All The Things You Are: Jazz Improvisation Lesson

hi everybody welcome to a BLT music look at my funny setup I'm going to sit here I'm going to teach you about all the things you are and you're going to be able to see the chord changes that's my hope anyway funny setup all the things you are let's get going somebody wrote to me and they asked just specifically can you give us tools for improvising over all the things you are it's a great song the chords are so beautiful and they lend themselves to the prettiest melodies so we're going to do that today we're just going to go that far too I'm only going to take you that far we're going to discuss those eight bars at length so we start with an F minor chord see it now in the real melody of the song they start on the minor third it's an A flat and then they go up to the other minor third of the chord that's coming up it's a D flat which is the minor third and B flat minor now look at this the next strong note in the melody is the third of a flat seven that becomes the seventh gina becomes the seventh of a-flat major but then it hops up to the third so far we've had a strong third in every bar oh here's another one and it's the third of D flat major F is also the third of D minor and now we've just played the third of g7 and we go to the third of C major what does this teach us it should teach us that the third is strong the third is probably the strongest note that you can play in a melody that lets you know exactly where the chords are so if I were just to sing this melody without playing any chords at all you might have a pretty good idea of what the chords are just by what the melody is that's exactly what you should do when you're soloing somebody should be able to listen to your solo and kind of hear how the song sounds like the invisible song underneath what you're doing if you were to just solo with no accompaniment that someone should be able to hear the accompaniment in their head your notes are so strong so we're going to aim for the thirds of all of these chords and we're going to make up something to go in between right now okay I'm going to start here on this note and then we need to get to this note how are we going to do it I wish there was a classroom of you right here somebody could raise their hand maybe maybe it's this dude and beanie on leather I got an idea we're like there you go dude dude and I'm gonna be like yes dude with the beanie that's what we're gonna do we're gonna go and that's a great way and then I'm going to say clash what's another way that we can do it and then cute little girls you know raise your hand and be like what if we did not add it up and I'm gonna say yes cute little girl that's exactly right what are those two kids doing all you're doing is using their ears to get from point A to point B I think you can all do that I wish that you guys could come up with ideas for me right now but I'll just come up with a few more of my own that's a nice one how do I know which notes to play for singers it can be really easy because you can just use your ears if I'm playing this chord you're probably not going to have the idea of going that's probably not going to come to your brain because your people who can hear so you're asking on your head but what scale am i playing some I know I know some of you you want to know the name of the scale so you can think about F Dorian if you want until you get there when you're in this key you can also think of the new Dorian minor which is B flat there's some of you who are playing instruments want to know exact notes and what your choices are and some of you don't have ears that are quite developed you're still working on that so that's okay but I really like you to just use your ears so if your piano player and you want to get from this point eight at this point B I want you to sit here and figure it out does it sound real good [Music] that sounds good and then you choose it let's use one of those ideas and work our way through those first eight bars you're going to see how easy it is let's use this one that one okay can you hear what comes next I think you did I think you heard it which is good you want your audience to be able to predict like that sometimes too how about the next one this is a little tricky because at this point we're here D minor g7 C major happens it's a - five - C major and we decided that the strong note is a B right it's the third of this g7 chord so I'm going to suggest we just land on the B to that third let's try it [Music] now let's just sing the Third's alone we need to get them in our ear you need to be able to hear those thirds so that when you move your way through soloing over these eight bars those thirds are strong in your head and you know where to aim ah duh [Music] now let's do more fun stuff we'll make up some bebop lines now how do you make up bebop lines well first of all you listen to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie a lot you got you've got to listen to those guys if you want to know how to play bebop so you start by listening a ton that's how you're going to make your lines more interesting you listen to time but I will deconstruct it as an academic right now for you so you got a note to start on you've got a note to end on you've got a pretty melody that we've already made up eighth note lines with little triplets here and there that's that's like the foundation of bebop at least rhythm wise so we need to make a line that has eight eighth notes let's try that I'll show you a little trick it's called sidestepping we need to get there or a half step from it that's a C with D flat if it g f e flat see what we're going to do is a little trick I call sidestepping duh duh when I go to an E flat a flat D C so we've only got a short ways to go but we just create a few more notes to make it sound interesting hmm you can hit the notes that aren't in the scale that are just a half step away from the target note your target note is a D flat on this bar so we're going to get a D and a C to sidestep it above below boom all right let's try it another way that's a good one we sidestepped it just from the top that's a a flat F C B flat B flat and then I went up to the E flat there's another one a flat F C B flat a flat you do the exact same thing classic we just use our ears to come up with that our target note is a C in this bar so we're going to aim one half step above it what we did for that was we had this note in mind and the sidestepping we did began a whole step above that note and we dropped a half step if we do it here our target not to see and we're not going to be able to shoot a whole step above it this time because that's a D and it'll sound bad so we want to stay in the scale