Articles about jazz improvisation

saxophone player improvising

On this page you will find articles and ideas about jazz improvisation, teaching jazz, and other topics useful for students and teachers.

This work is written by Saul Richardson and other teachers associated with Jazz Workshop Australia. You are welcome to use it for private study, but copyright remains with Saul Richardson and Jazz Workshop Australia. Any reproducation or reuse must be attributed to the author.

We do hope that you find some of this useful or interesting. Let us know if you have any questions or comments.

The "jazz pentatonic" scale

By Saul Richardson, 2008.

This is a name I have made up. It really refers to a major pentatonic scale with a flat third added to it as a blue note.

It is spelled:
1, 2, b3, 3, 5, 6, 8
(the scale degree numbers all refer back to a major scale).

It can be used effectively in any tune or section of a tune that is not in a minor key. In other words over major and dominant chord structures. Shelley Berg uses a similar approach in his Chop Monster method. I have also seen Australian musician/educator Ed Wilson use this approach successfully to teach complete beginners.

It is common for beginning improvisers to be taught blues tunes and to be told to use the blues scale throughout. This can work, but is actually difficult. Also, it does not reflect what jazz musicians actually play when they improvise on a blues. We do use the blues scale, but only in conjunction with many other sounds. In fact, it is very, very, rare for a jazz musician to construct a whole solo using only the blues scale. And yet we tell young players to do so. Why? Because we think it is an easy way out. Plus, it is called the blues scale, so it must be right? But it isn�t�

The jazz pentatonic scale comes much closer to what professional jazz musicians play over a blues progression. As students progress they can add passing notes to the pentatonic scale, including notes from the blues scale. This will add variety to the sound and help create more flowing lines.

Then, as they progress still further and develop an awareness of time in their playing, students can use the many other techniques jazz players use in improvisations.

Unlike the blues scale, the Jazz Pentatonic avoids clashes:
Blues scale includes notes 4, and b5 of Chord I, 4, b9 of chord IV and 4 of chord V. Young beginners will, if given the option, ALWAYS, play the 4th against a major or dominant. They gravitate towards it. Jeff Jarvis called it "the magnetic fourth".

The minor 3rd of the jazz pentatonic scale against the major 3rd of major and dominant chords is a �blue note�, but is a common and accepted sound. It is a juxtaposition we are used to hearing.

The Jazz Pentatonic is easy to play, easy to hear, easy to teach and avoids bad notes. It allows beginning improvisers to sound good straight away. It gives them something they can reliably use while they learn more advanced techniques.

Examples of usage:

Blues: whatever key the blues is in, use a jazz pentatonic scale in the same key. Emphasise the key note. This is an example of using the scale through a whole tune.

Rhythm changes: Concert Bb jazz pentatonic scale through the A section. In the bridge, 2 bars each of D jazz pent., G jazz pent, C jazz pent and F jazz pent. This is an example of using the scale in a section of a tune.

Blue Bossa: Use concert Db jazz pent. In bars 9 through 12 (II V I in Db major). Here is another example of using the scale in a section of a tune. The rest of the tune is in concert C minor.

Can improvisation be taught?

By Saul Richardson

There often seems to be an attitude in Australian jazz circles that, despite the global proliferation of jazz education, you can't really teach jazz. Education is important because it gives we musicians a source of income when gigs are scarce. Of course, when times are good, the teaching is the first thing we drop.

It can even a little bit humiliating to be a teacher:
"Where are you playing?"
"Oh, I'm mostly just teaching..."

This is wrong, of course. Jazz, and jazz improvisation, can be taught, and the job of teaching it should be an important part of being a musician.

In the past there was a golden age in which gigs were abundant, jazz was everywhere, and the young musician could learn on the bandstand through a kind of apprenticeship system. There were jam sessions, there were many entry-level gigs, and young players could get gigs alongside more experienced players.

Sadly, this is no more. The gigs have dried up and competition for playing work is fierce. Jam sessions occasionally come and go, but they are rare and fleeting. They are not serious gatherings of experienced musicians mingling with young up-and-comers. They are places where kids go and hear other kids, or even worse, they degenerate into a kind of shabby open mike session. Certainly not the learning experience of old. Nothing compared to, say, watching every tenor player in town coming down to try to best Ben Webster as he passed through with Ellington's band.

