Anatomy of a Jazz Lick: Line building and improvisation

[pamosmusic]

Yo jazz folks ...

I've posted a couple times about some of the group workshop stuff I've been doing lately. Now that I'm a few months in, I feel a bit better about sharing more of the written material with ya'll.

Here is what I did for January. I divided the workshop into three half-hour long classes where we talked about line building, by way of something I've taken to calling "The Anatomy of a Jazz Lick"

There is obviously some context in the video workshop stuff, but these are still handy. We've also spent the subsequent months getting into some more ways to liven this stuff up with rhythm etc. I'll get that stuff going here at some point too. Anyway ... let me know if you have any questions (or feedback, for whatever that's worth).

Dropbox - the tools concert -.pdf - Simplify your life

Dropbox - the line c - Score.pdf - Simplify your life

Dropbox - the jazz c.pdf - Simplify your life

(and a link to the course itself: Improvisology Registration — 11th Hour Music)

[princeplanet]

My question- why dropbox?

[pamosmusic]

My question- why dropbox?

Thats your question?

[princeplanet]

I might have had another question if I could be bothered with negotiating Dropbox

You obviously put some effort into preparing that post, but no-one else has responded, possibly for the same reason?

[pamosmusic]

I might have had another question if I could be bothered with negotiating Dropbox

You obviously put some effort into preparing that post, but no-one else has responded, possibly for the same reason?

It’s literally just a link you click. What’s your alternative?

And I’m fairly accustomed to things I spend time on getting crickets here. Some hit, some miss.

[pcjazz]

It’s pretty basic stuff so far but I do admire how you have broken it down step by step. Good pedagogy! Where are you going with this?

[princeplanet]

Hmm, curiously, this time the link worked. First time, it went to a dropbox page asking to sign in to dropbox. Strange.
Anyhoo, it's all good stuff and I encourage those interested in Bop construction to take a gander.

[pamosmusic]

It’s pretty basic stuff so far but I do admire how you have broken it down step by step. Good pedagogy! Where are you going with this?

Started it in January. We’ve been working through various lines and using this framework to break them up in modular ways.

Just did a lesson on an Oscar Peterson double time lick and using one of those devices to make longer lines.

[Jimmy Smith]

Nice job. I think that's very accurate. That's also my understanding of it. I think it's dumb that how to build melody isn't very well understood, and accurate teaching of it isn't very prevalent. That's good that you're being proactive about it.

[Jimmy Smith]

Not that you don't have this covered, but things I would include are teaching the chromatics as enclosures as well. That's a key function of chromatics, not only the BH style added half steps.

Also personally, I like treating intervals as their own set of useful material, not only as tags. You don't hear them everywhere, but you do hear them sometimes outside of only tag use, and I think they're really helpful for coming up with cool ideas.

Monk tune created entirely of scale sequences:

Interval demonstration:

[pamosmusic]

Not that you don't have this covered, but things I would include are teaching the chromatics as enclosures as well. That's a key function of chromatics, not only the BH style added half steps.

Also personally, I like treating intervals as their own set of useful material, not only as tags. You don't hear them everywhere, but you do hear them sometimes outside of only tag use, and I think they're really helpful for coming up with cool ideas.

Monk tune created entirely of scale sequences:

Interval demonstration:

Sure.

I’ve gotten to both of those things. Did a lesson on diatonic thirds, which would be sort of phase one on the intervals.

The aforementioned Oscar Peterson lick was all enclosures and approaches.

And actually this one is from maybe the second or third month of this that I did?

Jim Hall on Stella