Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Examples of the tools I've acquired over the year

At the start of the year, my soloing was mostly me hitting chord tones and other notes in between without much thought, while hoping it made sense.  It didn't, though.

However, after working all year, by listening to and playing other tracks, and receiving guidance from Steve, my teacher.   I've found myself faced with a bunch of licks and riffs that I now use almost constantly.  I will list a handful of examples, along with accompanying videos.
Blues Licks
These are all in the video - I play them in the order seen here.

I call them blues licks because if I was to use them all in my jazz solos all the time, I'd be spat on by jazz critics. These are mostly used in any blues/rock and roll solos I do.

VIDEO - 1) Triplet run.  Very quick m7-6-5  m3-2-1 descending run that can be used in a wide variety of places. This one can work very well in jazz pieces if you play it in a different key of the tune you are playing, working especially well if played in the subdominant of said key.  Also works if mixed with other chords, eg. when I performed "Peace Piece" by Bill Evans, I played this run in C along with an F#9 chord and ran down 4 octaves during my improvisation at the end.  It seemed to work well.

VIDEO - 2) Descending tritone/blues note based run.

VIDEO -3) m7 - 1 - m3 triplet run.  Basic blues riff.  Can work well in jazz solos if followed by a chromatic run.

VIDEO - 4) b5 - 5 - 8 triplet run.  Another basic blues riff.  Works well in jazz solos if emphasis is placed on the b5.  

Riffs I have under my belt for Jazz
Here are some of the things I've picked up this year that I use in my solos.  They are basic ideas and will often be embellished or altered whilst playing.

VIDEO - 6)  2-m3-5-m7 run.  Picked this up whilst listening to some modern jazz performances on youtube.  It's played slow in the video, but if played very quickly and over several octaves it can sound very, very jazz, even though it's simple.

VIDEO - 6) Tonic triad, Tritone triad.  Two major (or minor) triads straight after one another.  If in the key of C, would be C-E-G  F#-A#-C# or vice versa.  Picked this up from listening to Evans and Oscar Peterson.  I'm not sure if it's exactly what they played, but with the timing I play in the video, it's a well used riff that opens up space for a fast, continuous onslaught of notes.  I like to play a blues scale just after this.

VIDEO - 7) Chromatic run.  If I feel I need to do something quickly, make my solo more jazzy, transition to the next chord or even forget where I am, I use this.  I couldn't for the life of me understand how so many jazz pianists made their solos sound so discordant but in key at the same time.  I thought this was a particular lick that I just wasn't getting, but then I discovered it was just a chromatic run.  I use this a lot.

VIDEO - 8) Suspended 4th run.  Heard at the end of the "Belief" solo, this is one of my favourites to play.



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