which right now is likely flat mixolydian the products are just doing is staying in the scale so your D flat to B flat and then just sidestep this way so that you come we come up to it like that you can play that strange note that's out of the key if it's not on a strong beat one and two and three and four and run those color tones like that can be best used on the offbeat because they're not they're not strongly emphasized we talked about how we emphasize the quarter note you usually want to play scale tones for your quarter notes for everything on beats one two three and four your color tones can come between those next one where are we we're here D flat start on our third everything in the key we just make it sound like the others the next note we're shooting for is of me so we're gonna have to figure out a way to sidestep to get to it there's the B let's try a whole step above and sidestepping that works nice c-sharp see our way to that next third do you have to have those target now it's the thirds no you don't it'll make you sound like you know what you're doing more if you're a beginner and you do know those thirds you can hear them and you land on them but you don't have to you can pick any strong chord tone that you want to that means in F minor you can pick an event or an a-flat or a C or an E flat those can all be notes that you land on easy not so tricky so all I did was our Pidgey eight the chord three flat C E flat dev burman our then on the third of the neck sport but I started on the 7th of the first chord of this F minor chord I started on an E flat that's fine it might be hard to go from seven to seven let's see if we can do that and that's where it is it's gonna be tricky you can do it doesn't sound quite as strong does it seventh of the next words in d-flat b7e flexible that's another seven so now I'm aiming for seventh I thought it was going to be tricky but it's not tricky they sound pretty good so there's the C on this coin [Music] there's the F on the g7 just gives it it gives it another flavor doesn't it it kind of gives it a I think more beautiful flavor to land on sevens let's mix it up and do both we'll start on a 7 e flat and then on the 3rd let's start on another 7 but we're already on it right the third of this chord is the 7th of this court that happens a lot and rest on the 3rd of this chord which is a G now we want to go to the 7th of this chord [Music] just slowing down and thinking about it like this can help you come up with ideas that you might not come up with otherwise and I like that it's really good to just slow down a song and think about it intellectually sometimes you think about thirds you think about sevens what ever thought about fives or ones happily let's think about them here's the five of the F minor I went from the five to the third and I see there's that there's the fifth of this chord it's a B flat to the third that goes so nice there's the myth of this part that's all really nice too having little plans like I can make for a really nice voice leading it just makes your melody predictable which is always a good thing you want to have some amount of predictability in your soul up so that the audience goes on a journey with you and can do some predicting it makes them feel involved you also want to have some element of surprise in what you're doing let's talk about some skips and since I said we need to talk about the route let's have some ideas with the route let's also do some skips there's the route right into death let's skip to an odd note maybe maybe the second of the second degree that's really nice isn't it - the third you that's a fun idea you kind of aim for the note that's right next to the note that you're going to aim for so you sidestepping but in a really bold way with some skips how did we start we started on the route so I named for the second degree which is one half step away from the third and I decided I'm gonna him for another note I'm not sure if that's what I did but that's the Florida flat liner which is a D flat and then I play an a natural which is a half step away from the room now I'm on the third of this and I'm just gonna think of another strong tone what should it be I'm on the third let's aim for the root so I'm gonna on my on my offbeat I'm gonna aim a half step above or below so nice I am for a half step below the fifth of D flat you but give to the nice lady in town if you if you do a before a half step below the fifth of the core that's coming up and southern harmony notes if you want good now I'm going to take a couple of courses just making it up doing different ideas just to end the video so that you guys get some more ideas I'll try to use the things that we've talked about but I'll also try not to think too much and to just feel a my way through [Music] right there applied to the contour and I changed what beat it came on that's where you give the audience both predictability and surprise at the same exact time they can kind of predict the contour that's coming up next but you throw them off by changing beats that's that's a nice nice thing to do I'll try to do it in that in another way right now let's just take that much [Music] one thing I did right there was before I even got to the C major bar I was singing an E really strong to kind of jump the gun it's nice to jump the gun let's try that [Music] it's hard for you thinking about [Music] Oh [Music] well I think we pretty much beat these eight bars to death at least on some kind of beginning level I think that we have you guys let me know if you want to know anything more if you have any other questions I mean of course there are more directions to move we haven't talked about sixteenth notes or many triplets at all they haven't talked about how to go outside how to play extensions there's all kinds of things we could discuss but but I really think that people missed the mark if they can't do this if they can't aim for target notes and outline the chords with their melody that they're making up on the spot if I can't tell what the chords are from listening to your solo you're not doing your job there quote me on that alright thanks so much for watching a BLT music I hope you've learned something about all the things you are today and about how to build your lives when you're soloing I will see you next time

Channel: Aimee Nolte Music

Views: 141,935

Rating: 4.8974771 out of 5

Keywords: piano, vocal, jazz, music, solo, bebop, all the things you are, chords, chord changes, aimee nolte, improv, improvisation, improvise, rhythm, melody, modes, scales, jazz theory, standard, swing, phrasing, lesson, tutorial, saxophone, trumpet, vibes, trombone

Id: vyaHNSNHihM

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2016