One of the most of effective ways to really master jazz improvisation is to break your practice down to work on distinct elements. The five most important things to wrap your head around are:

1) Chords and Arpeggios

2) Scales

3) Approach Tones and Enclosures

4) Voice Leading

5) Rhythm

On this page, we will look at some of my favourite exercises for gaining fluency and control of each of these elements, and incorporating them into your playing.

1) CHORDS AND ARPEGGIOS

Take the time to learn how to arpeggiate each one of these chords, and be able to play them off-by-heart. The next step is to be able to arpeggiate through chord changes to standard tunes. For each of the pieces we're looking at this year, I've created arpeggio exercises that can be found in the 'learning tunes' section of this website.

INVERSIONS OF CHORDS

In the following exercises ('The Four Chords') we look at moving smoothly from one arpeggio (or chord) to the next, going around the circle of fourths. We also look at how to play arpeggios starting on notes other than the root. This will help you to really solidify your knowledge and skills, and is a key part of improvisation.

HARMONIC MINOR SCALES

Harmonic minor scales are often used to 'blanket' ii-V-I progressions in minor keys. This is a really common chord progression in jazz, so it's a really useful scale to have under your fingers.

MELODIC MINOR SCALES

Melodic Minor scales are used by modern (and advanced) improvisers to add different colours and tensions to their solos, and to play over chords with 'altered' extensions (eg b9, #9, #11). In classical music, the melodic minor is usually only played ascending, but in jazz we also use it when playing descending lines.

BEBOP SCALES

Bebop scales are usually based on modes of the major scale, normally with one note added to the scale to make an octatonic (8 note) scale. These are used all the time by jazz players, particularly when playing fast lines made up of 8th or 16th note lines. The key to mastering bebop scales is to start with a chord tone on a down-beat, and then run up or down the scale.

 INTRODUCTION TO MODES - MODES OF THE MAJOR SCALE

Modal scales are one of the most important tools in the improviser's toolbox. Understanding modes is crucial if you really want to understand jazz improvisation. 

Luckily if you've already played your way through the scale exercises above, you've played almost every single modal scale already, as modes are really just another way of thinking about (and using) major, harmonic and melodic minor scales.

Below are three different videos explaining the modes in several different ways. I would recommend watching all three of them, as there are many different useful ways to conceptualise and use modal scales. 

Your first modal scale: D Dorian

If you're new to modes, you can play a modal scale quickly and easily by first playing C Major Scale

C D E F G A B C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

Then play a D minor chord, (to convince your ear that D minor is the new key-centre), and then play the C Major scale again, this time starting on the note D (the second note of the scale)

D E F G A B C D

2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2

The final step of this exercise is to do this so many times that you can convince your ear that 'D' is now the root of this scale. In other words:

D E F G A B C D

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

This is now a D minor scale in it's own right (because it contains all the notes of the D minor 7 chord, and sounds like a minor scale) but it's different from the other minor scales we've looked at so far. It's called a D Dorian Scale. 

If we compare this scale to the D Major scale, we see that the third and seventh degrees of the dorian scale have been flattened. Therefore we often describe the D dorian scale as b3 b7.

D MAJOR:

D E F# G A B C#

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

D DORIAN:

D E F G A B C

1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7

Therefore there are two ways we can find dorian scales using major scales as our reference guide:

1) Play any major scale from the second degree of that scale (this is called the parent scale approach)

2) Flatten the third and seventh degrees of any major scale (this is called the parallel scale approach)

I recommend using both of these methods until you've really got the sound and feel of these scales internalised, and can play them without having to think about it)

THE OTHER MODES OF THE MAJOR SCALE

We can actually build modal scales from EVERY degree of the major scale. In the key of C, the other modes are:

E PHRYGIAN (The third mode)

E F G A B C D E

1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 1

F LYDIAN (The fourth mode)

F G A B C D E F

1 2 3 #4 5 6 7 1

G MIXOLYDIAN (The fifth mode)

G A B C D E F G

1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 1

A AEOLIAN (The sixth mode - also known as the natural minor scale)

A B C D E F G A

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 1

B LOCIAN (The seventh mode)

B C D E F G A

1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 1

4) VOICE LEADING

PLAYING CHORD PROGRESSIONS: THE II-V-I

As we've discussed elsewhere, ii-V-I chord progressions are really the backbone of jazz harmony, and most jazz standards can be seen as a series of ii-V-I chord progressions shifting from key to key. It's therefore really important to know how to play effective jazz lines over this progression, and understand how lines are put together.

OTHER RESOURCES

PLAYING 'OUTSIDE'