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Rhythm and melody on the notes of the chords
Application: chord C7

As you’ll have noticed, the themes of jazz standards, “All The Things You Are”…”Autumn Leaves”…

Well, these melodies are constructed simply with whole, half and quarter notes.

So the first point is to learn how to improvise with whole, half and quarter notes, at a rhythmic level. And at the melodic level there’s a second point, which is to improvise simply with the notes of the chord.

• Whole, half and quarter notes
• Anticipation/Delay to chords’ notes
• Eighth notes on chords’ notes

Application: blues form

In step 3 we’ll take the techniques learnt in step 1, and apply them to a very important scale in jazz, the blues scale.

There are two types of blues scale.
If you play in C, the first…You can call that the major blues as it goes via the E.

And it’s just a derivation of the minor blues with the A. Another, still centred on the C, is this famous minor blues scale.

Let’s see this blues application.

Triad + second, fourth, sixth (tonality)
Application: blues form

Step 4, let’s take our blues in C major, or any other standard or composition in C major, and play, simply concentrating on the C triad: C, E, G.

To which we add an external note : the second, D…the fourth, F…and the sixth, A.

The external note as the note of passage or as the note of tension.

Triad + second, fourth, sixth (modes)
Application: blues form

For step 5, as opposed to step 4, where our attention was exclusively focused on the C triad, we’ll provide an example of how we can do the same thing except that we’ll take the triad associated with each chord.

Technical combination of steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Application: blues form

For step 6 we’re finally going to combine, to unify, everything we’ve worked on in the previous steps, and we’ll see how, as long as we’ve worked well, step by step, it starts becoming instinctive, it starts becoming natural.

So we can play the blues, by unifying everything we’ve been working on.