February 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Episode 13: Improvisation_Part_1 – Unlock the Secrets of Music Theory & Improvisation
Welcome to Episode 13 of our music theory podcast! In this episode, we dive deep into improvisation, a critical skill for musicians and composers alike. Whether you're a seasoned music theorist, a music student, or simply a music theory enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights that will elevate your understanding of improvisational techniques and their relationship with core music theory concepts.
In Improvisation_Part_1, we explore how music theory fundamentals, such as scales, chords, and harmony, directly influence improvisational creativity. We discuss the importance of musical structure and how improvising within these structures can lead to more expressive and impactful performances. We’ll also touch on improvisation strategies that can help students and musicians unlock their creative potential.
This episode is perfect for those wanting to improve their improvisation skills, connect theory with practice, and gain a deeper appreciation of musical expression. If you’re passionate about understanding the inner workings of music and how to apply it in spontaneous composition, don’t miss this episode!
Tune in to Episode 13: Improvisation_Part_1 and start your journey to mastering the art of musical improvisation.
#musictheory #musichistory #musiccommentary #musicpodcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
One, two, three
SPEAKER_00 (00:47):
Oh, music theory lovers in the world like myself.
Welcome back to another episodeof The Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate you spendingsome time with us this week, and
I hope that you are enjoying thejourney we are on so far.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
(01:10):
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
baby.
Y'all sound energized.
Y'all sound rested.
Y'all sound ready to learn somemusic.
Let's go, y'all.
Let's have fun today.
So we're coming off an episodeabout arpeggios last time in
episode 12, which is one of myfavorite things.
(01:33):
But I got to thinking that weneed to do an episode on
improvisation.
And today's episode, luckynumber 13, is going to be all
about improvisation.
So before we begin with today'sepisode, let me go ahead and
welcome anybody new out therethat might not have listened to
(01:56):
my podcast before.
Welcome.
We are so glad that you arehere.
And I'll go ahead and just letyou know, this is a linear and
cumulative podcast.
And so we're building blocks onblocks on blocks.
And our first 12 episodes haveled up to lucky number 13 here.
And I'm going to be using allthe concepts put together just
(02:20):
about in today's podcast episodeI do appreciate all of you
listening and look I just askthat you go into the episode
description right now whileyou're listening click on the
support the show link and justtake a look at the options there
I'm working really hard to putgood content out for you every
(02:41):
week and so I'm just asking fora little help in return it
really goes a long way.
Anything that you can offer tosupport the show so that I can
continue to create great contentfor you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it very, very much.
But if you are a beginner atmusic theory and that's why you
(03:02):
looked me up and found mypodcast, I do urge you to go
back to the beginning to episodeone and start listening to the
episodes and get caught up withus here.
You're certainly willing to staywith this episode at this time,
but if you are a beginner, theremight be a lot of advanced
concepts here that you haven'tnecessarily heard of before, but
(03:22):
that I have gone throughthoroughly and with detail.
And we are going to be using allof those things to put together
this episode today.
So here's the first question.
What is improvisation?
What is it exactly?
Well, we know what it is inlife.
It means to basically dosomething on the fly without
(03:45):
planning, right?
We don't need a, you know, superacademic definition here.
All about just doing somethingon the fly without planning it,
right?
But let me dispel somepreconceived notions you might
have about improvisation.
Because I'm sure many of youhave been in awe or have gawked
(04:06):
at some people that improv likeincredibly.
And you think, wow, they justmake it up on the spot.
And that's amazing.
I can't believe they do that.
I could never do it.
The secret is they put practicethat improvisation a lot a lot a
lot they spend a lot of time inthe think tank for improvisation
they have things prepared reallywell they understand what
(04:29):
they're doing with all the musictheory concepts and they know
how to put them together withsome organization when the time
comes because they have spentthat thousands of hours
practicing it now don't get mewrong i am not taking away from
those who can do it really wellit is a beautiful art form and I
think of people like FrankZappa, who do it really well,
(04:52):
Herbie Hancock, people likeMiles Davis, John Coltrane, and
even Trey Anastasio.
There is a huge skill and artform that those people have that
is on a really, really highlevel, no matter how much you
practice.
But my point in the previoussegment was just that it's not
(05:13):
as mysterious as you think, andit's not as impromptu as you
think.
Remember the old saying that ittakes 10,000 hours to master
something?
Well, improvisation is nodifferent.
It really takes time, practice,and effort.
You don't just jump in there andjust start making stuff up
(05:33):
willy-nilly.
So let's go ahead and jump intothe concepts that we're going to
use today.
The four main things that you'regoing to use in your
improvisation skill set aregoing to be chords chord
progressions, scales, andarpeggios.
(05:54):
And those are the main fourthings we're going to start
with, but that doesn't meanthere aren't a lot of other
concepts that we are going touse.
Things like harmonies, likedouble stops, things like
bending, harmonics, things likevibrato, things like slurring,
which for guitarists would belike hammer-ons and pull-offs,
(06:17):
but also slides.
And just think of any other kindof musical technique, and we're
going to try and we're going tosee how we can use it in
improvisation.
So the best way to start asession of improvisation is
really to have a chordprogression in mind and
therefore also a key, you know,and these are concepts, of
(06:40):
course, we've gone over inseason one.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to use the key of G,
which is a nice round key withone sharp, which is F, and we're
going to use the one, four, fiveprogression.
progression in G.
So think about what that is forthose of y'all who are music
theory students right now.
What are the 1-4-5 chords in thekey of G?
(07:05):
They are G major, C major, and Dmajor.
The three major chords in thekey of G.
And just for fun, if you want tothink about it, what are the
three minor chords in the key ofG?
