Jazz Motifs with Common Tones
An important resource that great jazz musicians use in order to tell a story when improvising, is the element of repetition. This is often done by stressing a note that is common to various consecutive chords in a progression. And it is effective because it creates a motif which the listener can identify with throughout the development of your solo.
To show you how to to apply said concept, in this week’s lesson I want to show you how to “pivot off common notes” when improvising through various changes. Throughout the video I show you 3 etudes that demonstrate the use of this procedure over Stella by Starlight, Rhythm Changes and even some Jazz Blues!
PDF & AUDIO DOWNLOAD:
The Jazz Motifs with Common Tones lesson download includes: PDFs with both regular notation and TAB of all the examples, The Stella Etude, Rhythm Changes Etude, Pivot Blues Etude, MP3s & Band in a Box files of All the Etudes, and Midi files of everything so you can practice using the free downloadable notation app: “Muse Score”.
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Ah, yes, pivot notes. I have used this concept in my playing; however, I am much more likely to repeat entire phrases with similar rhythmic and often similar melodic structure. I like repeated structures, and I probably repeat phrases of this sort too often. I liked seeing your examples using Stella, Rhythm Changes, and Blues.