Piano Improvisation with Rosa

It is unfortuante that too many soloists start at one volume level and stay at the level throughout their solos

It is much more effective and extremely easy to vary the dynamics, letting an increase or decrease in dynamics signal a different emotional level in your improvisation.

All you have to do is play a little softer or a little louder and your solos will be a lot more interesting.

Crescendos

–most common dynamic effect is increasing the volume over the course of a solo and by the time you reac the climax, your volume level is up to forte. Then as you release tnesion at the very end, you descrescendo just a notch.

Sudden volume change

–it is extremely effective when you introduce a sudden change of volume.

You are playing a very emotional or exciting phrase in the middle of your solo, at a fairly loud volume.

If you start the next phrase at a much lower volume level, you get the listener’s attention.

The sudden dynamic change signals that somethign imp is up and creates a focus on the new phrase.

Equally effective is a sudden (not a gradual) increase in volume.

Play one phrase soft and then hit the first note of the next phrase noticeably louder wakes up everybody in listening distnace and serves to draw attention to the new phraase.

Accents

–the most sudden volume change of allcomes when you accent a note.

there is no reason that all the notes of a phrase have to be played t the same volume.

Use accents to punctuate specific notes or entire shorter pharses.

You don’t deliver a speec in monotone, so vary the volume of your playing as you would vary your volume of yoru voice in a conversation.

Silence

–it gets a little boring when a speaker drones on and on without even stopping to take a breath.

Good speakers know that the use of silence helps to draw attention to what thy are tring to say, helps them pace their speech.

It’s the same thing musically, injecting silence into a solo makes hte phrases on either side of the silence sound more important.

In music, silence is called a rest.

1. change dynamicx

2. make the most of rhythmic effects

3. use the entire ranger

4. color musical phrases with dramatic devices

5. feeding off your fellow musicians

You don’t want your solo to remain static allthe way thru.

You want to build excitement from beginning to end so that you finish on a real high note, figuratively, if not literally.

There are a number of musical effects you can employ to spice things up, help you inject excitement into your improvisation.

–varying the volume level, move from one range to another

Even though you have all the special effects at your command, you should use them appropriately, if not sparingly.

1.  Create a short musical motif or musical statement

2. Develop that musical statement thru the technique of repetition and variation

3. Thru the development of statment, build musical tension

4. When statement reaches its climax, release the tension and bring things home with a restatement of the original motif.

–a motif is a short, memorable melodic pattern that you can use as the basis fo ryour entire solo.

–build longer phrases from a motif by applying repetition and variation.

–generate interest in your solo by building tension and then releasing that tension within a phrase and over the entire length of the solo

–to create a fully conceived solo, start by creating a motif, then develop the technique thru repetition and variation, build tension over the next several phrases, and then release the tension after a musical climax

when you want to release tension after a musical climaz, you do the opposite of what you were doing to build tension.

If you were playing a lot of non-chord or dissonant notes, you release the tension by landing hard on a key chord tone.

If you were playing a lot of short, choppy phrases, you release the tension by shifting to a legato phrase with a lot of long notes

If you built to a loud climax, you release the tension by bringing it down to a softer volume level.

• play non-chord tones
• add wider intervals between notes
• increase the harmonic complexity — use more chord extensions, or go outside the established chord changes
• introduce dissonance into the melodic phrases
• play shorter notes
• introduce more rhythmic complexity
• increase the use of repetition
• increase the volume level
• change registers
• use jagged articulations such as staccato notes, flutter tongue, stabbing the reed, overblowing, and the like
• employ various dramatic devices such as swooops, glissandos, shakes, trills

Another more structured way to play outside the established tonality is to employ one of several advanced scales — scales that include more or fewer degrees than standard major or minor scales, with unexpected intervals between teh scale tones.

The advantage of using these advanced scales it that they have a basis in the underlying tonality, ie. they start ‘inside’ but introduce ‘outside elements.

1.  Diminished Scale

This scale is distinguished by alternating whole step/half step intervals.

The results in a scale with 9 notes (including the octave) — not the expected 8.

W H W H W H W

1  2  b3  4  b5   b6  6  7

C diminished scale

C  D  Eb  F  Gb  Ab  A  B  C

Whole Tone Scale

The whole tone scale is unusual in that it has just 7 notes (including the octave).

Each a whole step apart, hence the name.

1  2   3   b5   b6   b7

C  D  E  Gb  Ab  Bb  C

The whole tone scale is surprisingly versatile, particularly in jazz idiom.

It’s appropriate to play with all forms fo the dom 7 chord, particularly dom 7 th chords with a raised 5th.

Blues scale

Blues scale is a 7 -note scale (counting the octave) used when playing blues progression.

It’s unusual in that it doesn’t have a 2nd or 6th degree but does throw a b5 in addition to the regular 5th.

