So mostly base and some topping. In fact, it is scientifically proven people have that talent. We ‘automatically’ hit the 5 notes that cause the least tension: the pentatonic scale.
In C major those are c,d,e,g,a or 1,2,3,5,6 of the major scale. They translate to a,c,d,e,g in Am or 6,1,2,3,5 of the major scale.
The ‘only’ real challenge for jazz singers is to actually add some ‘wrong’ notes – some spice. Because we naturally avoid them. So dive into those chromatic (semitone sequence) variations to hit those spicy notes!
However,
if it’s not for you, no problem. Frank Sinatra never improvised scat solos. Perhaps some minor variations on the melody. But rarely. Mostly rhythmically. Same goes for Shirley Horn. And a whole bunch of other vocal jazz legends.
So don’t worry if in the end improvisation turns out to be ‘not your thing’. Most singers have great difficulty improvising scat solos.
