Tag Archives: jazz guitar phrasing

Jazz Phrasing – The 3 Simple Things That Will Make You Sound Better

Take Control of the Note

When I am giving feedback to the students in my course “The Jazz Guitar Roadmap” then this is one of the most common things that I have to point out, but It is also a thing that you can easily fix and very quickly makes you sound a lot better, and almost nobody talks about this.

Jazz is about rhythm and what most people don’t think about is that when you solo, then each note has two points of rhythm, and they are both important.

What I mean is that a note is placed somewhere in the bar, that is the first rhythm but the other part of the rhythm is also going to make or break how it sounds: Where does it end? How long is that note?

When you are playing a Jazz solo then this is especially important at the end of the phrase, and most guitar players have a very bad habit: You ALWAYS end on long notes. Mainly because you spent a lot of time practicing playing legato and having a beautiful sustain, and once you can then you don’t think about it. And that sounds like this:

And if you compare that to this:

Then I am sure you can hear the difference.

And this is really easy to fix:

Take a song that you know really well and start soloing keeping it simple and easy
Focus on not letting notes ring at the end of the phrase and tighten it up.

Of course, there are many times that you want to let a note ring at the end of a phrase, but you should train yourself to hear the phrase and whether it should be a long note or a short note, it should be a choice, not just the habit of letting notes ring.

Practicing like this will break the bad habit!

There is also another way of getting this skill into your playing but I will return to that later in the video.

This Is Why It Is Called Bebop

“It is impossible to play rhythms like that when I have to think about the arpeggios and chromatic notes!”

This is a response that I have gotten quite often from students, in real lessons, and online. And it is true that when you are using a lot of energy to come up with the line you want to play then it is very difficult to also worry about the rhythm. But you can develop that skill if you approach it in the right way, and it is both not that difficult and something that really will improve how your solos sound.

What I am talking about here is ending phrases on the offbeat, which is in fact where we got the name Bebop.

Naturally, you are probably more inclined to end a phrase on a heavy beat, so this often takes some training, but you can work on it. Another similar part of phrasing is a little more complicated, but I will also give you some really good exercises for that right after this.

3 Exercises To Help You Play “Bebop”

There are a 3 different ways you can work on ending phrases like this:

#1 Start with a simple song or progression that you know very well, maybe a blues or an easy standard. Then practice playing short phrases that end on the offbeat. Keep it simple and short so that you can focus on the rhythm

#2 Learn some Bebop Themes and try to take over rhythms from them. You can turn most Bop themes into great exercises for rhythm in this way and they are anyway very useful to check out for a lot of other reasons.

Let’s take the beginning of Au Privave as an example

And you can take that and use it as a motif in a solo like this:

#3 Take a lick that is a short and clear example and work on making variations on that, like this Wes Lick:

Now, Wes is great for this because he often plays shorter phrases and is very motivic and has excellent taste in rhythm.

You can move this around on a Blues as well, and like the other exercises, this will teach you how to hear the right type of phrases and in that way, it will begin to become a part of how you play.

The Secret To Great 8th Note Lines

Before I got into Jazz, I remember one night when I was a kid, going from channel to channel on the TV and ending up watching some random Jazz guitar concert on TV, and it sounded like endless rows of 8th notes weaving through the song

I have no idea what or who I was watching that time, but I found it fascinating that anybody wanted to play like that and I was also really aware that they really wanted it to be like that. But there is a lot more to a great jazz solo than just playing long 8th note lines.

Not all 8th notes are created equal, and not all melodies are created to be great Jazz lines.

One of the most difficult things to learn in Jazz is to learn to phrase 8th-note lines and especially learn to improvise lines that allow you to get the right rhythms in there by accenting some of the notes. My old teacher, Eef Albers, used to refer to it as making the lines dance.

So how do you learn this?

There is one rule which isn’t really a rule it is more of a guideline, and you can use that to find candidates for some of those accents.

A note can get an accent if it is:

Not on the beat and,
Higher than the next note in the line

So you want to learn to make melodies that have high notes on the offbeat.

A consequence of the guideline is also that if you play a descending line then you can pretty much choose whatever note you want to and give that an accent.

Before you start turning your solos into real-time sudoku solving then you could also just ease into it by going through some simple exercises that help you hear phrases like that and then start making variations on those keeping in mind how they need to be phrased.

