Jazz improvisation basics

After many years of helping my students develop improvisation skills, I have found that I address the same set of challenges every time. Therefore, I have decided to begin compiling some of the things I say to students and some of the references and exercises I create for them on this page.

Prerequisites

In my opinion, the most important skills/prerequisites for improvisation are:
  1. Interest and motivation - Becoming a proficient improvisor is a titanic undertaking, and not something that can happen easily "by accident." The student needs to enjoy listening to the art form and needs to be interested in trying - and not being afraid of failure/sounding bad. One of the challenges of learning to improvise is that we tend to approach it for the first time when we are well out of the "beginning" phase of learning music, and we have forgotten that we sounded terrible when we first started - it's just part of the process!
  2. Devotion to the instrument - This may seem obvious, but developing a habit of daily time with the instrument is critical. Even if it is only a few minutes, you need to get into a habit of playing the horn daily! Also, find time to enjoy playing the saxophone - this is supposed to be fun and fulfilling!
  3. Major scales - The entirety of my approach to teaching improvisation is related back to the major scale. Improvisation students need to know major scales in all keys thoroughly by memory. In my opinion, after motivation and devotion to the instrument, there is no more important basic skill related to learning music than a high level of comfort and proficiency with major scales.
  4. Appreciation for the recorded classic jazz of the 1940s-1960s - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, Curtis Fuller, Miles Davis, JJ Johnson, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane - the list of even the titans goes on and on - these people developed the language of improvised American popular musics, from so-called straight-ahead jazz to funk, soul, rock and roll, R&B, smooth jazz, gospel, and beyond. Regardless of the specific style, deep, intentional listening to the landmark artists of the bebop, hard bop, and cool jazz eras will be essential in learning to improvise.

intervals, scales, and 7th chords

Intervals are the language we use to describe the relationships between pitches. It is helpful to know this language so you can discuss intervallic relationships with other musicians, to better understand the structure of what you play, and to aid with the memorizing lines.
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Interval Sheet

Scales are horizontal representations of notes, i.e., notes played one after the other.
Major Scale Reference Sheet
Natural Minor Scale Reference Sheet
Harmonic Minor Scale Reference Sheet
Melodic Minor Harmony Part I
Melodic Minor Harmony Part II
Chords are simply notes played at the same time. As a saxophonist, we approximate chords by playing arpeggios, since we can't (practically) play more than one note at a time. In functional harmony there is a relationship between scales and chords - in fact, one could be considered another way of representing the other.

7th chords are the basic building blocks of jazz harmony. A 7th chord has a quality (major, minor, augmented, diminished) and a 7th (major, minor, diminished). The basic functional chords are:
  • tonic
  • subdominant
  • dominant
I think of these functions as having tension/direction. Tonic function chords feel stable, home, final. Dominant chords are the most tense/directional, with a strong pull toward the tonic. Subdominant chords are less tense than dominant chords, but not as stable as tonic chords. Subdominant chords "want" to go to the dominant, or, to a lesser degree, the tonic. *NOTE: these ideas of direction are cultural - hundreds of years of western music tradition have established these directions. Don't fall into the fallacy of thinking these western European cultural ideas are universal to music!

7th Chord Reference Sheet