Lesson 01

Подробности

Категория: Detailed course of jazz improvisation

You are on the first lesson of detailed jazz improvisation course. You have to register to obtain access to practical playing and range of other lessons.

We study blues

Our course starts from studying blues. And this is done for a reason – jazz has been formed and developed under great influence of blues. But nevertheless, the principles of blues are extremely different from the principles of classical music jazz, what can’t be said about spiritual and regtime.

Two most important things blues conveys are worth mentioning: 1) form 2) blues scale.

Blues form. Blues square is divided not into two or four sentences, but into three. Poetic line is usually smaller than musical line and thus, leading singer’s pauses filled with orchestra (musician’s) interlude play crucial role.

I₇ / IV₇ / I₇ / I₇ /
IV₇ / IV₇ / I₇ / I₇ /
V₇ / IV₇ / I₇ / I₇ /

Blues scale is a forefather of jazz. You can find its elements in 99% of jazz compositions of all characters and styles. The base of blues is so called blues pentatonic scale that is not different from usual (for example tataric) pentatonic scale (if not to take into consideration 12 bar form). I deliberately composed very simple melody on the base of pentatonic scale (12 bar form). It is quite usual, not exceptional common pentatonic scale. You yourself can compose one that is far better than this.

The main difference of blues pentatonic scale from this one is the fact that it is situated under usual pentatonic scale (in harmony) and the key difference lies in the way performers think.  Why it is pentatonic scale that forms the basis of blues? Because it (all sounds) in all three blues functions T.D.S. sounds convincing and not out of tune.

What we do next is combine this melody with the traditional and harmonious blues and see the result:

The first (common) blues were almost always limited by this three functions and were based almost always on the pentatonic scale mentioned above and, frankly speaking, could be performed in minor key.

Change accords played by left hand to minor key and, surprisingly, you will get blues again.

Music scale in this case was not important, as functionality of bass was sufficient here.

I wrote down bass part with the use of only key and fifth tone. The resulting melody was not very harmonious, but it was evident that it was blues.

It is interesting that for the leading singer who performs on the base of the blues pentatonic scale it is not important whether the melody is in major or in minor key.    
Find more about the key difference of blues here and here (Links in Russian).

Blues scale and blues pentatonic scale – let’s find out the difference.

Whenever musicians speak about blues they use the terms and notions of « blues scale» and «blues pentatonic scale» very often substituting one more general notion by the other. I think if there is a difference between these two notions it is necessary to clarify it once and for all.

It is widely known that pentatonic contains 5 notes. If you are not sure, you can easily find them – if you take all black notes on a piano (accordion) keyboard, you will get minor Eb pentatonic scale (jazz always implies minor pentatonic scale). Pentatonic scale is called «blues pentatonic scale» because there is major scale (in harmonization) and minor (on the base of the minor scale) melody. Major in the bottom and minor on top are two homonymous scales, for example: D major and D minor. Blues pentatonic scale for C major is, correspondingly, C-Eb-F-G-Bb. This is standard classical variant for pentatonic scale for C major (minor) blues.

What is the most attractive thing here and why there is the separate definition for «pentatonic scale»

The most ancient scale (pentatonic) that all nations used for ages is so natural, possesses internal harmony and easily transmitted in oral form and reflected as a stereotype in people’s mind and in jazz turns out to be viable and having contradictory for itself harmonious structure (if we speak about major harmonious function). Simply speaking, these five notes, altogether forming melodic lines, will always give key tone, subdominant, dominant, double dominant or even subdominant chord of the relative major sound. The sound will be (according to classical standards) harmonious despite the structural conflicts. These are intrinsic properties of the blues pentatonic scale. But this ability to sound perfect always is typical only for these five notes. But sometimes it is enough to explain the bases of performing blues to the beginner.

Another typical feature of blues (alongside with blues pentatonic scale) is riff or, speaking more precisely, structural inclination to riff.

Riff is a simple melodic structure characterized by rhythmic and intonational stability that is frequently repeated.

You have, probably, noticed that repetition of melodic line is typical for blues. Thus, the form is perceived more vividly. The technique based on repetitions is known as riff.  It is quite developed as single repetitions in a group of repetitions can shift in time, change distance or height in a very interesting way. Later a separate lesson will be dedicated to the riff technique. What we need to do now is to take into consideration that in blues it is very effective to repeat the first phrase in the new harmony.

Five or even seven notes are not enough to reflect and systemize all that is done in blues. And if we look more attentively, we will discover that our blues pentatonic scale doesn’t contain two more blues notes: for C major correspondingly - F# and Ab. We thought that pentatonic scale naturally contains all blues notes, but, to our great surprise, it is not so! If we want to use all blues notes only blues pentatonic scale is not enough. F major pentatonic scale is the best for the use of Ab; and there is no first degree keynote for F# that contains pentatonic scale with this sound – this sound is on its own. Now the pentatonic scale essence has become clearer and we understand that in one theme several pentatonic scales can be used. There are no contradictions in it and no cause to use new key signignatures. You will understand it better if you look at a simple Ionian mode (C major): it contains three pentatonic scales of this kind (sounds A, D and E.)                   

Thus, dear friends, you have nothing to worry about: in gamut C minor – and exactly it is typical for melodies with C major functions – already contains all three main simple pentatonic scales.

We will study blues scale in a more detailed way in the next lesson; now we will concentrate our attention on blues notes. It is evident that C major contains four blues notes (Eb-Gb-Ab-Bb), sound Db in blues is more known as C#, but according to the blues rules this sound doesn’t change, it is more harmonious and not so widely used (it is not used on the three main functions) although sometimes it is considered to be one of the blues notes. We will speak about this sound later. So: Eb-Gb-Ab-Bb are blues sounds, but they are not used simultaneously in one pentatonic scale, which means that if you want to hear all these sounds in one blues, you should temporary switch to new tonal center – in our case it should be subdominant and dominant. Don’t panic: you should just understand that the sound Ab will be appropriate if we speak about F major blues pentatonic scale (as an alternative to sound A), besides if we speak about subdominant (F major) you will hear all sounds of F blues pentatonic scale.

I would like to stress that in case of melodizing (creating melody) on subdominant you have a choice: either to use the main C pentatonic scale or F pentatonic scale – you will hear that it sounds differently. It is evident that the same can be applied to dominant (in our case - G major).

All my examples concerning blues have one main disadvantage – in most cases blues is based on triple impulse, but I decided to make it more clear and wrote it down in 4/4 metric signature and without triplets. My only aim was to make my example more obvious. We will discuss rhythm in details in our further lessons.

I give you several examples of blues for you to study and play improvisations. You should remember that in the way blues is performed and its 12 bar form imply understatement in poetic line of the principal singer – instrumental music or harmonious beat complete his pauses.

Below you will find examples of blues to practice playing. Tasks: play blues in three key-tones and improvise with pentatonic scale. See practical course (link in Russian) практический курс (the first lessons) to learn how to achieve variability in improvisation. Play improvisation in slow time with different texture of left hand (see left hand texture – link in Russian фактура левой руки). Besides, there you will find the main accord signature.

Blues - lessons

Let’s try to play the simplest blues using 5 notes (the main pentatonic scale) and basing on:

Ganut-like rising (descending) riff
static riff
gradually rising riff (progressions)
combination of random notes

And then play blues using pentatonic scales of three main functions T.S.D.

Let’s play the examples of blues in three key-notes:

play play play play play play play play play

These are the examples of three blues in three key-notes.

See several compromises компромиссы (link in Russian) helping you to overcome natural limits.

Follow the link to practice playing blues.

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Our next lesson will be dedicated to blues scale.

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