The apprenticeship system is mostly gone. What to replace it with? Jazz education.

The site of learning jazz has moved from the bandstand to the universities and schools. The great musicians of our time are commonly found on the faculty of a university, college, school or conservatorium. They are there passing on their knowledge, handing down the legacy of jazz, just as they used to on the bandstand.

Who should teach?
Not every musician should teach. Many are no good at it, and have no business ruining young futures just for the sake of a few dollars. Just because one can play doesn't mean one knows how to teach. Unfortunately institutions are often seduced by the name of a player, by their reputation as a performer. This is just as absurd as the converse: can you imagine the highest profile playing gig being offered to a prominent educator on the grounds that since they are a great teacher it follows that they must be an absolutely killing player? It just doesn't work. Musicians with no genuine interest, or ability, in teaching shouldn't teach.

Everyone who teaches jazz should play, on some level at least. Teachers with no experience of the true complexity of a jazz performance cannot hope to convey that to students. Nor can they know what things to teach in order to allow students to develop the skills and understandings needed to play jazz effectively.

Why teach?
Teaching jazz is vitally important to the growth and future of the music. It also opens the door to a whole world of wonderful music to young people. Teaching can also be good for musicians.

Teaching, and jazz education, are now the main ways young musicians learn to play and appreciate jazz. As we have seen above, the days of learning on the bandstand are gone, particularly in Australia. If we want the music to develop and the industry to grow, we must involve young people in it. We must also help young players become outstanding performers to ensure renewal, competition, and to constantly raise the standard of playing across the whole scene.

It is trite to say that young people are the future of our music, but it is an often-neglected truth. Where is the audience of the future supposed to come from? Obviously, young people participating in jazz now will become the players and audiences of tomorrow. We ignore this truth at our peril.

Teaching can be enormously beneficial to the teacher as well as the student. Not because it is a source of income in lean times, but because passing on the art and tradition is an essential part of the music. It also helps the teacher learn more about their own playing.

To teach effectively we must focus on what exactly is involved in playing. This helps convey it to others and highlights strengths and weaknesses in the teacher's own playing. Teaching can provide a way for teachers to see their own playing in a new, clearer, light.

Jazz and jazz improvisation can, and should, be taught. Not everyone should teach. People who are no good at it, or who don't really value it, should stay away, and leave it to the professionals. Teaching jazz is good for the student, good for the teacher, good for the music, and good for the future of the industry.

Planning for effective teaching in instrumental music lessons

By Saul Richardson, Principal at Jazz Workshop Australia.

Planning what and how you are going to teach is a powerful tool for improving your students' results. A powerful technique is to plan units of work for your students. A unit of work is a series of teaching and learning activities based around a concept or skill. It introduces the concept/skill and then takes the student through a planned sequence of activities designed to help them learn and practice it.

Ask five basic questions:

What do I want the student to achieve at the end of this unit of work?
What skills or concepts does it involve?
In what order will it be best to work through these skill or concepts?
What activities can I work through with the student to help him or her develop each skill or concept?
How will I know at the end that they have learnt the skill or concept?

You might want to estimate the amount of time you will set aside for each activity. Then you can teach the material, in the order that you planned.

Here is an example of a unit of work, introducing a beginner student to the dorian mode:

Goal

The student will be able to confidently improvise in a jazz style over a min7 chord using a Dorian mode.

They will play with a strong tone, will incorporate phrases of various lengths into their playing, and will use a variety of rhythms.

Concepts

Fingering for the dorian mode in several, if not all keys
It is a distinctive pattern of sounds
Phrases are relatively self-contained ideas, like a sentence.
Phrases come in different lengths
Jazz musicians use a variety of different rhythms when they improvise
Always play with a good, strong tone (unless you are deliberately trying to achieve some special effect)

Sequencing:

For this unit of work

The dorian scale is a distinctive pattern of sounds
Fingering
Rhythmic variety
Phrasing

Tone is an ongoing concept taught from the very beginning and constantly reinforced through every activity we take the student through. Some possible teaching/learning activities:
These could go over three thirty-minute lessons. Some students will need more or less time.

