Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment

Mike Titlebaum

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000384987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Música

Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment teaches fundamental concepts of jazz improvisation, highlighting the development of performance skills through embellishment techniques. Written with the college-level course in mind, this introductory textbook is both practical and comprehensive, ideal for the aspiring improviser, focused not on scales and chords but melodic embellishment. It assumes some basic theoretical knowledge and level of musicianship while introducing multiple techniques, mindful that improvisation is a learned skill as dependent on hard work and organized practice as it is on innate talent.

This jargon-free textbook can be used in both self-guided study and as a course book, fortified by an array of interactive exercises and activities:

• musical examples
• performance exercises
• written assignments
• practice grids
• resources for advanced study
• and more!

Nearly all musical exercises—presented throughout the text in concert pitch and transposed in the appendices for E-flat, B-flat, and bass clef instruments—are accompanied by backing audio tracks, available for download via the Routledge catalog page along with supplemental instructor resources such as a sample syllabus, PDFs of common transpositions, and tutorials for gear set-ups. With music-making at its core, Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment implores readers to grab their instruments and play, providing musicians with the simple melodic tools they need to "jazz it up."

Chapter 1

Melodic Embellishment

The Concept

I remember the time, back in college, that two things began to coalesce which had initially seemed unrelated: (1) classical music theory, and (2) my jazz professor Bill Dobbins’s improvisation classes.

In music theory, we studied counterpoint and voice leading. We learned to follow the rules of composing a good cantus firmus and species counterpoint. And we learned how the great composers embellished and decorated harmonic tones.

In Professor Dobbins’s courses we studied Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, and Bill Evans. We learned the blues and Duke Ellington’s distinctive take. We learned jazz standards and improvised on the chord progressions. We also analyzed solos to learn how jazz improvisers embellished and decorated pitches of the chords.

I remember the time it hit me, one of those magical “aha” moments, while we were studying Bach’s two-part inventions in music theory: Something sounded just a bit Parker-esque. Bach wrote the same kinds of melodic embellishments that the jazz musicians I loved did! Hmmm, I suppose the process was actually reversed historically – Bach came several hundred years earlier – but I’m relating my process of discovery, which occurred the other way around. I suspect the same reverse discovery is true for other musicians too, because we are drawn to become music makers ourselves by interacting with the musicians around us and by what we hear in contemporary culture, not by learning the historical progression of who “did it first” in a classroom.

To oversimplify my theory professor’s analysis of Bach’s music to an extreme degree, some melodic pitches are more significant than others in terms of illuminating the harmony. These are the chord tones. Chord tones serve the big picture of the melody like signposts. Remove any one of them and the sense of melody could be lost and the harmonic motion not as clear. These signpost melody notes either (1) define the chord of the moment (perhaps in Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites), or (2) are clearly inside that chord which is being sounded in other voices or instruments.

But the other pitches, those that do not serve the big picture of the melody, are more decorative. They are the embellishments around the primary chord tones. These are often nonharmonic tones, or non-chord tones, audibly outside the chord of the moment. The listener can still get the gist of the melody without these embellishments, but the melodic effect would not be, dare I say, as artistic. As original. As creative. As beautiful.

I believe the primary pitches of a melody – the harmonic signposts – to be like consonants in the English language, and the non-chord embellishments are like vowels. Consider the point that you can still recognize words with only the signpost consonants and without the embellishment vowels. Cnsdr th fct tht y cn stll rcgnz wrds wth nly th sgnpst cnsnts nd wtht th mbllshmnt vwls. Y cn stll ndrstnd th mnng f ths sntnc bcs f yr fmlrty wth nglsh nd th cntxt f th vwl-lss wrds. In 2008, Time magazine applauded this process, known as disemvoweling.¹ The written Hebrew language even utilizes this shorthand technique. In the Torah, vowels are not written into the scroll, yet rabbis and Bar Mitzvah students can still read and understand the text.²

Let’s take a moment to test this analogy between the languages of music and English. Could a listener still recognize a melody if all the nonharmonic embellishments were omitted? Watch and listen to a short excerpt of the well-known piece in Figure 1.1 which has been modified to remove all nonharmonic embellishment. In this form, only the chord tones remain. Can you still recognize this piece even without the embellishments? (Don’t read ahead to the answer until you’ve listened to the recording.)

Figure 1.1Music Example: Famous piece with embellishments removed

If you’ve studied piano, you’ll likely recognize the piece in Figure 1.1 as Bach’s two-part Invention no. 8 in F major. Do you agree that it is still recognizable, even with all non-chord tones removed?

Back in my music theory class, we identified melodic techniques Bach used to achieve his artistry, including neighbor tones, passing tones, and appoggiaturas. At that previously mentioned “aha” moment, I realized that these melodic devices were no different than the embellishments we heard in the improvised solos of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan, which we had studied in Professor Dobbins’s class.

