25 Easy Ii

Prepared to boost your jazz piano improvisation course improvisation skills for the piano? Much more merely, if you're playing a tune that remains in swing time, then you're already playing to a triplet feel (you're picturing that each beat is split right into 3 eighth note triplets - and every off-beat you play is delayed and used the 3rd triplet note (so you're not also playing 2 equally spaced eighth notes to begin with).

So as opposed to playing two eight notes straight, which would certainly last one quarter note ('one' - 'and'), you can divide that quarter note into three '8th note triplet' notes - where each note of the triplet is the same size. The initial improvisation strategy is 'chord tone soloing', which suggests to compose melodies utilizing the 4 chord tones of the chord (1 3 5 7).

I normally play all-natural 9ths above a lot of chords - including all 3 chords of the major ii-V-I. This 'chordal structure' appears best if you play your right-hand man loudly, and left hand (chord) a bit quieter - so that the listener hears the melody note on the top.

It's great for these units to find out of scale, as long as they wind up settling to the 'target note' - which will generally be just one of the chord tones. The 'chord scale over' method - precede any kind of chord tone (1 3 5 7) with the note over. In music, a 'triplet' is when you play three uniformly spaced notes in the room of two.

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

A lot of jazz piano solos feature an area where the melody stops, and the pianist plays a series of chord voicings, to a fascinating rhythm. These include chord tone soloing, approach patterns, triplet rhythms, 'chordal appearances', 'playing out' and more.