You can use these exercises as blueprints and try to make different versions and fit them on other chords, especially the last one which is also a must-know melodic technique for playing Bebop.

Exercise 1 – This is a basic arpeggio melody. I am using the arpeggio from the 3rd, Em7, but it will work for the Cmaj7 arpeggio too. This way of playing the arpeggio gives you a natural accent on the 1&

Exercise 2 – Here I am is using a descending C major triad and then adding a scale note above the 5th to get a note that you can accent

The Triad from the 3rd can also be played so that it creates a nice accent on the 2& like this:

And of course, a lesson on Jazz and Bebop phrasing would not be complete without an example of octave-displacement:

This honeysuckle rose or octave-displaced Cmaj7 arpeggio in this exercise gives you a great accent and change of direction on the 2& which makes the line much more interesting as a melody.

What You Should Really Learn From The Masters

The thing that you must develop to improve your phrasing is to hear the right melodies that can be phrased in the right way. Now, besides these exercises then a great way to really dive into that is to learn solos by ear, and that is simply because when you work on learning a solo then you really listen intensely to the phrases and you start absorbing not only the lines but also the phrasing and timing, so working on that is also a great way to improve your phrasing.

The Bebop Secret

The most important thing to take away from this is that the phrasing is depending on the melody, and you need to learn to play the right type of melodies in your solos if you want to play with better phrasing. Bebop is one of the clearest examples of this and if you want to play better bebop melodies and really nail that beautiful Jazz phrasing then check out this video on the Bebop Secret which will teach you how to use octave displacement in your solos in many different ways that all work great for your phrasing.

Bebop Magic – One Of The Best And Most Difficult Things About Jazz

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3 Jazz Phrasing Problems You Need To Fix In Your Playing

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Content:

00:00 Intro

00:23 The First Thing You (Anyway) Should Start Doing

01:09 How Swing 8th Notes Sound

02:33 Make Your Phrases And Phrasing More Interesting

04:34 Overdrive/Distortion in Jazz – Here’s the problem

04:48 Don’t End On The Beat All The Time

05:53 Ending On Long Notes.

06:54 The Types of Practice That Helps Phrasing

07:30 More Exercises for Phrasing and Swing-feel

07:37 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!

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The PDF for this lesson is available through Patreon in the Patreon FB group. By joining the Patreon Community you are in the company of 500 others supporting and helping shape the content on my YouTube channel.

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Jazz Phrasing Techniques – How To Get A Better Jazz Flow

Listen for the phrasing and the techniques used

First I am going to give you some examples of the different techniques you can use and then I am going to go over how you can start using it in your own playing for arpeggios, jazz blues and making scale runs much more interesting.

In a way this is a video on legato technique, but it is really more about how you use it make better lines.

How does it make it sound better?

In the example below I am using a slide to move from the chromatic leading note to the root. This brings out the more interesting chromatic note that “doesn’t fit” and it makes the resolution more subtle.

At the end of the 1st bar you can see a 3 note grouping starting on G. The pull-off gives the G an accent which sits well in the groove. The next phrase is the same phrase that is move down a half step and executed in the same way. This shifts the 3-note group but also ties together the line across the two chords.

The trill on beat 3 of the 2nd bar is also a way to add movement in the 8th note line.

More rhythm, more phrasing!

The example here below uses some of the same techniques but is a lot less dense.

The G# leading note is sliding up to the A, again using the concept of bringing out the “interesting” chromatic note and not the resolution. This is also what happens at the end of the line going to G.

The pull-off in the triplet is here more functioning as a way to make the melody more playable.

How do you get this into your own playing

For you to start working with this type of phrasing and techniques you should start looking at the lines you make and spot how you can add to the phrasing.

Example 4a here below is a really basic Gm7:

This can be embellished with a leading note as shown in 4b which makes it sound a lot better:

Adding Dynamics to spice it up

Legato is a great way to add some dynamics and make a lick less monotonous.

