Improvisation - major / minor keys

T1mothy

So I only recently started really being able to jam with my friend. And what a great feeling it is to be able to think of something (rather simple for now) and play it right after. Blues en mineur was a dream come true. Now that Im finishing the solo from 1949 from Rome I started thinking why is it so hard to jam to songs in major keys. I already have the solo from Django s Tiger and Hungaria under my fingers but nowhere close to what I can play over minor blues (i know there s only 3 chords) for instance. I assume I only need to learn more songs but are there some that are structurally simpler? That one who is learning to improvise should learn as first?

Tim

MacKeagan

Hi Tim. There was a thread on these forums about the tunes everyone should know/the most overplayed tunes. It is my opinion that these are thus because they are the easiest to learn for us newbs. Let's see, it runs something like: All of Me, After You've Gone (key of C or G), Blues en Mineur(Minor Blues), Coquette, Dinah, Dark Eyes(Les Yeux Noirs), Minor Swing, Hungaria, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, It Had To Be You, Rhythm Changes in G (which seems to fit with You's A Viper), Sweet Georgia Brown, and there's a couple I've forgotten. If you look at DC Music website, there are etudes and backing tracks for all of these I think(thanks to Denis & Tim!). Happy picking!

Buco

Haha, the above is very similar to what I was gonna say. That's been my copout lately, how to treat the major songs, just move to one of the minor positions of the major key in question.
As stuart said, I'm not sure if it's the best way to go about it but certainly is a way out.
Besides that you can use arpeggios or a small chunk of the major chord arpeggio. Sometimes I'll use a lick, especially at the start of the solo, where I kinda start on the root note and pick a root and then just do a hammer on/pull offs to 2nd interval, back to root, down to major 7 back to root, classic stuff in GJ.

bopster

Converting major into minor is one of the hallmarks of Pat Martino's playing, but he is always aware of the chords he is playing over.

Bidim

On improvising, it's interesting to note...Charlie Parker was once asked how he played those incredible melodic lines over II-V7-I progressions at such breakneck tempos as many believed his solos were not humanly possible. He said: "Easy. I just play the V chord."


We discover more places from nut to bridge than in all the Amazon.



All the best to you.

lukejazz

My 2 cents is that our ears are accustomed to hearing more harmonic tensions over a minor harmony than major, therefore a lot more of the notes you might play over a minor chord will sound acceptable.

There are fewer "acceptable" tensions over a major chord thus limiting your choices.

Previous posts describe how other improvisors get around this limitation by using approaches that involve superimposing other minor or dominant harmonies on top - thereby opening up your choices of what to play. Those may or may not sound "gypsy" to you though.

Jazzaferri

I don't find it any different jamming in major minor or modal pieces. I suspect ones comfort level has a lot to do with what one has practiced enough to be fluent in.

I spend 15-20 minutes a day in the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale with iTabla as a backing track....have done for the past few years. I started out not saying anything much and feeling uncomfortable saying what I could. Now it is second nature and most of my time is spent playing that mode with F# as the tonic (v of B harmonic minor) which corresponds to Fiffth mode E of A harmonic minor on my tenor. It is a standard note base for a number of Indian ragas. For me it incorporates a number of things I have to practice on in unusual fingering patterns

Spend lots of time for a while coming up with phrases you make up over major chords..you can be inside staying with a major tonality, get a little outside switching to a relative minor tonality or get way outside switching to other modes or tonalities.

For example try playing B locrian mode (all the notes of a C major scale but starting and ending on phrases over a Cmaj7 chord. When doing this try not to unconciously shift the tonal centre back to C major.

Buco

My jazz teacher, Tony Do Rosario, used to say "if you don't know what to do, just use third and seventh notes of the chord, swing the beats and you'll sound good". Maybe not so applicable in order to sound authentic to the style of GJ but it could be a good tool to learn the fretboard, force yourself to swing the notes and just learn to follow the changes.
Come to think of it, I'll do it tonight myself.
Plus this:

Jazzaferri wrote: »

For example try playing B locrian mode (all the notes of a C major scale but starting and ending on B ) phrases over a Cmaj7 chord. When doing this try not to unconciously shift the tonal centre back to C major.

anthon_74

I used to feel like all my best ideas were in minor keys, but now it's kind of switched. One of the things that helped me a lot was the 5 forms in the Daniel Givone instruction book. He gives you a 3 to 4 measure phrase over every chord shape, and separates them into major chords, minor chords, 7th chords in a major key, and 7th chords as the dominant of a minor key.
When you learn those phrases you see what the difference is when improvising over a minor or major chord, as well as a 7th in a major or minor key.
Also, I find that enclosures are a sure bet for major chords. Practice playing the tones a half step below each chord/arpeggio tone, up and down the arpeggio, and then the tones a whole step above each arp tone (except for the 3rd which is a half step above), always ending up back on the chord tone. I think of this exercise, which Stephan Wremble calls the above and below approach, as my gypsy scales, and they work wonders over major chords.

Anthony

Buco

My friend John turned onto something interesting and appropriate for this topic, it's a transcription of Tchavolo's licks from Alors Voila, transcribed by Martijn Schutten.
The link for PDF is below and it's worth checking into, it has several great tips besides transcriptions:
http://www.hotclub.co.uk/ptab/tchavolo_licks_alors_voila.pdf

The source page, hotclub.co.uk, has a boat load of links which seem to be transcriptions in Powertab, so that might be useful too:
http://www.hotclub.co.uk/ptab/powertab.html

What I found interesting in that PDF is he mentions:
Tchavolo often thinks of major or dominant major chords like minor chords, using chord substitution principals...

It also says something I heard Gonzalo say in the class at DiJ (or was it one of his videos?): better to play a couple of licks extremely well, than a lot of licks with lousy technique/timing.

dennis

I think licks are really cool and especially great for beginners. One can even build an entire career on mainly licks and be very successful at it.

It really depends on what people want out of music. If they really want to refine their ears and reflex skills, then i think the materials that i covered in my lesson are really essential, but it's a very long and frustrating road.

and the "real" improv way and the "licks" way are not mutually exclusive... The licks can help with real improv if one approaches it the right way; that is, when learning licks, you should try to understand how the lick works and try to manipulate it in as many ways possible... rhythm variations (starting it on different beats, changing the rhyhthmic pattern), melodic variations: being able to start at a different point of the lick, adding notes, removing notes, expanding the lick, using it on different chords, etc...