wana LESSON IMPROVISATION Improvisation is the invention of a solo. When you improvise, you tell the story of what you think about the tune, and what it means to you. Though an improvised solo may seem spontaneous to the audience, the musi- cian probably did a lot of preparation before performing it. There are two things you must know before you start improvising: when you should play, and what notes will sound good. FORM AND ARRANGEMENT When you are preparing to improvise on a tune, start by learning how it is organized, This will let you know when you should start to improvise, and where the chords change. oom J om Listen to “Sweet” and follow the saxophone. After an introduction, the sax plays the melody. Then, it impro- vises a solo, Finally, it plays the melody again. During the improvised solo, you can still feel the written melody. That's because the improvisation follows the same chords as the written melody. This repeating chord pattern is the same throughout the entire tune, and is called the song's form—its plan or structure, ‘A common way to show this organization is with a chord chart. Chord charts don’t show rhythm or pitch, just measures and chord symbols. The slash marks (/// J) mean “play in time.” A 4 €— CHOeO PATTERN eePeaTS 8 oO to CHORD PATTERN CEPEATS. SS a7 FF |The chord chart makes it easy to see that the form of “Sweet” is sixteen measures long. It has two primary musical ideas: the first eight measures present ce first idea (Idea “A"), with the €~ A €= patterns. The second cight measures present the second idea (Idea “B"), with the A- 9 A pattems. This form can be described simply as “AB” or “AB form.” These letters help us remember the form, freeing us from having to read while One complete repetition of this form is called a chorus. A chorus can feature the written melody, in which case itis called the head, or it can feature just the chord structure, supporting an improvisation, (The word chorus is also used to mean a song section that is alternated with varying verses. In this book, however, the word “cho- rus” is only used to mean “once through the form") ARRANGING “SWEET” Your band can choose how many choruses you want to play, and create your own arrangement of “Sweet.” The number of choruses depends on how many players will improvise when you perform the tune. On the recorded performance of “Sweet,” only one player solos (the sax), playing for two choruses. Often, several members of the band will take turns playing choruses of improvised solos, A solo can be one or two choruses, or even more. On the recording, the same basic arrangement is used for all the tunes: the head, an improvised sax solo, and then the head again. There are often short introductions and endings as well. This is the arrangement for “Sweet” played on the recording: Inteo Hero SAX SOLO: 2x Hero ENOING | AMenoees || senoeos=s¢ Mesvees ||: serors =seMrsuees |] Levees «so mesines |] tmesuees |] When you play “Sweet” with your band, you can play your own arrangement, adding extra solo choruses, different endings, or other changes. LESSON 3: IMPROVISATION 9IDEAS FOR IMPROVISING When you improvise, some notes will sound better than others. There are many Ways to find notes that will sound good, You can use the notes from the tune’s melody, you can use notes from the chords, and you can use notes from scales that match the tune. Eventually, this becomes intuitive, and you can just follow your ear: Pentatonic Scales ‘The sax soloist on this recording of “Sweet” built much of his solo using notes from a pentatonic scale Pentatonic scales are among the simplest and most versatile types of scales in all of music. All pentatonic scales have five notes. There are (wo common types of pentatonic scales: major and minor. For “Sweet,” the soloist used the minor pentatonic scale built on E. This scale works well here because the tune is in E minor. E Minor Pentatonic Seale Root 63 4 5 67 Root ‘The magic of the minor pentatonic scale is that nearly any series or combination of its notes sounds musically pleasing. It is easy to improvise pentatonic licks (short melodic figures or phrases) that sound good. ‘When you solo, you will want to use notes in more than just one octave, so practice the notes of the E minor pentatonie scale in the following range, using the fingering shown. ® ® © a ® 10CALL AND RESPONSE Echo Listen to each phrase, and then play it back, echoing it exactly. Each two-bar phrase comes from the E minor pentatonic scale, Play just the melody, rhythms, Slashes (“Y") in measures marked “play” mean that you should play during those measures. Listen carefully, and hook up with the groove. ising one hand. Follow the form and try to capture each phrase’s rom @ om Listen Play ec fe LESSON 3: IMPROVISATION 11Keep practicing that track until you can echo all phrases perfectly. Then do the same thing for the phrases on this next track, oom 7 oa 12Answer nom6,7 on Play the same two tracks again, This time, instead of echoing the phrases exactly, answer them with your own. improvised phrases. Imitate the sound and rhythmic feel of the phrases you hear, and only use notes of the E minor pentatonic scale. Write out some of your own two-measure phrases, like the ones you have been playing. Don’t worry about perfecting your notation; just sketch out your ideas. This will help you remember them when you are improvising ae Create a one-chorus solo using any techniques you have leamed. Memorize your solo and practice it along with the recording, When playing in a band, listen to the other players" parts and try to create a musical conversation. This makes playing much more fun, and more musical too. When you are improvising a solo, listen to what the other instruments are playing. They will suggest ‘many ideas that you can use in your solo, and you will inspire each other, LESSON 3: IMPROVISATION 13