Developing a Jazz Language, is the sixth volume of Jerry Bergonzi's series, Inside Improvisation. Learning a language requires listening on many levels to the meanings, the sounds, the intentions, and the inflections or nuances of the language. The first chapters of this volume on learning the language of jazz focus on the prerequisites of chord scales, approach notes to chord tones and target notes, scale motives and sequences, and lines. Part two qualifies improvisational techniques into three areas; melodic, harmonic and sonic (rhythmic devices are the focus of Vol. IV, Melodic Rhythms) and it is designed as a menu of soloing devices from which you can select your personal course of study. Over 100 specific devices are discussed and conceptualized so as to give the improviser more depth of expression and a greater well from which to draw ideas. Among the numerous topics presented are: guide tones, voice leading, chord substitutions, three tonic system for composition, tritonics, hexatonics, tonal expansions, whole tone playing, augmented symmetric scales, double diminished scales, limited range and large range playing, shapes, blues melodies, accents, comping as a soloing device, common tones, articulations, laying back on the... The book includes free downloadable audio tracks of twelve standard chord progressions, each played in two different tempos.

A comprehensive book on jazz analysis and improvisation. Elements used in jazz improvisation are isolated for study: they are examined in recorded solos, suggestions are made for using each element in the jazz language, and specific exercises are provided for practicing the element.

Jazz Improvisation is for students who wish to hone their improvisation skills, and is applicable to all treble clef instruments. Designed to also improve single line sight reading and an awareness of jazz chromaticism, this book builds upon 11 well-known chord patterns with increasingly difficult melodies.

This text presents all of the materials commonly used by the jazz musician in a logical order dictated both by complexity and need. The book is not intended to be either an arranging or improvisation text, but a pedagogical reference providing the information musicians need to pursue any activity they wish.

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A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker. Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators. Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.

This method book is designed to help intermediate to advanced jazz students incorporate classic jazz vocabulary into their original improvisations. Using a series of standard and modern chord progressions, guitarist Davy Mooney provides several short passages that are meant to be played exactly as written within an otherwise improvised solo; students are expected to adapt this written material to their own purposes by improvising into and out of it. In an effort to overcome the disconnect between developing a unique sound and learning the language of past jazz masters, the author eloquently analyzes several phrases and chord changes and comments on various aspects of improvisation, referencing the styles and specific recordings of many outstanding jazz artists. This is the method that Mooney used as a student to personalize his own jazz vocabulary and learn to express himself within the context of the jazz tradition. Mooney proves he has both the vocabulary and the chops to deliver generously repeated guitar/bass/drums backup tracks for student use; he then demonstrates the method by providing transcriptions of his own improvisations, incorporating the same phrases and chord progressions required of the student. The firm message conveyed by this book is that, “you can do it too.” Written in standard notation only. Includes access to online audio.

This fresh look at the neglected rhythm section in jazz ensembles shows that the improvisational interplay among drums, bass, and piano is just as innovative, complex, and spontaneous as the solo. Ingrid Monson juxtaposes musicians' talk and musical examples to ask how musicians go about "saying something" through music in a way that articulates identity, politics, and race. Through interviews with Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, Sir Roland Hanna, Billy Higgins, Cecil McBee, and others, she develops a perspective on jazz improvisation that has "interactiveness" at its core, in the creation of music through improvisational interaction, in the shaping of social communities and networks through music, and in the development of cultural meanings and ideologies that inform the interpretation of jazz in twentieth-century American cultural life. Replete with original musical transcriptions, this broad view of jazz improvisation and its emotional and cultural power will have a wide audience among jazz fans, ethnomusicologists, and anthropologists.

This volume explores a musical approach to developing jazz vocabulary around the drumset, featuring 60 exercises ranging in duration from short passages to extended solos. The book aims to teach a fundamental understanding of the jazz language, with an emphasis on musical components, such as melodicism, articulation, phrasing, texture, dynamics, and much more. Whether a beginner or seasoned pro, rock drummer or classical percussionist, the book will enhance every drummer's ability to play more musically.

This book teaches the ideas behind adding chords to melodies. It begins with basic chords and progressions, and moves to more complex ideas. With an introduction and two appendices. Two CDs of additional material.