Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

Autumn Leaves - that's a great start. Now use longer notes (Quarters/Half Notes). No need to try to fill in too much. You've got to get used to a simpler approach. Ban yourself (for now) from using anything less than a quarter note. Remember quarter notes are played detached.

Add more space. You can have half a bar with nothing but space. I want you to get used to that. This gives you more change to listen too and create a simple melody from those few notes.

Right now, you're trying to play too much before you are ready. Start with just one note if you want (3rd). And build up to two notes. But to succeed here, I will need to hear that space.

This is an exercise in "hearing". Right now, as with all beginners, your fingers are driving your action. Your fingers dictate what to play based on familiarity with those chord tones. If you play less, you will give your conscious mind a chance to take over from muscle memory. The space also allows you to "reset" your time to the rhythm section.

Repeat this over the long term and what will happen is this decision making goes to the subconscious. When I play, perhaps only 50% of my consciousness is aware of the notes I'm choosing. The rest is subconscious. To a jazz master, it's a lot less.

Now, this makes a lot of sense to me. And I can do what you ask. But what I can't do, is ban quavers *and* start phrases on 4+. Unless you want me to tie the note over the bar-line?

You can cross barlines I don't mean a complete ban on your quavers. They are fine as "pickups" or endings. Just don't worry about building a string of them. The whole point is to limit the number of notes and be comfortable with SPACE.

Space is relaxing. Takes the pressure off. Space can be as long as you feel comfortable with, at least to start. Remember that soloing is a conversation. Think about when you talk. It's not continuous banter. There's space. You ask a question, then there's space. You answer, and there's space. Not only is it relaxing to the soloist but it's more pleasant to the listener.

At this point, we are listening to what Bill Evans says (though we're not copying his very advanced examples). We have to stay "True" to where we are.

Try to make the phrasing swing though. Like a short Blues line. When I get some free time, I'll record some phrasing examples that you can use. You can swing by ending on one eighth note (played short). This is why Jazz students first learn blues.

That would be good. Because while I hear what you're saying about space, I have no idea how to make long notes 'swing', even with the occasional quaver at the beginning or end of a phrase.

For an arpeggio exercise, do this instead instead of using the root...

Am7 - C E G B (b3 5 b7 9)
D7 - F# A C E (3 5 b7 9)
GMaj7 - B D F# A (3 5 7 9)
CMaj7 - E G B D (3 5 7 9)
F#m7(b5) - A C E G# (b3 b5 b7 9)
B7b9 - C D# F# A (b9 3 5 6) or CDim
Em - G B D F# (b3 5 b7 9)

Now I don't mean to imply that these are the only notes one can use in a solo. I certainly don't limit myself to this. But for downbeats, I limit myself to 3/5/7 and on upbeats, it could really be any note but typically it ends up being an extension (9/11/13). But it is excellent practice.

By practicing these and learning to visualize their location, it is easy to target them. And then the extensions are just the neighboring or in between notes in the scale. I find that is the best way to think of chords/scale relationships.

Dave Solazzo has a video where you just use 1/9/3/5/7 of the scale for each chord. In other words, a pentatonic scale. Some masters solo using only these (McCoy Tyner).

Bill Evans concentrates mostly on the notes in the arpeggios above.

Some players tend to be more chromatic. The point is that the number of notes to choose from doesn't make a good solo. It is how the notes are phrased. A very good example of swinging and simple phrasing is C-Jam blues. You could just solo in that style of phrasing. (dominated by a phrase of a quarter + eighth, repeated over and over -- listen to it). Most of C-Jam blues is just 2 notes per bar (with repeats).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGU_kky7vRI

Aside from the head, if you listen to the C-Jam version above, Armstrong has some lines where you can take a piece of phrasing wise. I would sing the phrasing (tonality not required ). You can use less notes. Just a snippet is enough.

