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Improvisation Jazz Music Theory Harmony Piano Techniques Chords Scales
Improvisation Jazz Music Theory Harmony Piano Techniques Chords Scales
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Music is based on harmony Harmony is based on chords and scales Melody and improvisation are based on chords and scales Accompaniment is based on chords and scales Chords are based on scales Scales are based on physics,mathematical principles and musical tradictions Musical tradictions are based on human perception,technology,economy,history,religion
SUMMARY
1. Keys
Key awareness Major Minor Scale harmonization
2.Chords
Major 7th Minor 7th Dominant 7th Half diminished 7th Diminished 7th Inversions Chord degrees
3.Other scales
Blues Whole tone Diminished Diminished/whole tone Pentatonic
4.Melody
Melody building Chordal notes Turning note Passing note Leaning note Delaying note Anticipated note Chromatic note Double leaning note Mixed note Wrong notes
5.Phrasing
Beginning of phrase Ending of phrase Imitation
6.Rhythm
Emphasizing offbeats and upbeats Syncopation Swing Polyrhythmics
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About improvisation
Intervals
Analysis of solos
Improvisation tips
Inside, outside
Free improvisation
Improvisation goals
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"Improvisation means real time composing..... Improvisation means composing new ideas....".
Music bases on harmony. Melody and improvisation base on chords and scales. Accompaniment base on chords and scales too.
Chords base on scales. Scales base on physic, mathematical principles and music traditions. Music traditions base on human perception, technology, economy, history, religion.
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Jazz improvisation and music harmony : summary Music harmony concepts Scales, modes to improvise Blues improvisation Jazz melody and improvisation Swing jazz rhythm Jazz techniques : practice
You need to know the following items to improvise and compose in a right and nice way: first you have to know all major and minor scales and relative keys and all chords in every keys. Then you must play all chord inversions and the building melody techniques. You have to practice so much so you can play right melodic lines with swing and without thinking about scales, rules, keys... Phrasing is the following step.
You must learn to begin and finish melodic phrases from every point
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of measure. Ear training, transcribing, music harmony, transposing, voicing, harmonization are other important and fundamental techniques to learn jazz improvisation and composing. These techniques can give you the skill for express the music you have inside. Learning jazz improvisation is not simple. The theory and harmonic concepts you have to learn are few and easy to understand but the fundamental concept is just one: to learn improvisation you have to play much and practice for a longtime! I used to compare improvisation with language. Improvisation is a language, you can express ideas, concepts and emotions and sometimes much deeper than language. So, as well as you have to study and practice a lot to learn English or French or Italian so you have to do the same with music improvisation. You do not need to understand difficult concepts but without doubts you must be patient. Here in this site I offer free resources to learn this art but be patient if my English is not perfect.
I have published also another site to learn music theory and harmony.
2. Chord charts
Major 7th Minor 7th Dominant 7th Half diminished 7th Diminished 7th Inversions Chord degrees
Melody building Chordal notes Turning note Passing note Leaning note Delaying note Anticipated note Chromatic note Double leaning note Mixed note Wrong notes
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5. Musical phrase
If you have troubles to understand what I write, or any concepts I try to explain, send me an email. I suggest also to visit this site on piano jazz improvisation.
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You can learn to improvise. If you know music harmony and you practice on your instrument one hour per day learning improvisation is easy. I think is one of the greatest, important Art. Remember to listen the greatest improvisers : Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny, Miles Davis and many, many others...
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Practice to begin and to end the phrase in every point of the measure B = Beginning tone E = Ending tone
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Ending of a phrase
Tone 1 phrasing 2
Action You have to begin a new You have begin the following phrase from that note
Rest and strong determination Tension, unbalance and suspension Rest and neutral A bit of tension and coloured tone A bit of tension and determination
Any style Jazz, Blues Any style Jazz, Pop Jazz, Blues Pop
No particular action Begin from that note and solve it to the tone below No particular action I suggest to begin the following phrase from that note No particular action
4 5 6
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Practise to end the phrase on the different tones of a chord and to make the action I propose.
