Bird may be my all time favorite melodic improvisor. His sound, feel and ideas still seem fresh and alive and I enjoy him more and more the older I get. I’m always shocked when I put on a side I’ve not heard for a while and think to myself, “Man, he’s gotten better since the last time I heard him!”.
Here’s a short Bird phrase I learned when I was young, trying to play along with Bird solos while reading out of the Omni Book. It’s one of those lines that you hear Bird play a lot, it also has a classic bebop shape containing triplet pickups and a primary melody grouped in 3 against 4/4 time.
I often find that going back to Bird and/or Lester can really be ear/mind opening – the underlying structure of their ideas, melodically, harmonically and rhythmically seems to still be at the heart of modern jazz improvisation and in a fundamental way has not been surpassed.
You can also use the mp3 below to practice singing the line or working on the material in your head while visualizing the fingerings on your instrument. This is a great way to practice especially if you suffer from RSI or carpal tunnel.
This is a very simple melody that clearly outlines the major 7 sound (with a passing natural 11). First sing the melody in one key to get familiar with the sound and help internalize the phrase.
Once it’s easy to sing it in tune begin playing it through the keys on your instrument. Remember to stay relaxed, listen and feel the underlying pulse.
For variations try playing the melody in triplets or displacing the melody by and eighth note. Of course flatting the 7th and/or 3rd can transform the melody to dominant or minor.
Here’s a very simple lesson taken from the 1st two bars of the second Bach Cello Suite prelude. The melody outlines the chord progression i minor to V7 b9.
First, sing the melody until you hear it like a nursery rhyme. This is really important ground work and in some ways the most important step; if you can’t sing it, you can’t hear it, and if you can’t hear i,t than it’s likely you’re playing music primarily by muscle memory and thought.
Second, visualize the fingerings while singing the melody and think clearly of the specific tensions or chord tones that the melody outlines over each chord (i.e. 1, b3, 5, b3, 9, 1 over the i minor chord and 3, 5, b7, 1, b9 over the V7b9 chord). Lastly, play the melody on your instrument around the circle of fourths. Use a metronome, stay relaxed, listen, and try to “feel” the strong beats of the measure – the underlying harmonic rhythm.
If you want add some interesting variations, try displacing the melody by an eighth note or playing it in all triplets starting on the 1st, or 2nd or last triplet of each beat. You might also try simply improvising from those limited note choices over each of the chords (i.e. 1,9,3,5 on minor and 1,b9, 3, 5, b7 on V7).
Here’s another beautiful melody from the Bach 2 part inversions that comes from the harmonic minor scale. In this lesson I sing the phrase in one key (concert Ab minor) and then play it through all 12 keys. I really enjoy listening to the intervals in this line. It works nicely displaced in triplets too. Strangely, for me, the hardest part about learning this melody was singing from the flat 13 to the natural 11 (in the key) which is the same as the b9 to the b7 over the dominant (V7b9,b13). If you do try to learn this idea and sing it, see if that interval in this particular melodic/harmonic context is hard for you too. I kept wanting to go to the minor 3rd or the 5th of the key instead of the natural 11, but I finally got it and started to hear it … maybe it’s just a human thing or maybe it’s just and ‘old dog new tricks’ thing. I learned this melody years ago but only really played it in one key. When looking for something to practice in my head last week while doing the elliptical, I realized I never really sat down with it and sang it or put it through the keys. There’s something very stimulating to the ear and mind when working on Bach material, he seems to have a layered, and detailed grasp of sound even when working with a very small kernel of his music. There’s a pdf of the melody below.
In lesson 31 we’ll take a small melodic fragment from the Bach 2 part inversions and both play it and sing it through the diatonic chords found in concert Eb major. I enjoy taking a small phrase from any number of sources (Bach, Bird, Bartok, Konitz etc…) and sing it and play it in different keys. I really like the effect this has on both my improvising and my enjoyment of music practice.
This simple melody outlines a triad in first inversion with a chromatic embellishment (lower neighbor tone) and a diatonic passing tone.
After your able to sing and play this melody well in one key, put it through all 12 keys. By singing the material you will train your ear and really gain a deep understanding of the sound and musicality of the idea. Singing and playing a phrase also strengthens the connection between your actual voice/mind and your instrument/fingers which will help your instrument become your voice in a more predominant way. This will help make it enjoyable to work on and allow you to remember and assimilate the material into your improvising vocabulary- weather it be as a shape or a complete melodic statement.