TLT, one more thing I forgot to mention. When looking for phrasing ideas, look to the original melody of the tune to get some ideas. If you recall, AL is already made up of long notes in the melody. Use that as a rhythmic/phrasing framework while inventing an alternate melody (on the fly).

This is a trial and error process. But given the limitations of note choices, it will be hard to mess up. In the long run you will be trained to look at chord tones as sort of a "home base". You can deviate from it for awhile but you know where to return to.

The bit in the head is swing eighths, not crotchet and quaver. I've been avoiding that kind of swing for obvious reasons!

Now, back to notes of chords. One thing I've been practicing, at your suggestion, is a kind of arpeggio, which is the scale spread out over two octaves. So, for C maj it would be:
C E G B D F A C.
This, you said, helps you visualise chords and extensions. A long-term project, but I've made a start with the major scales.

Now I want to do minors. My question is, which minor scale should I use? Which is most useful? I suppose, this question is really, which minor chords are used most often?

The commonly used minor scale is just a natural minor.

Two most common minors...

Minor 7

1-b3-5-b7-9-11

no other extensions would be used as they would not be played (no 13)


Minor 7 b5

1-b3-b5-b7-9-11

I like the other 2 minor scales a lot. Harmonic & melodic.

For example, on AL in Gm, on the minor 251, the D7 calls for an F#, so G harmonic minor sounds better to me than natural minor.

Knotty, I was specifically talking about chord tones so for a Minor7 or Half dim chord, so what I said applies.

The popular scale for soloing are "modes" of the melodic minor (I personally hardly ever use the harmonic minor modes), but I don't think these apply to a chord tone exercise though. Typically these are used for altered dominant chords. But this is rather advanced at this point IMO.

BTW - I'm trying to explain a way of visualizing chord/scales as an overlay of chord tones vs extensions, vs. the actual scale. I'm trying to stay away from a scale description as we don't actually play a scale when playing.

ok, ignore what I said

Maybe a little advanced for TLT and others, that's all

But for us more advanced types, I'm curious as to your preferred use of the modes of the Harmonic minor scale. As you know there is little reference to that in the Levine books.

Got it.

I've ordered a book by Levine from the library, so when that comes it might explain some things for me. Don't know why I didn't think of the library before.

Also, I have a lesson with a local teacher on Monday. Will see how it goes.

I think your new teacher should be surprised at how far you got on your own...

TLT, Mark Levine's book is mostly about voicings so to me it's not so useful for beginners and is very heavy on theory (like Modes). The book that is more practical is Randy Halberstadt's "Methapors for the Musician".

Jazzwee, I've been really blind to the invaluable content of this thread. I discovered it today and while I am listening to your version of 'Autumn Leaves' I'm posting. It may take some time to get through all that the thread contains but I think I've found something I can identify with in this forum.

I ordered The Jazz Theory Book. Unfortunately, the library doesn't stock Metaphors - I remember you recommending it ages ago.

I do need to access voicings at some point, just not sure where to start yet. I'm in a good routine now with scales - I just need to add voicings in there somewhere.

Ragtime/Tony, as you said, it's time to play piano And any question on jazz is discussed here. So feel free to ask. We're all friendly here.

TLT, as you know the basics of voicings are discussed here. But as you go forward with Jazz, you will find that the rules are often bent. Which is why I don't favor using a fixed book on voicings with all the rootless chords laid out in A/B voicings.

The problem with these is that the voicings often make assumptions about the melodies. Some chord substitutions, like using 3,6,9 for a major chord, may not work. So as a simplistic voicing strategy, we have to often start with a shell voicing (1/3/7). This is always correct. The addition of extensions often correlate to the melody and what comes next.

The other issue is that different choices come out from 2 handed vs. LH handed voicings. That has the most flexible choices. It is best to discuss voicings in the context of a tune, and in the context of "comping" 2 handed vs 1 handed.

In any case, a large chunk of the voicing knowledge is what we discussed here. Often an extra color is derived not from a voicing change but from a "substitution/reharmonization" which is another fun topic.