Lesson 1: Activities 1 - 3.
Lesson 2: Revision and then activities 3 - 4
Lesson 3: Revision and then activity 4 in more detail.

1. Student listens to part of Miles Davis's So What. The piece, particularly during Davis's solo, is an exploration of the sound of the scale against a single chord. Maybe play another recorded tune. Demonstrate on your own instrument.

2. Teach the student how to play the scale, preferably in more than one key. If they are a very inexperienced player, it may be slow and halting at first. That doesn't matter: everything they play will be like that at first, but it will improve over time.

3. Ask the student to improvise using only crotchets; then only minims; then only quavers; then triplets; etc. Then have them solo using different combinations of rhythms. Point out that jazz players tend to use mostly quavers when they improvise. Use mostly quavers, but some other rhythms as a contrast. If there is no rhythmic contrast, the solo is likely to become boring. (This assumes you have already taught the student what improvisation is and how to start doing it, in a previous lesson. Otherwise you would need to do that first.)

4. Explain that phrases in music can be long, medium of short in length. Jazz musicians use a variety of phrase lengths to create variety in their improvisations. Have the student play for one bar, then rest for one bar. This is a one bar phrase. Repeat with other lengths of phrase and other lengths of silence between phrases. Aim to have the student improvise using a variety of different phrase lengths. Then have them incorporate rhythmic variety, etc.

This could complete a basic introduction to the dorian mode for a beginning improviser. The next step might be to teach them a tune using the dorian, perhaps So What, but there are many others. Chameleon is another one they often enjoy where they can use an all-dorian solo.

It might be a good idea then to move on to something new. Keeping things moving keeps the lessons fresh and interesting for the student. Revisit the dorian mode again later to introduce further concepts and to improve their performance with it.

Extension activities with the dorian mode in this example might be: melodic development; using and transposing motifs; solo structure; rhythmic displacement; repetition; side-stepping. Whatever you do, keep it appropriate to the age and stage of the student.

Some points to remember and mistakes to avoid:

No student is going to sound like a professional player right away. At first they usually sound pretty juvenile. But they improve, over a long time. Just like you did. One of the most absurd mistakes a teacher can make is to drill a basic concept or skill to death thinking that if the student doesn't sound like a professional, they haven't learnt it. Just because they don't sound like you yet does not mean they haven't learnt it. Check that they understand it, and then move on. They will probably take as long as you did to start sounding good.
Do not expect perfection from a student. That isn't realistic. Expect approximation, then consolidation and improvement and, finally, mastery. This can take weeks, months, or years. Get the student sounding close to what you want, or better than they were, and then move on. Come back to it later if needs be.
It is vital to plan what you are doing with each student. It makes your teaching effective and efficient, far more so than unplanned lessons. It also helps keep students motivated and coming back for more.
Many teachers make the grave mistake of simply making up their lessons as they go along. Maybe even just do the same thing with every student on a given day, and then the next week, do something else quite unrelated. This ad hoc approach must be the least efficient way there is to teach. Don't just do the first thing that comes into your head: plan individual sequenced instruction for each student.

Use planning
Planning is a powerful tool for ensuring that your teaching is effective and efficient. The better you plan, the better your students will perform and the more they will achieve. This is good for them and for you. When your students do well, they keep paying for lessons, they attend regularly, they practice, and they are motivated. Word spreads quickly about who is a good teacher and who is slack.

Unleash the power of planning to make your teaching more satisfying and financially rewarding.

Glossary of some important educational terms

Approximation
A student moves in the direction of a skill or understanding, or comes close to it. It is the first stage in trying to use a skill.

Assessment
Checking that our teaching has been effective.

Consolidation
Where a student exhibits a rough, unformed but recognisable version of a skill or understanding. This takes place during the middle of the learning process.

Generalisation
Where a student can independently apply a skill or understanding to any situation. This is one of the ultimate goals of education and one of the highest states of understanding.

