Keep Your Jazz Improv Simple & Smile (Beginner Ideas)

A lot of challenges in life may best overcome by keeping it simple and smile, my KISS 2.0 acronym: 🙂 (imho)

To create a great, simple jazz solo, focus on:

• Learning Jazz Guitar FAQ!
• How to Play Jazz Guitar (22 Beginner Lessons)

Questions, Comments, Ideas?

Please leave a comment and/or send me a message! I am still learning a lot myself, but I hope this helps!

Is jazz improvisation hard?

Like any art form, master-level jazz musicians spend countless years honing their skills and reflexes in order to create beautiful, inspired music.

Improvisation in jazz occurs at many levels:

• The soloist
• The groove & drummer
• The groove & bassist
• The comping and chords
• The interpretation of the melody
• The interplay between musicians

The concepts behind much improvising, in general, prove to be simple.

But in practice, in the hands of a master-level jazz musician, they can sound amazingly beautiful and complex.

Most beginning jazz musicians (when listening to the greats) hear a lot of complicated notes, harmonies and rhythms. They usually want to emulate their favorite musicians and this usually means complicated solos, intricate rhythms and harmonies.

But that’s like being 5 years old, and skipping your first day of kindergarten and starting with your PhD thesis.

Good news (for me and you) – with “limit” technique and good application of basic principles you can really improve your solos (in any genre really) by practicing and applying some basic concepts.

6 Simple Elements to Create a Great Jazz Solo

The short answer to creating a good jazz solo. Focus on:

Play all notes with groove, Play simple melodies, create an obvious melodic structure to your solos, tell a simple story.

G, M & VSSS!

1. Groove
   • All jazz musicians (imho) primary role is to create and sustain great groove. This includes the soloist.
2. Melody
   • Create a few simple melodies – don’t worry about the complicated melodies that amazing musicians like Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane sometimes play. You can start incorporating those ideas after years of study 🙂
3. Variations
   • Create variations of your simple melodies
4. Space
   • Let the melodies breath.
   • Literally take breathes between phrases, like your were a horn player or singer
   • You can sing the notes you play to get a feel for phrasing in space
5. Structure
   • Restate your melodies in a logical way (for the listener)
   • Create an obvious musical structure to your solo
   • Use space to accentuate the form of your solo
6. Story
   • Imagine your solo is like a simple story
   • Tell a story!
     1. A beginning – state your melody
     2. Plot development & Tension – restate your melody and add variations
     3. Climax – Build up to a climax in your story
     4. Resolution – Provide a musical resolution

Groove

Focus on making all your notes groove.

Lock in with the drummer & rhythm section.

Focus on playing in the pocket and either behind the beat or in the beat.

Some of my Favorite Ways/Ideas to Practice Groove:

• Improve Solos – Right Hand Groove (Jazz Guitar version)
• Make your Own Backing Track (5 Minute Practice Ideas)
• Practicing Jazz Groove (Slow C Blues with Oscar & Count Basie)
• Better Groove – Six Fun Practice Ideas!
• Learning to Groove with the New Birth Brass Band!
• Jazz Guitar Ideas – Count Out Loud – Improve Time and Groove !
• Groove and the backbeat (for Guitarists)
• Learning to groove (on guitar) with Rebirth Brass Band
• Playing 4 on the Floor! (Classic Jazz Guitar Groove)

Melody

Create a simple melody.

You can just use a pentatonic scale.

Try to come up with something that grooves and you can sing!

• Singing – What You May Learn as a Guitarist!
• Play what you sing, sing what you play!
• Learning Songs: Listen, Sing, Play
• Playing what they’re singing

How do you play in the right key?

Start practicing these concepts with the blues – if it’s an F blues, then play in the key of F.

A C Blues is in C. – you can use the C major pentatonic & blues, C minor pentatonic & blues.

If you are playing standards, you may have to analyze the tune a little bit more. Usually the key of the tune will be the last chord of tune or 8 bar section (not including the turn around).

While you can use a lot more harmonic ideas, many simpler standard jazz tunes have melodies in mostly just one key. Figure out that key and you’ll be able to start creating a good, solid improv.

Some jazz blues to start with:

• Practicing Jazz Groove (Slow C Blues with Oscar & Count Basie)
• Practicing Jazz/Swing Groove (C Jam Blues)
• E flat Blues (100 bpm) Acoustic Jazz Guitar Backing Track
• Eb Jazz Blues Backing Track (bpm 144)

More standards to check out:

• Learn Jazz Guitar, Day 1, So What by Miles Davis
• Learn Jazz Guitar, So What by Miles Davis, Part 2
• Learning Autumn Leaves (Cannonball/Miles Version, Chords, PDF)
• Chords for Autumn Leaves in A minor

Some scales forms (for guitarists) to check out:

• Blues scales (Guitar Fretboard Diagrams, Tab and Standard Notation)
• Minor Pentatonics (6 Fretboard Diagrams for Guitar and Full Moveable Chart)
• Major Pentatonics

Variations

1. Pick your melody
2. Now play/imagine/sing a few different variations on that melody
   • Change a few notes
   • Change the timing of a few notes

That’s really it!

Just pick the melody you want to play.

1. Either play a 1 bar melody or a 2 bar melody.
2. Leave space for the rest of the 2 or 4 bar phrase.
3. For the next phrase, play a variation of the original melody.
4. Leave space for the rest of the 2 or 4 bar phrase.
5. Repeat #3 and #4 for the rest of the chorus or section.

Here’s an example with a 12 bar C Blues using 2 bar phrases and a 1 bar melody & variations.

On the next chorus, come up with a new melody!

Space

If you’re singing the melody when you play it (or are playing it on a horn), you’ll start to feel how and when it feels good to take breaths.

Another way to create space – play 1 measure melody, and then take a one measure pause.

You can do the same thing, just create a 2 bar melody, and then take a 2 bar break.

Giving space allows the listener to digest the music easier, and helps accentuate the notes that are played.

Structure

The purpose of structure in a solo is to create repeating musical pattern that the listener can identify.

That pattern creates the feeling of a theme and cohesiveness to the solo. It help the band to interact with the soloist in a musical way.

An easy way to create structure in your jazz solo:

1. Play a simple melody (or variation) at the beginning of every 4 bars
   • After playing your melody aways give space.
2. At the beginning of every chorus of your solo, create a new melody

Practice Creating Structure with Blues tunes

Soloing over the blues is a great place to use this style of melodic structure (1 melody & variation every 4 bars).

The listener will identify with this style of melody & variation almost immediately. And the space will give the band time to react.

Bonus idea:

As you develop your solo, the space you left in the beginning of the solo can be used to create a contrasting melody, if you want.

Story

Practice Makes Progress!

While there’s tons of other ideas and ways to create amazing solos, I believe the groove, melody & variations, space, structure and story can really help a musician craft good solos.