How To Exercise Jazz Piano Improvisation

All set to enhance your jazz piano technique exercises improvisation skills for the piano? Much more merely, if you're playing a track that remains in swing time, then you're already playing to a triplet feeling (you're thinking of that each beat is divided right into 3 8th note triplets - and every off-beat you play is delayed and played on the third triplet note (so you're not also playing 2 uniformly spaced 8th notes to start with).

So instead of playing 2 8 notes in a row, which would last one quarter note ('one' - 'and'), you can divide that quarter note right into 3 '8th note triplet' notes - where each note of the triplet is the same size. The very first improvisation technique is 'chord tone soloing', which indicates to compose melodies utilizing the four chord tones of the chord (1 3 5 7).

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

It's great for these units to find out of range, as long as they end up solving to the 'target note' - which will typically be among the chord tones. The 'chord range over' approach - come before any chord tone (1 3 5 7) with the note over. In music, a 'triplet' is when you play 3 uniformly spaced notes in the space of 2.

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

NOTE: You also get a great series of steps to play, from 7 - 1 - 9 - 3 - if you intend to play a brief range in your solo. However, to stop your having fun from seeming predictable (and break out of eighth note pattern), you require to vary the rhythms from time to time.