Rhythmic motives and developing themes

[euterpe]

Hello fellow jazz guitarists, it's been a while since I posted, I ghost the forum daily.

I wanted to see how people approach rhythmic motives/theme development during improvising, and this could fall under comping as well. I'll share some of the thoughts floating in my head lately around this.

I'm sure many of you have seen/heard the Pat Metheny bootleg lesson where he emphasizes the importance about being more rhythmically accurate and also to work on describing the harmony. I took pretty detailed notes of that lesson and have made many of the points in that video priorities for practice. I've come to really enjoy his playing on that lesson. I've noticed that of lot guitar players seem to fly around the neck but don't play powerful rhythms that would be fun enough to scat, let alone copy.

I've seen some videos of Gary Burton discussing theme development/motives. He starts has a small cell of notes maybe 3-5, and they have an intervallic shape and contour. Then molds and bends it to fit over the harmony, and will flip it upside down and backwards. This just hits me as something Bach would do, and it provides a great sense of unity between what you're playing, VS just playing stock licks and phrases. Even your premeditated licks can sound immensely different and more interesting when phrased differently.

I've been trying to incorporate this into my improv practice and it really takes me out of my comfort zone, which is usually a great sign that learning is taking place. You can start with a rhythm and try to contort it over the harmony you want to imply. I've noticed the biggest hurdle doing this and keep it going is a lack of confidence that the line will sound good, often if I stop and repeat a line the second time, it is played with a lot more conviction.

It's just a lot of talk "think of a rhythm and put a note to it"

Harmony gets a lot of focus in the practice room, for me at least, as it can take a great deal of study to navigate a tune, but how do you guys approach rhythmic/theme development while improvising.

[GuitarGerry]

This came up in another thread recently, therefore some of the following has been pasted from one of my previous posts.

Motivic development is something I worked on a lot in the past. I'd recommend a quick glance at a music dictionary to understand some basic concepts of classical form. Binary, compound-binary/ternary, ballad and rondo form can all be used to give a feeling of familiarity when improvising, or to block out large stretches of time.

You can take a simple rhythmic cell and recycle it according to any forming pattern. 'Ternary' is simply ABA. The A section can be 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars of thematic material. Or even a whole chunk/movement of a composition. Either way, it is repeated after the B section. It doesn't have to be a note-for-note repeat. It just needs to be recognisably related to the original statement (A section). The B section is contrasting material. If you imagine a repeat mark after the first 'A' section, you effectively have the classic AABA structure that we find in many Jazz standards. But you can use form in smaller units. Ordinarily, I don't like starting 8th note runs on the beat, but riff type things are fine. So, an example of recycling a rhythmic cell using ternary form (AABA):

Ba-Dap [2...3...4...]
Ba-Dap [2...3...4...]
Ba-Dap, a,Dap, Dap
Ba-Dap [2...3...4...]


All this stuff can sound a little contrived to begin with, but once it becomes second nature you forget the 'rules' and melodies/riffs take on a form of their own. If you add subtle melodic or rhythmic variation in each repeated section, it sounds more natural. If you don't, then the audience can hear the punchline coming and are almost singing along with you. In this respect, Monk was very good at pulling the carpet away from under your feet.

Another useful way of using form is to embellish a melody using a forming pattern. Rondo Form is ABACAD etc. Each 'A' section can be a one or two bar chunk of the head, with embellishment. So although you're not literally repeating anything in each A section, it's all related thematic material (you can bend the rules with all this stuff, it doesn't have to be rigid). The contrasting sections are improvised and needn't have any relationship whatsoever to the melody. The melody grounds the improvised sections: makes everything cohesive. Why would you do this? A number of reasons. One example would be coming back into the head from an improvised solo when there isn't anyone else to take the lead. This approach can act as a transition. You don't get a sudden jarring of 'manic solo' followed by twee melody. Form can allow you to quote bits of melody in between improvised sections, and gradually settle into a truer version of the original melody. If the melody doesn't lend itself to this pattern, try 'Ballad' form: ABCB.

