Learn Jazz Improvisation With Chord Exercises
If you’d like to learn jazz improvisation, or learn to improvise in general, you’ve come to the right place!
Jazz improvisation is often viewed as the hardest part of learning jazz. The masters have left behind many tips and exercises though. Unfortunately people often hear these tips but never act upon them. So please take action on these tips to “learn jazz”.
When you have a song you’d like to improvise on, follow these preparatory exercises.
1. Listen listen listen! Buy CDs and vinyl records and listen to the jazz masters. Get as many versions of the song as you can.
2. Find sheet music (chord changes are the important thing). Try memorizing the changes, and just go through them in your head.
3. Figure out what the chord is for each chord change. Finding the chord and scale of each change will help you learn to improvise.
4. Once you know the chord, run up the chord 1-3-5-7 in eight notes over the change.
5. Then do 1-3-5-9. These steps may seem silly, but it will help you learn jazz, learn jazz improvisation, and learn to improvise.
6. Try both step 4 and 5 backwards. Go 7-5-3-1 and 9-5-3-1.
7. Then invert the chord as many ways as you like. Go 3-5-7-1, 5-7-1-3, 7-1-3-5, 3-1-5-7, etc. etc. Do every possible combination.
That’s a lot of work right there. And these are just preparatory exercises. And of those exercises, these are just chords! We still have scales AND scale tones to worry about.
This seems like a lot of work, and it is. If you follow this, you will quickly learn jazz improvisation, and learn how to improvise.
By: Bobby Jackin
Posted in: Jazz Festivals