Try playing this line:

Instead of playing this by picking each note and make it pretty even you can add a lot of life to it and get it to sound a lot better:

A key ingredient of Jazz Blues

Using grace notes and slides are really what makes Blues work in Jazz lines. Try to listen to these two ways of playing the same melody, first with and then with out the embellishing phrasing:

And without:

Leading notes to arpeggios

A great and easy way to add some interesting phrasing is to use leading notes. This works especially well with arpeggios as shown in the example below, where I am adding an F# in front of the Gm7 arpeggio.

Keep it practical

If you want to practice this then you could explore exercises like this one. Notice how I am using slides in some places and hammer-ons in others. It really just depends on what is easier to use in each case.

Making your scale runs more fun to play

Scale runs can quickly become boring. In this section you have two licks with scale runs and I will shouw you how to make add some more movement with simple embellishments.

Example 7 has a scale run in the 1st half of the bar. This is turned into a triplet rhythm with a slide and hammer on/pull-off. What really helps here is also that the direction now changes within the run so it is less predictable.

Example 8a and 8b use a similar approach for the first part of the bar. Here the scale run also introduces a larger interval from D up to the G on beat 3.

Build your own phrasing!

Jazz-Blues – 4 Easy Jazz Phrasing Etudes

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Jazz Phrasing – This is what you want to know

You problably know the feeling of trying to come up or with lines and then even though you know the notes are right it is impossible to get it to sound like jazz.

In this video I am going to show you some things that you need to be aware of when trying to come up with lines and which will help you jazz phrasing really a lot. One thing that is really interesting about this is that it is actually possible to write jazz licks that really are not possible to phrase well.
This is about how you play the notes and a little about which notes you play, and for me it was really a huge part of getting my bop lines to sound good.

How to learn good Jazz Phrasing

I am going to cover two things: First how to write lines like this and later I’ll talk about how to hear it in examples and get it into your system so that you don’t have to think about it, because that is what you eventually want to have. Phrasing is something you hear and feel not something you think about while you are playing.

The Lick that doesn’t swing

Have a look at this lick: Harmony is clear, the notes are mostly chord tones. Target notes make sense but it sounds heavy.

This line has direction and it spells out the chords, but the melody sounds heavy because it asks for accents on the heavy beats: 1 and 3. There is no place where we have a not popping out to make it dance.

In short: That sounds more like Megadeth than Charlie Parker.

Writing better line with Better Phrasing

Luckily you probably already have a good idea about how a good jazz solo sounds. If you try to sing the phrasing of that then you get a much more.

If you pay attentiont to what you are singing and slow that down then you start to notice that the accents in the phrase are not on the beat, so accents are on the off-beat

In Jazz, or bebop, the accents are naturally on the off beats. The question is then how do you make melodies where you can create those accents.

Let’s look at an example:

In the example above the accents are the higher notes in the phrase, so the C on 1-and plus the A on the 3-and.

The rule you want to notice here is:

If a note is higher (in pitch) than the following note and not on the beat. Then you can give it an accent.

In the line above there are therefore two notes that can get an accent.

Using your technique to make it easier to phrase

Very often the easiest way to accent something is not to play that note a lot louder but instead to play the surrounding notes a little softer. Using legato is a great way to naturally do that.

The way I use this is to pick the note that gets an accent and then use a pull-off to play the following (lower) notes.

Another example of a line where this strategy will give it a natural phrasing is shown below:

Bebop Phrasing on a II V I

Of course this way of thinking and using this rule can also be applied to a complete II V I lick as shown below.

You will notice that the accents are on 4-and in bar 1 and on 2-and in bar 2. The line also ends with a classic “bebop” phrase where the descending interval is the sound that gave the genre it’s name.

Learning to hear good phrasing

Besides writing lines it is also important to listen to great solos and it can be useful to analyze transcriptions to find places where there are accents in the solo.

Be sure to listen to bebop and hardbop artists to get the most out of this. You also want to keep in mind that even if you don’t analyze it then just hearing good phrasing in huge amounts will also help you a lot.

How Wes Montgomery Gets it Right

As an example of an analysis of a solo let’s have a look at the opening phrase from Wes Montgomerys solo on Four on Six off the Smokin’ at the half note album.

The first part of the pickup is a sliding 5th interval which is on the beat. This is not a bebop 8th note line so or ideas about accents doesn’t really apply.

The next phrase is a Gm pentatonic phrase an here Wes is playing 8th notes. The phrase is essentially a descending scale run and he does in fact accent the top note (a C).