I listened to a lot of late-period Ornette in the 80s/early 90s. Typically he'd take a simple rhythmic and melodic idea then shift the whole pattern so that it started on the next note up/down of the major scale (or whatever scale he was using). He'd cycle the idea through a number of degrees of the mode, so you'd hear the melody taking on different moods as the intervalic relationships changed. All this would be superimposed over the backing. It actually works well in modal music. I'd recommend listening to the Virgin Beauty album and you'll soon hear what I'm talking about. It's a bit dated in terms of production, but there are lessons to be learned from it. Again, he'd often vary things a little with each repeat, to throw the listener off guard.

There's also the Monk think of rhythmic displacement. You see it in the head of Straight No Chaser. Bringing the melodic cell a quarter note forward each bar to form new melodic lines.

[christianm77]

Hi Gerry, tbh i skipped over much of this, as I found the info a bit too rich to take in at first glance (as an epic poster myself.)

The pat metheny lesson is solid gold as far as I'm concerned and I have used this as my holy writ for a couple of years. Basics basics basics.

Listening to my playing I usually feel that my improvisation, while shaping up very nicely as far as I can hear, could do with a quite few less notes in certain places and a bit more shape- a clearer way of framing ideas. In music as art it's good to have a clear figure and ground and little clusters of detail that attract the attention.

The rhythmic motif approach seems a very good way to do this. After all it worked out ok for Beethoven and sonny Rollins.

I wanted to share a Mike Outram exercise that I have been enjoying recently and I hope he won't mind me posting. This can be done solo, with a backing in a loop pedal or recording, with a click, whatever you like.

Play an idea (on Gm say) of 2+ bars long. Repeat three frets higher with identical fingering.

Surprisingly difficult especially when you get into 4 bars + (at least for me) while this is not motif practice per se it is closely linked with it imo

[euterpe]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I just read the other thread that is going on about rhythm.

GuitarGerry: I like the ideas of using classical forms while improvising, I hadn't thought about going that deep into it. To be honest Ornette is someone I haven't checked out, feel free to post recommendations. Your response has given me a lot to think about and try out, thank you!

christian: I don't think I completely understand the point of the exercise you posted, could you explain it a little more? Are you finding it difficult because you need to remember 2-4+ bars of what you improvised?

[eddy b.]

I had a teacher turn me on to a little excercise where you take the rhythm from any of Bird's phrases and use that as a template over changes on other tunes, it certainly is a good challenge. One take away for me is that the rhythm of the line makes it sound like bop, not just the notes themselves. I guess that's obvious but for me st the time it was an epiphany. Two books worth checking out Hal Galper "Forward Motion" and Hal Crook "How to Imptovise" both have a lifetime of excercises for rhythmic oriented playing.

[GuitarGerry]

The pat metheny lesson is solid gold as far as I'm concerned and I have used this as my holy writ for a couple of years. Basics basics basics.

Call me dense (you wouldn't be the first), but both you and the OP mention this lesson. What/where is it?

Play an idea (on Gm say) of 2+ bars long. Repeat three frets higher with identical fingering.

Surprisingly difficult especially when you get into 4 bars + (at least for me) while this is not motif practice per se it is closely linked with it imo

That sounds like the Ornette trick I mentioned. He'll cycle a melodic idea/cell through different degrees of a mode (commonly major scale). Often sequentially, up/down. But sometimes he 'jumps', as you've outlined. The intervalic relationship changes with each shift, therefore the melodic cell takes on different moods. The whole thing works well in modal music, over static harmony. It's all superimposition at the end of the day.

[GuitarGerry]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I just read the other thread that is going on about rhythm.

GuitarGerry: I like the ideas of using classical forms while improvising, I hadn't thought about going that deep into it. To be honest Ornette is someone I haven't checked out, feel free to post recommendations. Your response has given me a lot to think about and try out, thank you!

The period where he recorded with his group Prime Time (and thereafter), you hear his 'harmolodic' approach the most. Check out the album Virgin Beauty (the whole of it is on youtube). It's spelled out for you on many tracks:

Production really dates it, but there are lessons to be learned.

Re classical form. Whether improvisers who use motifs realise it or not, they're often using classical form. Even if it's only binary (AB). Musical environment informs us, and classical music has been informing popular music for centuries. Therefore a lot of us feel these things intuitively. However, understand the rules and you can expand on your intuition. Monk clearly did some work in this respect. His displacement technique is a mathematical approach to recycling an idea.

[euterpe]

I thought I posted this earlier today, but here's another shot at it.

Here you go Guitargerry, the audio is sketchy but appreciated for the 007 recording job. Worth a listen!