Tag Archives: rhythm

Improvising in 3/4

Playing in 3/4 time can be a bit tricky to get used to when there are also lots of chord changes involved. In this lesson I want to introduce a way to get started and also a way to expand your rhythmic vocabulary in 3/4.

Building a 3/4 vocabulary

For rhythm we often rely on what what we have automated already and just can feel so often it is difficult to start lose that foundation. The best way to deal with this is to build up a foundation of rhythms that we can fall back on and use as a starting point to create more.

The concept I am working with here actually works in all meters so you could also use it to learn other odd meters like 5/4 or 7/4 and also to develop your vocabulary in 4/4.

For this lesson I’ll use the chords of the first 8 bars of the jazz waltz Someday My Prince Will Come. I could have used the whole song, but that would have made the examples a bit long, and the emphasis here is on the method rather than the examples.

Just so you have an idea about how the song sounds here are the chords of the first 8 bars:

Improvising in 3-4 ex 1

The Method

In order to develop a vocabulary and get a good feel for the meter we are going to start improvising with a fixed rhythm so that we really get that pattern imprinted in our mind. In a way we are consciously learning the meter in the same way that we probably learned 4/4 without thinking about it.

I’d suggest you start out slowly with these 3 rhythms, but you can of course also make your own.

Improvising in 3-4 ex 2

I have chosen to always have a long note on the 1 of each bar so that it is easier to have the energy to remind one self that this is the one while improvising.

It is very practical to keep you lines fairly clear and simple since you then can use your own improvisations to strengthen your feel of the meter. For that reason you could try to only use arpeggios for a part of the time you spend practicing this. Here are the arpeggios for the progression in one position:

Improvising in 3-4 ex 3

Putting it all together

The first example is a transcription of how I might use the 1st rhythm and arpeggios to make a solo on the song. As you can hear in the video it is actually quite easy to make a quite strong solo with this material.

Improvising in 3-4 ex 4

When you start with this you might want to chose a slower tempo than what I play in the video.

The last example is using the 2nd rhythm, and while I am still trying to play the changes very clearly I am using not only the arpeggio but trying to use the scale that fits the chord as well.

Improvising in 3-4 ex 5

Hopefully you can us this approach to expand on you meters and get some new rhythms into your system.

As always you can download a PDF of the examples here for later study:

Improvising in 3-4

If you have any questions or comments then feel free to leave them here or on the video. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, Google+ or Twitter to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts and releases.

 

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings

When you are improvising in 4/4 odd note groupings are a very useful way to vary the rhythmic flow of your improvised melodies, since they are a way of creating a tension by not following the underlying meter. In this lesson I am describing how you might emphasize this in exercises and demonstrate how I might use it in II V I lines.

Getting it into the routine

You probably spent some of your practice time on scale exercises to develop your technique and knowledge of the neck. You probably know most of these exercises, and only needs to think a bit about how you play them and how you hear them to get more out of them.

The first exercise is a standard A minor box 1 pentatonic played in groups of 3. If you practice this in 4/4 and really emphasize the first of each 3 note group you are working on hearing 3 note groups over a 4/4 meter. The clearer you can play the accent on the first note and still keep the original time the better.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 1

The same idea also applies to playing a major scale in triads. Since triad arpeggios contain 3 notes they make excellent 3 note groupings, as does shell voicings, stacks of 4ths, so those will also work well as prepatory exercises.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 2

Finding good examples of 5 note groupings are a little more difficult since we don’t use too many structures with 5 notes. Example 3 is a fairly famous pentatonic note grouping that is used a lot in Eric Johnson and Shawn Lane solos

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 3

One very useful trick to make 5 note groupings is to take a 4 note grouping and then adding a rest at the end of it. In example 4 I’ve done this with an Am7 arpeggio, but it could be done with any arpeggio or 4 note group. When you practice this you are also hearing the Am7 arpeggio as a melody and how it sounds placed on every possible 8th note in the bar.

Moving a phrase to another beat or off beat is a great way to create or develop an idea in a solo and you should check that out and add it to you vocabulary. John Scofield often uses this in situations where he is playing over one chord.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 4

Lines with odd note groupings

The examples in this lesson are all 2 bars II V I resolving to the I in the 3rd bar. Since 2 bars are in total 16 8th notes, you can use this to fill in groupings 3 groups of 5 or 3 groups of 5 and make a melody with this. In most of these examples I am actually placing filling in the different groupings with arpeggios and moving from arpeggio to arpeggio in a logical way, like 3rds or step-wise voice leading.

In example one the 3 note group is a stack of 4th that moves up and finally down step wise before it resolves to the 5th(G) of C major.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 5

The 2nd line is using the tecnique I explained in example 4 to make 5 note groupings out of 7th chord arpeggios. On the Dm7 I am using an Fmaj7 and Am7 arpeggio and on the G7alt I use a Db7 arpeggio.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 6

The last example is again using 3 note groups this time Shell voicings. The first 3 are Dm7, Fmaj7 and Am7 shell voicings over the Dm7 and over the G7alt it is a Bbm7 and a Bmaj7 arpeggio from G the altered scale.

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings ex 7

As you might have gathered from the explanations the material part of this lesson is more a technique to compose lines and some exercises to hear what the groupings sound like over a 4/4 meter. I hope you can use this to make some new lines and have fun with playing with odd note groupings!

As always you can download a PDF of the examples here for later study:

Making II V I lines with Odd Note Groupings

If you have any questions or comments then feel free to leave them here or on the video. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, Google+ or Twitter to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts and releases.