The ascending arpeggio that follows does not allow any accents, but the descending Dm triad in bar 3 does, and here the first note does get an accent.

The way to better phrasing

For me it was a combination of knowing how to phrase bebop themes and lines, composing lines with the accents in the right place and certainly also training my ears by listening and playing along with great examples.

I would suggest you find a way to mix in all of those approaches if you are working on your phrasing.

A short cut to improve your Bebop Phrasing

One way to speed up the process could be to check out this webstore lesson with analysis and examples of lines that are easy to play and have great phrasing.

Jazz & Bebop Phrasing – C Blues

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Economy Picking Licks – This is my solution to the Problems

Economy Picking is a great strategy if you play the phrases that are the most difficult on the guitar: 1 note per string structures like arpeggios.

You do however have to be careful with timing and phrasing when you work with this technique. It can really mess up the groove and does not really lend it self to good phrasing.

How To Learn Economy Picking

In this video I am going to go over some of the ways that I use Economy picking in my playing. I will go over 5 Economy Picking Licks, both Modal and II V I. For each lick I also have an exercise and some suggestions on how to achieve good phrasing and timing while working with this technique.

If you are familiar with my playing you will probably have seen how often I use economy picking in my playing and rely on it for cascading arpeggios, fast diatonic triad runs etc. All solid material that you want to have in your vocabulary.

Lick #1 Modal Cascading Arpeggios

The first example is on an Am7 chord using the Dorian sound. So the notes of the G major scale.

Three things to notice about this lick:

The Arpeggios are Em7, Cmaj7 and Am7 (so diatonic arpeggios in 3rds distance)
The Lick divides the bars in 2 beats, 3 and 3 beats
The first and highest note of each arpeggio is a down stroke (and an accented note)

Practicing Descending Arpeggios

In order to get this type of playing into your fingers it is useful to just take one simple arpeggio shape and work on getting that precise, well articulated and easy to play.

Practicing the exercise here below is a great way to work on this:

Here the repeated arpeggio and switching between alternate picking and economy let’s you develop the economy and always reference the clear articulation of alternate picking.

Lick #2 – Forgotten 2-string Triads

Using sweeping or economy picking on two strings is something that is often overlooked, but it is a great approach to play patterns like this.

The lick below is using this technique to play diatonic D altered scale triads: Ab, Bb and Cdim. Really spelling out the altereations on the D7alt.

Notice how the alternate picking is turned around on the Em7 arpeggio in the first bar. While it is good to keep consistent with down strokes on down beats it is something that you will deviate from along the way whenever it is better for the phrasing and the execution of a phrase.

Practicing 2-string Triads

The exercise below is again taking a single triad and then working on getting that to be easy to play. Then you can move on to diatonic triads up the neck.

Once this is easy then try moving on to this exercise:

Lick #3 – Polyrhythmic ideas with Economy Picking

As you already saw in the previous examples arpeggios can be really useful in creating patterns that move on top of the beat. Both with 3 and 6 notes.

This example is using 4 notes but is changing the rhythm so that the arpeggio is 3 8th notes long. This gives the phrase a dotted quarter note effect that nicely breaks up the song.

The lick is using one arpeggio on the Am7 that is changing the top note. The two arpeggios are a first inverion Am7 and a Cmaj7. The arpeggio is voice-lead into a D7 altered (where it becomes a Cm7b5 arpeggio.

Lick #4 Quartal Harmony

Another type of arpeggio that is a great addition to especially your modern jazz vocabulary. In this lick I am using descending 3-part quartal arpeggios on a II V I in Bb. Again making use of the 3 note groupings.

The Al Di Meola exercise

The technique I am using here is derived from a technique that a student of mine came with off an Al Di Meola video.

I don’t remember if it was the ascending or the descending version of it, but these two exercises demonstrates the principle for 3 string patterns.

Lick #5 Modal Pentatonic Patterns

Besides arpeggios Economy picking works really well for patterns in the pentatonic scale. Very often Pentatonic patterns consist of 1 note per string ideas which is ideal for sweeping or economy picking approaches.

In this case the pattern is 2 strings and the picking pattern is similar to the triads in Lick #2

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5 economy Picking licks great ways to use this technique Download

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