Since I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in 1990, I began to sing as a way of practicing the saxophone without using my hands. After my operation, I could not use my hands to play the sax for 4 months so began singing and imagining the saxophone fingerings simultaneously. This was extremely slow going at first, because my ear needed a lot of work, and now, years later, is still challenging for me. What I’ve learned from this practice is that it will consistently develop your ones and the connection between the ear (mind) and the fingers (body). I’ve mentioned this countless times in all my other lessons but I thought it was time to demonstrate how one might go about doing this. The difficulty here lies in the singing of the musical phrase. Most of us (including myself) aren’t great singers, so we shy away from singing as it is embarrassing and somewhat humiliating. If you can throw these fears aside and sing you will soon realize (if you haven’t already), just how good singing is for your ears, your musicality, your playing and your general enjoyment of music. If you can maintain this “sing and than play” approach throughout your practice routine, day in and day out, you will see steady improvements over the years. One thing you’ll quickly notice, is that, although you can play things at break neck speeds, singing is a slow and delicate process which will truly reflect where your ear is at and what specifically you have trouble hearing. You can’t hide behind your instrument, your technique or your knowledge when you sing; if you can’t hear it, you can’t sing it. Keep in mind that you should try to sing the pitches in tune, as best you can, try to avoid singing just the rhythms with a vague or unspecific pitch. Sing over a drone so you can sense the vibrations of the different intervals above a root or pedal and will help to get the notes better in tune. There is a PDF of the ii – V7 – I melody below and an mp3 you can practice singing along to as well.
This is exercise works as a supplement to my book “Jazz Vocabulary Vol. 1 Harmonic Major” or on its own. There are three mp3s for this scale practice below, one at 40bpm, one at 80 bpm and one at 160bpm. The idea here is to use the mp3′s to listen to and sing along with, while reading the music and visualizing the fingerings on your instrument. This is a great method for practicing scales or melodies through keys. It works much better than merely playing the scales or melodies on your instrument. The singing makes it valuable ear training and you learn to hear the material deeply and thoroughly and the visualization of the fingerings makes it nearly identical to actually playing your instrument without any hand/wrist use and without the need of a practice space; you can do this at the gym or the coffee shop. Also, by singing while visualizing the fingerings on your instrument you are telling your brain to sing through your hands and conditioning yourself to understand your instrument as your voice.
Here is a simple melody that will help you hear diminished as diminished, not merely as a dominant 7(b9). This is fairly easy idea that is played through the keys around the circle of fourths starting in concert C. It’s good to recognize that diminished (whole, half) is actually much harder to hear (and sing) than dominant 7th (b9) partially do to the lack of a stabilizing 5th above the root. As an exercise, try to sing a diminished scale over a pedal or drone starting with a half step (half, whole), because of the perfect 5th, the scale is much more stable and easier to sing and hear. Next try to sing the scale over a pedal or drone starting with a whole step… you’ll see that as the scale moves from the #11 to the #5 (without the presence of the perfect 5th above the root), it’s much harder to sing and get in tune, and thus much harder to hear accurately. In general scales without a perfect 5th are the hardest to sing over their appropriate root.
Lot’s of great melodies are no more than a triad with a bit of stepwise embellishment. This exercise takes a spread triad in root position and embellishes the 3rd at the top of the voicing with upper and lower neighbor tones. The melody is played outlining four harmonic qualities: Major (Ionian), Major #5 (harmonic major), Minor (Dorian) and Minor b6 (or Major 7 #11 with the 3rd in the bass). Adding rhythmic variation and changing the triad inversion can quickly expand the material for creative improvising. The exercise is played around the circle of fourths starting on C major.
Finding new ways to construct melodies over a major chord can be challenging as Ionian, Lydian and Lydian augmented seem to dominate the harmonic landscape in major. This lesson uses a melody that incorporates b9 and b13 over major. Although b13 (or #5) can be found in Lydian augmented (the 3rd mode of melodic minor), the 3rd mode of harmonic minor (as well) and in harmonic major (Ionian with a b13), once you add the b9 as well, you end up with a Major synthetic scale (in this case: 1, b9, 3, #11, 5, b13, maj7, 1). This line can also be played over a dominant 7th or a minor 7th if you lower the 3rd degree a half step.
Sometimes finding interesting substitutions for a Dominant 7th can lead to some new melodic ideas and some fresh inspiration in an otherwise mundane harmonic environment. This exercise uses Major 7 (#5) descending by major 3rds over one dominant 7th to create an idea that sounds slightly different than a standard Lydian Dominant melody. Over C7 the melody will outline Bb Major 7(#5), Gb Major 7(#5), D Major 7(#5) and back to Bb Major 7(#5). By playing a sequential motif grouped in 5 over this descending Major 7(#5) progression, we get an interesting melody that still sounds like C7 yet introduces some well organized approach notes. The exercise is played in eight-notes and than again in triplets. The PDF contains a more detailed explanation of both the Major 7(#5) substitutions and the groupings of 5. It’s also interesting to notice that the entire melodic/harmonic phrase comes from the classical augmented scale: over C7 the Bb classical augmented scale is Bb Db D F Gb A Bb (which is comprised of 2 augmented triads a half step apart: Bb augmented triad and A augmented triad). This melodic exercise works over major and minor chords as well… The melody that I’ve associated with C7 could therefore be played over Bb Major 7, Gb Major 7, or D Major 7 or their relative minors; G minor, Eb minor and B minor. Anyway, the options are limitless once you add some rhythmic variation.