Mastery
Where a student can effectively use a skill or understanding. It comes at the end of the learning process

Pacing
The rate at which we work through a sequence of activities

Sequencing
The order in which we present a series of teaching and learning activities

(c)Saul Richardson 2008

How to choose a music teacher

There are three main approaches people take when choosing a music teacher for their child or for themselves.

1. Proximity
2. Price
3. Quality

Proximity
This is a very simple approach. Find the teacher who is closest to where you live, work, or go to school. You may get lucky and find that they are also an excellent teacher. Then again, chances are they may not be the best teacher around.

Price
Another simple approach. Call lots of teachers, look at their websites, and find who is cheapest. The benefit is that your lessons will cost a lot less, potentially saving you lots of money in the short term. The drawback is that you get what you pay for. If a teacher is very cheap, there is usually a good reason for it. They may be very young, inexperienced, achieve poor results, be lazy, be unreliable, just teaching for some pocket money but have no real passion for the role, and so on.

If a teacher's main selling point is that they are cheap, it follows that they have not much else to recommend them.

Also in the long run you probably won�t save any money. A cheap teacher tends to be false economy. You may end up having to go to another, better teacher, later on to help you fix the damage done by a poor teacher. The standard of teaching may be so bad that you or your child give up. An inexperienced or weak or disorganized teacher will probably take a lot longer to teach you what a first class teacher can cover very quickly. You pay less per lesson, but you have to do many more lessons to reach the same point.

Quality
Ask around, do some research, search online. Find out who the best teachers are for the instrument or field that interests you. They will have a great track record of consistently excellent results, they will have a loyal following of good students, and they will have definite plans for how they will go about teaching you or your child. It is likely that they will also have a profile online, in the music community and will be widely recognized as a leader in their field.

This is the kind of teacher you want. There may be a waiting list to get lessons with them. No problem � wait, it will be worth it. They will almost certainly cost more than other teachers, but again you usually do get what you pay for.

Some tips

Do your research carefully.
Talk to some current and former students of your prospective teacher to find out what they like and don't like about them. Not every teacher will suit every student. Learning music takes discipline, so lessons with a good teacher may not all be a laugh-a-minute. But there is no point persisting with a teacher who clashes so badly with the student, or is so severe that music becomes a misery and motivation disappears.
Don't be afraid to change teachers after a little while if it isn't working.
Just because a musician has a great reputation as a performer, doesn't mean that they are a good teacher. In fact, many musicians who have always found music very easy have a lot of trouble teaching. They don't understand the struggle involved for most of us!
If the lessons aren't working, say something to the teacher. A professional teacher will either take your comments on board and make changes, or will let you know that they cannot or will not change and that you'd be better of with someone else. An unprofessional teacher will take offense or ignore you. That is a good thing for you, as it tells you it is time to find someone else.
Find out what the teacher's cancellation policy is before you commit to lessons. If you cancel, how much notice must you give? Will you be able to make up lessons you miss? What if the teacher cancels a lesson?
Find out how much the lessons cost, whether payment is in advance (it usually is), and how can you pay.
Find a teacher who will teach what you or your child really want to learn. If your interest is in jazz, get lessons with a good jazz teacher, as there is no point in you studying with a non-jazz player. If your sole interest is in doing exams or traditional rote learning, then make sure the teacher favours that approach.

Good luck!

Saul Richardson. Jazz Workshop Australia 2009.

Tunes good for beginning improvisers

Here is a list of common and important tunes that are good for inexperienced players to solo on if you are taking a key centre or horizontal approach to introducing improvisation. The tunes are grouped by how many key centres they can be generalised into. I also introduce some techniques for playing tunes with groups of mixed ability so that all the students are challenged at an appropriate level.

