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.
Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment teaches fundamental concepts of jazz improvisation, highlighting the development of performance skills through embellishment techniques. Written with the college-level course in mind, this introductory textbook is both practical and comprehensive, ideal for the aspiring improviser, focused not on scales and chords but melodic embellishment. It assumes some basic theoretical knowledge and level of musicianship while introducing multiple techniques, mindful that improvisation is a learned skill as dependent on hard work and organized practice as it is on innate talent. This jargon-free textbook can be used in both self-guided study and as a course book, fortified by an array of interactive exercises and activities: musical examples performance exercises written assignments practice grids resources for advanced study and more! Nearly all musical exercises--presented throughout the text in concert pitch and transposed in the appendices for E-flat, B-flat, and bass clef instruments--are accompanied by backing audio tracks, available for download via the Routledge catalog page along with supplemental instructor resources such as a sample syllabus, PDFs of common transpositions, and tutorials for gear set-ups. With music-making at its core, Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment implores readers to grab their instruments and play, providing musicians with the simple melodic tools they need to "jazz it up."
As taught at Berklee College of Music Ready, Aim, Improvise!, Book 1: Preparation and Jazz Vocabulary by Hal Crook explores the critical areas involved in learning how to improvise, including: music theory, jazz harmony, ear training, jazz execution, jazz vocabulary, practicing, self-critiquing, career planning, and much more. Ready, Aim, Improvise! is filled with musical examples, exercises, and practice routines that help make the learning process easy and enjoyable. Two enclosed play-along CDs feature modal, key-area, and modulating chord progressions performed at a slow, manageable tempo. Ready, Aim, Improvise! is a clear, comprehensive study of the most important steps in a jazz musicians education. Don't be surprised if it gets you practicing more and playing better in no time at all! So get Ready . . . Aim . . . Improvise!
" ... Written to organize, codify, and demonstrate useful information which has proven to be helpful in learning to play improvised solos in the jazz idiom ... [for] the prepared player with some experience, who is looking for a deeper and more complete understanding of chord progressions and tune structures ... intended to provide information and insight to the serious player for the purpose of helping him of her develop more consistency in accomplishing the ability to play interesting, convincing jazz solos."--Preface
"There are two groups of standards that help form the basic repertory used in jazz improvisation. The first group was created by jazz musicians directly from improvisation, experimentation and the analysis of musical forms, ideas and practices that were developed through study and the natural gifts of some of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. This group codified jazz into chronological styles and provides concrete examples of its styles and concepts. The second group of standards is comprised of compositions written as popular songs during the first half of the twentieth century ... Every improviser is a composer who makes up melodies spontaneously. The model choruses give examples that can be studied, learned, broken into independent phrases and used to create other melodies that reflect more clearly what the improviser wants to say musically ..."--Preface
Now with a bonus second CD that contains individual ii/V7/I tracks for each major key (17 new practice tracks). The most important musical sequence in modern jazz Contains all the needed scales and chords to each CD track and all are written in the staff. Contains 120 written patterns (transposed for all instruments) and three full pages of piano voicings that correspond to the CD. Contains a Scale Syllabus which allows you to find and use various substitute scales---just like professional musicians. The CD contains four tracks of Jamey playing exercises in a "call and response" fashion over an extended ii/V7/I progression that stays in one key at a comfortable tempo. Allows you to practice major, minor, dom. 7th, diminished, whole tone, half-diminished, Lydian, and dim. whole tone scales and chords. Beginning/Intermediate level. Suggested prerequisites: Volumes 1 and 2. Titles: ii/V7/I All Major Keys * G Minor Blues * Bebop Tune * V7+9/I All Keys * ii/V7/I in Three Keys * F Blues with 8-Bar Bridge * II/V7 Random Progressions * ii /V7+9/I All Minor Keys.
Jazz Improvisation for Keyboard Players is a straightforward, no-nonsense improvisation series. It deals with creating melodies, using the left hand, pianistic approaches to soloing, scale choices for improvisation and much more.
One of the world's most popular patterns books, many jazz greats have fond memories of practicing from this great resource! It features an exhaustive collection of improvisational jazz patterns in various meters and feels. Comments and suggestions are included by the author---a legendary composer, arranger, conductor, and instrumentalist. This is a very popular book because it helps spell out some of the basic building blocks of the jazz language. It is regarded by many jazz teachers as one of the essential texts for their students.