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7 Jazz Licks - You Need Arpeggios
7 Jazz Licks - You Need Arpeggios
7 Jazz Licks - You Need Arpeggios
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You need to know your basics and you need to know them extremely well. I am sure you have heard that before. Once in awhile it is very useful to go back to the
basics and really improve the jazz licks that you can write with very simple and basic scale and arpeggios choices.
When you do that then you are working on being better at using rhythm, make stronger melodies and have better phrasing, and you always want to improve that.
In the end, it is more important to improve those skills instead of knowing a lot of scales and arpeggios.
The things you need for this video are basic material that you probably already know and practice: the scale, the arpeggios and also the diatonic arpeggios of that
scale.
And what this lesson is going to show you is 7 great licks that are just using these basic arpeggios and give you some ideas so you can start making better licks like
this yourself.
This is combined with the diatonic arpeggios that I also cover in this lesson: The Most Important Scale Exercise In Jazz
And of course, you can also download Scale and Arpeggio diagrams in this section of my website: PDF Charts and Diagrams
Notice that moving to the G7 and the Cmaj7 the melody is changing to the next chord on the 4&. In that way it is anticipating the chord change, something that is an
important part of Jazz.
It is also important to see how them melody really works towards the chord change and in that way adds direction to the line.
When you work on forward motion you should try to create melodies that move towards a target note in the next chord. You can explore this in more detail in this
lesson: Target notes on a II V I or an extensive guide in this webstore lesson: Rhythm Changes – Target Note Strategies
In this example the target note is the 3rd on both the G7 and the Cmaj7
In this example, you can hear how the melody is moving forward and using first the trill in the Dm7 bar and the off beats in G7 to create tension which is then released
back on the beat on the Cmaj7.
This way of thinking about other aspects of music when improvising, so no only trying to create tension with harmony, scale or note choice, is very powerful and really
underrated.
In the example below, you can hear how the melody is changing direction and skipping around in the middle of the bar.
If you want to see more examples of this then check out this lesson: Bebop Soloing – The Licks You Need To Check Out
That melody sounds outside and is made so that it resolves to a target note back inside the sound of the chord or the key.
In the example below I am using chromatic passing notes on the chords as enclosures and passing notes (on the Dm7), and also to drive the change of chord from G7
to Cmaj7.
Lick #7 Everything All The Time
And of course, you can also put all of these things together (well most of them anyway). In this example, there are different rhythms, enclosures and melodic turns.
See if you can recognize the different blocks which will really help you understand how the line works and get more out of analyzing other solos by famous players like
Charlie Parker or Wes Montgomery.