Some tunes playable with 1 key center:

Blues (blues/major)
Doxy (blues/major)
Doggin' Around (blues/major)
The Preacher (blues/major)
Song for my Father (minor)
Groove Merchant (blues/major)
Watermelon Man (blues/major)
Chameleon (minor or dorian)
Mr PC (minor)
Hit the Road Jack (minor)
Mercy, mercy mercy (blues/major or Mixolydian)
Tequila (blues/major or Mixolydian)
Stolen Moments (minor)
St Thomas (blues/major)
Moanin' (minor)
Sidewinder (blues/major)
Work Song (minor)
Jumpin' at the Woodside (blues/major)
Autumn Leaves (minor)
"A" section of Rhythm Changes (blues/major)
In Walked Bud (minor)
Sway, solos on "A" section (minor)
Caravan, solos on "A" section
Freedom Jazz Dance
Straight Life
Jody Grind
Cold Duck time
Jo Jo Calypso
When the Saints
Bill Bailey
St James Infirmary
I Love Lucy
Etc.

You can also play a more complex tune and have solos only over one section. For example, play A Night in Tunisia, but have solos only on the "A" section. You can also play a very complex tune and have solos on a simple vamp related to the tune, but leaving out all the changes. You could play Giant Steps and have solos over an F# pedal note, maybe B/F# C#mi7/F#.

You can also do this kind of thing if you have a group of very mixed ability. The experienced students solo over the changes, but the beginners solo on a simplified vamp. This is a great way to save combo becoming too easy, repetitive or boring for the stronger players.

Be creative and flexible. Create your own arrangement of the chart to fit the needs of everyone in the group you have. Make sure everyone is being challenged and benefiting from your teaching.

Some tunes playable with 2 key centers:

Blue Bossa
Bernie's Tune
Take the A Train
Impressions
Tequila
Georgia on My Mind
Polka dots and Moonbeams
There is no greater Love
Sway (whole form)
Honeysuckle Rose
Big Bertha
Jive Samba
Contemplation
Road Song

Some tunes playable with 3 or 4 key centers:

Honeysuckle Rose
Perdido
Rhythm changes
Recordame
Caravan (whole form)
Little Sunflower
A Night in Tunisia
So Danco Samba
Doggin'Around
Topsy
Angel Eyes

Remember, your students don't have to play exactly the same way the tune was on the CD, or the way you would play it. Be flexible!

Improvising in Minor Keys

The Bebop Minor Scale

For young players looking for a scales for improvising in minor keys, the Bebop Minor scale is an excellent option. It is spelled as follows:
1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7, 7, 8

This is a natural (Aeolian) scale with a raised seventh added to it. Some people, such as Randy Halberstad, refer to this as the bebop harmonic minor scale. Mark Levine calls it the Bebop natural minor scale. The so-called "bebop scales" are normal diatonic scales or modes with one extra passing note added so that there are 8 different notes in the octave. The bebop minor scale is the relative of the bebop major scale, which has a #5 added to it. Such scales, for bebop players, facilitated the long flowing quaver lines favoured by bebop musicians from the 1940's on.

Whatever we call it doesn�t really matter. The important thing is that is an effective choice for improvising in a tune, or section of a tune, that is in a minor key. That is a tune with a minor key centre, especially if there is V � I harmony or II-V-I harmony present. The bebop minor scale, starting on the tonic, emphasizes the chord tones in a minor 7 chord (1, b3, 5, b7). When it is played from the leading note (the raised seventh) it outlines chord tones from chord V in the minor key (3, 5, b7, b9). It is also a close match to chord II (b6, 1, b3, b5).

In fact, using a Shearing-style block chord harmony approach, the bebop minor scale can pretty effectively outline every chord in a minor key, just by changing emphasis (or mode). Take care with the raised 7th against chord IV, which can be a little ugly.

Here is an example of how a beginner improviser might effectively play, using a key centre approach, through a tune with two key centers. Bernie�s tune is a 32 bar AABA song. The A sections are in D minor (I, VI, II, V, I) and the B section is in Bb major (I, VI, II, V). In the A sections, then, use the D bebop minor scale, which can easily outline all the chords. In the B section use the jazz pentatonic (major blues) scale.

This approach gives the less experienced improviser something they can play without too much difficulty that will allow them to sound good and in style. There are other things more advanced players do, but this is a really effective "entry level" technique. In fact, it is more than that, as it is very close to what many professional players do too.

To summarise, then: If a tune (or section of a tune) is in a minor key, the bebop minor scale is a great choice.