Another example containing a wrong ending tone ( Tension is not solved or begun again).
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Music harmony, chord families Chord charts and keys Learn chord charts Major seventh Dominant chord chart Minor seventh chords Half diminished chords Diminished chord
Here are all chords of each Major and Minor (Natural, Harmonic, Melodic ) key Site menu
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You must know and play them. Music bases (above all) on these chords.
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Major key chord chart Major key has two major seventh chords on I and IV degrees; there are minor seventh chords on II, III and VI degrees while dominant 7 chord is on V. Half diminished chord is on the VII degree of major key. I, II or IV, and V are the most used chords. Classical pop progressions are I - VI - IV - V or I - III - II - V. However, in music you can find every combination of all these chords. Pay attention to IV degree (Major with augmented 4th )
Here are the major and minor scales with their chords
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Harmonic minor key chord charts Harmonic minor key is the classical minor scale; I think it is the true minor scale because the natural minor ones is similar to the major scale while melodic minor scale is less used. This scale has minor major seventh chord on the first degree; there are major chords on III and VI; half diminished chord is on the second degree, diminished 7 on VII and minor seventh is on fourth one. Dominant seventh chord is on V and it has also minor ninth and minor sixth!
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Melodic minor key chord chart Melodic minor scale is less used than natural and harmonic scales but it is important. Pay attention to IV degree ( seventh chord with augmented 4th) and to II degree (min 7th )
Pay attention to II degree ( half diminished ) and to VII degree ( diminished seventh )
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Natural minor key chord chart Natural minor scale is much used in pop, dance, classical and jazz tunes. It has a catchy sound and many people love it! However, it has the same major scale's chords but they have different position. For example, in D natural minor key, C7 is on the VII degree while in F major key it is on V degree. Pay attention to V degree ( Minor 7th) and to VII degree (7th chord)
These chord charts are the harmonic base of classical, jazz and pop music. They derive, above all, from J.S. Bach but also other great classical composers.
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Seventh chords are complete chords, in the sense that they have the main notes that determine the harmony of a chord. The fundamental, the third, the fifth and the seventh (said "chorda notes") does understand the key and the type of a chord. Besides they may determine, comparing with the chords near, to what key it belongs and then from what scale's degree is produced. In my pop blues music, I use nearly only seventh chords that have a complex but non too dissonant sound.
You can learn everything about improvisation reading articles, watching tutorial videos and listening solos published on the Web. Internet offers you a great resource to learn music harmony, theory and improvisation but the best resource is your passion for this art!
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Learn to analyze music Practice to analyze every music style with scores or if you want by ear. Write keys, chord types, degrees of the chords, modulations (key changing) on the scores. Analyze melody and write the harmonic role of every note (Chordal note, turning note, passing note......).
Arpeggiate all chords Arpeggiate all 7th chords with right hand (but not only) in their four inversions.
Begin to improvise just using the chordal notes Improvise only on a chord and using just the four chordal notes
http://www.musilosophy.com/jazz-techniques.htm (1 of 5)06/02/2007 7.42.09
( also out of time ) Improvise just using continuous eighth notes, eighth-triplet notes, sixteenth notes. For pianists : improvise on a song using just the four chordal notes, moving the melody up and down the whole keyboard and playing the chord with the left hand. (You have to play this chord around C4 and moving the notes less possible when you change the chord )
Improvise using a melodic item one at time Practice a melodic item out of time and just on a chord Improvise using the suggestions on musical phrase
Mastering these jazz techniques needs many, many hours of playing but it is amusing and you can feel what creating music means. Besides, these techniques are the same of composing songs or any other music style. Composing is easier than improvising because you can correct your mistakes. However I will suggest you some easy techniques to 'correct'some melodic 'errors'. Sometimes many new and interesting ideas come from so called harmonic 'errors'.
