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Just playing around with Jazz improvisations. In the RH I have been using notes from the pentatonic and blues scales. Obviously varying depending on the key. Does that sound like a good way to start?
Just playing around with Jazz improvisations. In the RH I have been using notes from the pentatonic and blues scales. Obviously varying depending on the key. Does that sound like a good way to start?
Mick: What you don't mention is what chord progression you are using those two scales over. The blues scale is good to use over the blues form, and perhaps dominant 7th chords. The pentatonic can be used a bit more broadly, although you don't specify if you're using the major or minor pentatonic.
But the bigger point is that in jazz there are certain scales that work over certain chords. Although key signatures play a role, the focus in more on what chord are you are playing at a moment. So blues scales and pentatonics are certainly used in jazz improvisation, they must be used over the right chords.
In jazz we play a lot of the major scale and sometime we add a chromatic note here or there, often to suit some of the chords along the way that have notes added that might be tweaked (such as b9 or #4) ... We also insert a fair dose of chromatic passing tones, bits of blues scale, pentatonic scale, chord arpeggio outlines, and enclosures, or whatever you like. We have a lot of freedom, there isn't really a rigid right and wrong, but here are characteristic ways in various jazz styles. If you like to try playing with the major scale or the dominant scale, playing down from the 7th degree is ideal for scale outlining the chords in a most scale like melodic manner (per Barry Harris method)
Last edited by RinTin; 12/08/2001:35 AM.
Find 660 of Harry's solo piano arrangements for educational purposes and jazz tutorials at https://www.patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."
The right answer is go to the source, transcribe and get the answers first hand. That way your training your ear, your learning to hear and play the feel, and get improv idea of what scales to use and how. Then play a long with the recording (not a backing track). That's how the masters learned and it's still the best way.
Start with a simple Blues like Miles Davis - Freddie Freeloader. Even do Mile solo first before the piano you'll learn some great phrasing.
