First Class Fitness

Improvisation Practice

One of the most difficult issues to be sucitan when learning to play and improvise in Jazz is how to study. The amount and variety of topics makes one wonder where do you start?, perhaps feeling some discouragement to contemplate the enormity of material to study. Ideally, choose a reduced amount of topics, and study them daily to dominate them fairly well, or by a specific amount of time (e.g.: 3 months), and then replace them with others. It is important that the topics that you choose are varied among themselves to give a break to the head, avoiding thus reaching the weariness in a few minutes. This section is divided into small topics that progressively advance in difficulty, following the criterion of the historical evolution of Jazz as always. Of course, let’s start by the Blues.

Improvisation motifs with the Blues the first exercise scale consists of improvising, with your right hand, on how to Blues 12 compasses, compasses, respecting the structure A short 4 sentences B. This involves touching a phrase of submission (by say it somehow), repeat it, and finish with a phrase different and more conclusive, only using the Blues scale. To not complicate we will use only the first grade of the tone scale, regardless of the chord or functional grade which is happening every moment. To be a very primitive and very based on the phrasing style Blues allows us this. Later we cannot do it, and we have to stick to the scales corresponding to the chord or functional grade has at the moment. Duration: to start the shape can be repeated without pausing for 5 minutes. It is important to renew the ideas at every turn, this allows us to exercise the muscle of creativity and go testing, listening and internalising the effectiveness and sonority of the different reasons. If we do this exercise in 3 different tones (say, C, F and Bb), in only 15 minutes.