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Ear training Use this free tool - Functional ear trainer Transcription - Powerful! Select your best songs or solos and transcribe them on paper using your piano or keyboard, then transpose them in all keys. I think this is the MOST IMPORTANT AND POWERFUL DRILL TO LEARN IMPROVISATION
Transposing Transpose some phrases in all keys Singing Sing the notes you are improvising
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Listening Every musical style but good music, that is great artists When you listen to music, analyze it!
Bill Evans Keith Jarrett Herbie Hancock Chick Corea Ahmad Jamal Oscar Peterson Bud Powell McCoy Tyner Many others...
Miles Davis ( Trumpet ) Charlie Parker ( Alto Sax) John Coltrane ( Tenor Sax ) Pat Metheney ( Guitar )
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So, you need to work following several directions: studying music harmony, developing your hearing, listening great artists and above all playing many hours on your instrument: remember to play correct harmonic and melodic notes and above all do not play random sounds.
http://www.miles.be/
welcome to www.miles.be
probably the best FREE ear training resource on the internet
Homepage of Alain Benbassat
table of contents
http://www.miles.be/
"This is a great and very useful tool. It's exactly what we practiced a lot at Berklee but I've never come across an application like this."
About Me
Who Am I? Who the Hell is Miles? My Music Links
Important note: a lot of virusses are spreading themselves by e-mail, using fake e-mail addresses. If you receive an e-mail from miles.be with an attachment, please do not open it and delete it! Such e-mails are not sent by me...
http://www.miles.be/
welcome to www.miles.be
probably the best FREE ear training resource on the internet
Homepage of Alain Benbassat
Functional Ear Trainer is a critically acclaimed ear training suite containing two programs:
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Both programs are different from the traditional ear training programs where you typically have to guess intervals, scales, chords, and rhythms. Functional Ear Trainer presents an original and very effective way to learn to recognize notes in the context of a key. This is a proven method that, with a little bit of effort, really works. Functional Ear Trainer Basic and Advanced are FREEWARE. If you want to support me, consider making a donation. Functional Ear Trainer is only available as a Microsoft Windows executable. It will NOT run on Mac. However, it runs fine on Linux using Wine. More info... Functional Ear Trainer - Basic Principle The program establishes the key or tonality by playing a chord sequence, followed by a random note. The user has to guess what note was played. How? Every note has its own function within the key and wants to resolve to the nearest tonic. The help page describes a method to learn to hear this resolution to the nearest tonic, and so know which note was played. User Comments "Great program, it helps me a lot for my hearing test at school!!! Thx man !"
read more...
System Requirements - Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP - Minimum 64MB of RAM - Minimum 10MB free disk space - Soundcard or MIDI device License FREEWARE Current Version Version 1.1 - 2 December 2002
Independent Review Functional Ear Trainer got the rating 5 out of 5 from the emagazine Cyberfret.
read more...
Download Now
right-click and select Save Target As... (approx. 1.5MB)
Functional Ear Trainer - Advanced Principle Based on the enormous success of Functional Ear Trainer Basic, the idea was expanded by playing two notes after the key or tonality has been established. The user has to answer 3 questions: 1) What was the first note? 2) What was the second note? 3) What is the interval both notes form? The missing link between interval training and note-in-key ear training! How? Try to hear how the two notes resolve to the nearest tonic using the method you learned in Functional Ear Trainer - Basic. Then
determine the interval between the two notes. HARDER THAN YOU THINK! System Requirements - Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP - Minimum 64MB of RAM - Minimum 10MB free disk space - Soundcard or MIDI device License FREEWARE Current Version
Version 1.0 BETA2 - 2 December 2003
Options The two notes can be played one after the other (melodically) or simultaneously (harmonically). Many settings possible.
Download Now
right-click and select Save Target As... (approx. 2.5MB)
Support Functional Ear Trainer If you like Functional Ear Trainer, consider making a donation through PayPal (secure payment). Donation of $10 Donation of $15
Donation of $20
BONUS: Generous people who make a donation of $20 will receive a computer program I wrote to learn intervals by associating each one with the beginning of a well-known song. This is a "classic" way to learn to recognize ascending and descending intervals.
Thank YOU!
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