The intervals go like this:

1 1/2 , 1  ,  1/2,  1/2,  1 1/2, 1

1  b3  4  b5  5   b7

C  Eb  F  Gb  G  Bb  C

when you are playing the blues scale, it is the b3, b5 and b7 that define the scale’s color.

It fits extremely well against dom 7th chords in blues and jazz music.

although playing all the notes in order might sound a little odd.

Most players vary the intervals when improvising.

The concept of soloing outside the chord entails nothing more than playing notes that aren’t part of the chord.

If you encounter a C major chord, any note that isn’t C, E or G is technically an outside tone.

There’s a difference between playing an A against a C major chod and playing an Ab, which you will learn next.

Playing non-chord tones

Here is where you combin your knowledge of chords with your knowledge of scales.

Any note of the scale that isn’t part of the chod is a non-chord tone.

It’s simple subtraction — take the notes of the scale, subtract the notes of the chord, and you have an assortment of non-chord tones to choose from.

You employ scale-based non-chord tones for 2 reasons:

1.  You can use non-chord tones to connect chord tones — to get you from here to there, acting as passing tones.

2. you can use non-chord tones to add tension to a solo line.

Let’s look at the last concept more closely.

When you play a chord tone, you are playing a note that the listener expects to hear.

If the chod is  a C major chord, listener expects to hear C E or G.

But if you play a non-chord tone like an A, that’s unexpected.

When you play unexpected notes, it adds tension to your solo line.

The more tension, the more you set up the release – in the forum of a chord tone.

So laying a run of non-chord tones (based on the underlying scale) sets up the tension in your solo, which you resolve by ending on a big chord tone.

Using non-chord tones from the underlying scale (circled) to add tension to a solo.

C                                                            F

D . C D .  C /  E   –     C   –     /  B . A B  . A /    C   –     A    –    /

You don’t even have to use a lot of non-chord tones.

Hitting a single non-chord tone on top of an importnt chord creates a lot of tension.

For eg. hitting that A on a Cmaj chord is really striking.

When you resolve down tothe expected G, the effect is extremely satisfying.

Applying Chromaticism

If you limit your playing to scale tones, you are not getting too far ‘outside’.

To ge really outside, you need to abandon the basic scale completely, and play notes that are truly unexpected.

For eg. If the song is in C Major, the listen expects to hear the notes of the C major scale: C D E F G A B.

If instead,  you play a Gb, you really get their attention.

In fact, the more non-scale notes you play, the more outside you get.

And if you get far enough outside, your solo no longer implies a specific chord or key.

THe manner of improvising without implying a particular chord or key utilizes what are called ‘chromatic notes’, that is notes of the chormatic scale.

Simply put, th chormatic scale is allt he nots — all of them, the naturals, and the flats and the sharps within an octave.

Every note is a 1/2 step away from the next.

The scale can start or stop on any degree.

Chromatic scale:

C,  C#,  D,  D#,  E,  F   F#,   G ,  G# ,  A ,  A# , B  C

Inserting chromatic notes into your solo doesn’t mean that you have to throw all tonality to the wind.

You can use chromatic notes as grace notes or approach notes like this:

C                               F                                   C                                             G7

E .   D# E    G   /   A  .    G# A    –    /    G  .    F# G  .       F# /     F

As you can use, using chrmoatic notes in this fashion doens’t get you too far outside the chord.

another approach is to develop short patterns of motifs based on chromatic intervals, ie. intervals that do not naturally occu r in the underlying scale.  Or you can  develop a short motif and repeat it ascending or descending chromatically.

For eg. here is a solo based on ascending major seconds:  C – D,  Db – Eb,  D – E,  etc.

Dm7

C  D  Db E b /   D   E  Eb   F /  E  Gb  F  G  /   Gb  Ab  G  A  /

G7

Ab Bb  A B /   Bb  C  B  Db  /   C  D  Db  Eb /   B

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Probably the most jarring use of chromatic notes, however is when you play a chromatic note where the listener is expcecting a key scale or chord note.

For eg.  if you are coming off a big V7 chord, the listener expects to hear the settling tones of the I chord (C  E  G).

If instead, you play an Ab, you rally upset the apple cart.

Be warned, however, employing this kind of unexpeted chromaticism risks turning off the listener, so use it sparingly.

Dm                G7                       C

D   –  E  –    / F   –   G    –    /   Ab. G A     –     /    G.     F# G    –     /

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Working with chromatic scale lets you ignore the key you are supposed to be playing in .

There are other ways to do this, short of employing a free form avant garde style.

The best approach is to repeat a pattern, or repeat an interval — which lets you in essece reates your own scale.

When you play a series of notes all a perfect 4th above the next, you will quickly go from playign ‘inside’ the chord/scale/key t playing ‘outside’ the basic tonality.

If you  start on C, the new scale tones circle outside and then back again:

C – F – Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb – B – E – A – D – G – C

This approach works for many different intervals.

You can try repeated minor 3rds.

C – Eb  –  Gb  –  A  –  C

–> this is not outside but it sounds different