Using chords to improvise

So we are going to say more about improvising in this session. We’ve already met improvising using scales.

There we have used jazz quavers or jazz triplets typically to move up and down the scales starting and ending at any point. Our next device is called “chordal” improvisation. As the name suggests it involves essentially using the notes of the chords and going up and down the chords in a musical manner, hopefully. This chordal improvisation is typical of the earlier eras of jazz - what we call “traditional jazz” in the UK - where there is much more use of chordal improvising. Let me talk about a C blues. Let me do it one bar at a time - out of time - and then we’ll use our playalong.

So in the case of a C blues the first chord is C7 and those are the notes that make up C7. We can play them in any order and we play them, typically, either as jazz quavers, or again, typically, triplets.

We can “arpeggiate” the chord, which means take a particular shape and move it up and down the chord.

For example:

Or some other shape, like:

There’s our first bar. Second bar F7 and we do the same thing using the notes of F7. Back home again. And again. F7. And again. Home.

Then G7 - and there are the notes which make it up - F7. And home.