Jazz Improvisation Tips

From Dark Warriors Wiki

Prepared to improve your jazz piano technique exercises improvisation skills for the piano? More simply, if you're playing a song that's in swing time, then you're currently playing to a triplet feel (you're imagining that each beat is split into 3 eighth note triplets - and every off-beat you play is postponed and played on the third triplet note (so you're not also playing 2 equally spaced eighth notes to begin with).

So rather than playing 2 8 notes in a row, which would last one quarter note ('one' - 'and'), you can divide that quarter note into 3 'eighth note triplet' notes - where each note of the triplet is the same length. The first improvisation technique is 'chord tone soloing', which implies to compose tunes utilizing the 4 chord tones of the chord (1 3 5 7).

For this to work, it needs to be the next note up within the scale that the songs is in. This gives you 5 notes to play from over each chord (1 3 5 7 9) - which is plenty. This can be applied to any note length (half note, quarter note, eighth note) - but when soloing, it's generally put on 8th notes.

Simply come before any type of chord tone by playing the note a half-step below. To do this, walk up in half-steps (via the whole chromatic scale), and make note of all the notes that aren't in your present range. Cm7 voicing (7 9 3 5) with solitary melody note (C) played to interesting rhythm.

Currently you could play this 5 note range (the incorrect notes) over the same C small 7 chord in your left hand. With this technique you simply play the same notes that you're already playing in the chord. Chord range above - half-step below - target note (e.g. E - C# - D).

KEEP IN MIND: You also get a wonderful collection of steps to play, from 7 - 1 - 9 - 3 - if you intend to play a short range in your solo. Nonetheless, to quit your playing from seeming foreseeable (and break out of eighth note pattern), you need to vary the rhythms from time to time.