An in-depth study shows that these jazz musicians (and others) utilize several additional embellishment techniques that we do not hear in Bach’s music. The bluesy foundation of jazz provides an entirely new category of non-chord tones. To connect with the roots of the blues and to convey complex beauty and deep feeling, jazz musicians utilize blue notes, which can be defined as the lowered 3rd, 5th and 7th pitches in the key of the song (as opposed to the more common practice of relating pitches to the chord of the moment). Jazz musicians also utilize enclosures, heard frequently in the playing of beboppers Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, where a target harmonic pitch is preceded by several chromatic pitches both above and below the target. We’ll delve deeply into blue notes and enclosures, as well as neighbors, passing tones, and appoggiaturas in the chapters that follow.

There are other aspects of jazz melodic content worth noting. Early jazz musicians and Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths, partly inspired by French composers Debussy and Ravel, began to employ chord tones that Bach and other earlier composers had not used harmonically, such as major 6ths (sometimes called 13ths), 7ths, and 2nds (also called 9ths). Jazz musicians also use a swing rhythmic feel and were inspired by ragtime pianists to employ a greater density of syncopation than classical composers use. In tonal music, there is a delicate balance between the melody and the rhythm that helps the listener hear the chord of the moment because the pitches that define the chord often occur on beats that are rhythmically strong. Due to the pervasive syncopation of jazz, improvisers often place important chord tones on weaker beats or offbeats, perhaps blurring harmonic clarity for an inexperienced listener, but adding to the excitement and joy of discovery once they get it.

Thinking

When teaching a complex topic such as this, while grappling with the challenge of analyzing the detailed melodic content of a brilliant improvised solo by Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker, a student will inevitably pose a variation of the following question:

Was [great improviser in question] really thinking about all this stuff?

I completely understand the impetus for asking the question. We admire these great musicians who make improvising seem so effortless, and we feel that we could achieve the same results by turning off the studious, intellectual parts of our brain. As aspiring improvisers, we want to flip the switch of our conscious mind off, to get to a mental place where creating music simply happens.

My answer to their question, long-winded as I often am, is something along these lines:

Not anymore. These artists no longer actively ‘think’ about this because they put in so much work mastering the concepts previously. They’ve successfully achieved the advancement from the developmental stage of conscious diligent practice into the subconscious creation of high art. When we suggest that they are not “thinking” about these topics while in the throes of creating it, we’re ignoring the years of listening and daily grind (the “thinking”) they put into mastering their craft in the first place. It is a fallacy to think that we can skip past all the difficult parts of the process that feel like grunt work to get to the desired place of subconscious immersive spontaneous creation.

In his wonderful article “Ideology, Burgers and Beer,” Brad Mehldau describes how Charlie Parker (nicknamed “Bird”) made “just blowing” appear so easy:

“Just blowing” was what made jazz more punk than any punk rock band could ever be. To be able to blow a solo like Bird—profound, gripping, full of urgency and beautiful mortality—but to do so, like him, with the casual ease of someone standing at a bus stop—well, now that was something that might be called “great.”³

However, it wasn’t always so easy for Parker. He famously practiced very hard to build his skills. Bird’s practice routine became legendary. Musicians inspire each other with stories about how a teenaged Bird practiced for months in a woodshed while on an extended gig in the Ozarks,⁴ emerging only for food, sleep, and gigs, until he had learned to play in all 12 keys with equal facility. Musicians even use the word “woodshed,” or shortened to just “shed,” as a verb. To shed something means to immerse oneself into practicing that thing for however long as it takes to learn it, whether the time frame is hours, days, months, or years.

But after all this discussion of the toil and sweat, I don’t want to minimize the fun that’s involved. I do not believe aspiring musicians should wait until their skills are honed before they start creating. We should still go out at night and “just blow.” You cannot achieve the end goal of highly artistic achievement in improvisation without having fun, being spontaneous, and subconsciously creating in the moment. Hard work and having fun are both integral parts of the process and must happen simultaneously. Organize jam sessions, perform songs with friends, write your own tunes, do gigs, record yourself, listen critically back to your creations, and improve. Seek a balance: Work hard by day, play at night.

I like to put it playfully: Making music is critical to making music. But so is diligent, thoughtful, organized practice.

Relationship between Composing and Improvising

In the preface I argued that singing and playing instruments are opposite sides of the same coin. Singing helps the instrumentalist inhabit their instrument, ensuring that what they play is an extension of their inner voice. Playing instruments helps the singer with their pitch and their awareness of melody and harmony. Singing and playing instruments are both essential parts in the process of learning to improvise holistically. Louis Armstrong was neither the greatest trumpet player who sang nor the greatest singer who played trumpet. He was the greatest jazz musician who played trumpet and sang.

Musical creativity is also like two sides of a coin; composing is simply the opposite side of the same creativity coin from improvisation. My friend guitarist/composer Chris Jentsch once told me “Composing is improvising slowly; improvising is composing quickly.” I agree. Some of my favorite recorded improvisations have a composed logic to them, yet at the same time some of my favorite compositions have a free-flowing improvisational spontaneity. Mehldau observes that “[Thelonious] Monk’s improvisations were informed by his compositions; Bird’s compositions were informed by his improvisations.”⁵

The same connection between improvising and composing exists in the art of comedy. Consider great comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. They both started in Chicago’s improvisational comedy scene and have since...