Just in case we want to add themalong the way.
The two chords A minor, thethree chords B minor, and the
sixth chord is E minor.
(07:26):
We're not really going to messwith the diminished seven chord
yet, which would be an F sharpdiminished chord.
It's a little more difficult touse, I think, in the beginning
so we're going to stay simple gowith the 1 4 5 g c and d in
major so let's go so our onechord like i said is g our four
chord is c and our five chord isd and then we're back to g again
(07:53):
and actually in my intro of thisepisode which was all improv by
the way i recorded the rhythmand then i recorded the lead
track above it and i alsoincluded the sixth chord the e
minor so basically Basically,that track, just to give you an
idea of what you were listeningto, it was a 1.
And then I went to a 4.
And back to 1.
(08:15):
And then I walked down to 6.
Bass lines, walk downs, that'sanother episode.
But that's kind of cool.
And then I went to a 5 chord,which was a D.
And then back to a 4 chord, butwith a little bit of amendment
from before.
I actually added a C add 9 here.
UNKNOWN (08:35):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
So if you remember from our episodes on chord
progressions, on what an add 9is as opposed to a 9, it just
means we have the regular Ctriad, 1, 3, 5, but there's no
7, and we're just adding the 9.
So instead of having a full 9thwhere you would also have the
7th and the 9th stacked on top,we're just adding a 9.
(09:02):
Sounds like that.
And then we go back to 1.
1.
So technically, my chordprogression is a 1, 4, 1, 6, 5,
4, and then back to 1.
But as you can tell, no matterhow much you mix them up, we're
using the 1, 4, 5, which as youknow in major keys is the
(09:27):
prototypical chord progressionin any song, really.
And then we're just adding oneminor chord, and that's the 6
chord, which is really the mostcommon one that gets added.
So what do you think?
you're going to go to now if youwant to start an improvisation.
You guessed it.
It's scales.
Scales are going to be your bestfriend in improvisation.
(09:49):
You're going to be able to buildall kinds of things with scales,
and we're going to get intothat.
So let's start with the G majorscale that would work with this
chord progression, and thatwould go like this.
UNKNOWN (10:06):
So
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Or I could play an extra octave on top of that.
And those are going to be theseven pitches that repeat over
and over again that we're goingto use for improvisation.
It's a place to start.
(10:29):
Now, that's not the only scalepattern that you can use.
Go back and think about thecircle of fifths episode that we
did.
And I didn't get too far intoit, but there are things called
relative keys, right?
And relative keys are major andminor key pairings that share
(10:53):
the exact same pitches they juststart and end on a different
pitch right so g major goes fromg to g and the relative minor of
g major is going to be e minorwhich goes from e to e but the
point is they're relativesbecause they share the exact
same pitches they have all theletters in the music alphabet
(11:16):
but when we get to f it's sharpso e minor would say Sound like
this.
And that is also going to beusable here.
And now I'm going to go aheadand let you in on my secret of
improvisation when I'm teachingfor my students, which is that
(11:40):
there are four main scalepatterns you really want to use
and understand in the beginningbefore you get to advanced.
And those are...
major diatonic, minor diatonic,major pentatonic, and minor
pentatonic.
And remember, the diatonicscales also have Greek mode
(12:02):
names.
So G major, the major mode isgoing to be Ionian, and the
relative minor mode is going tobe Aeolian, in case you are
keeping tabs on modes.
And look, I haven't reallytalked a ton about pentatonic
scales.
Let me give you the basicrundown.
So let me now explain.
A pentatonic scale.
(12:24):
A pentatonic scale has fivenotes and is derived from the
diatonic scales, basically minustwo notes from the diatonic
scales.
So if you're playing a G majorpentatonic scale, it sounds like
this, first of all.
Whereas the diatonic has twoextra notes in it that sound
(12:46):
like this.
UNKNOWN (12:51):
So
SPEAKER_00 (12:52):
So they're kind of one in the same, except the
pentatonic has a different soundbecause it omits two pitches
that eliminate the half steps inthe scale.
So in other words, a pentatonicscale has no half steps, and
therefore it is really the mostfriendly scale you can use in
(13:12):
improvisation.
So if you're just starting out,I would start on pentatonic
right away before you even diveinto diatonic.
So the way the major pentatonicscale works is that you play the
major diatonic scale but youremove scale degrees four and
seven only so as i'm goingthrough the scale i can play a
(13:32):
major scale and go one two threeskip four go to five and then
six skip seven and go to one soyou're skipping scale degrees
four and seven on any majorpentatonic scale let's switch
over to the minor when you're inminor pentatonic you're going to
be skipping scale degrees twoand six every time.
(13:57):
So you go one, skip two, go tothree, four, five, skip six, go
to seven, and then go to theoctave.
And that's the way they work inevery key.
(14:37):
I always teach them to startwith pentatonic because it's the
most friendly.
So let's start with an exampleof what a pentatonic
improvisation would sound like.
And I'm going to go ahead andjust go through a plain old
1-4-5 progression like this.
(14:59):
And now for a simpleimprovisation over it using G
major pentatonic to start.
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
Bye.
that was the most amazing soloever!
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
Look, I know it wasn't.
And actually, that's by design.
The whole point was to startsimple and make it work.
So all I did was play verysimply and make sure the notes
lined up and sounded prettygood.
And there are ways to make surethat that happens, and we're
going to talk about that.
But the truth is, if you want totry an exercise like this,
(15:52):
record yourself playing a I did,and then just loop it and
practice playing thosepentatonic scales over it.
The G major, and we're about toget to E minor pretty soon, and
you can use both or either ofthem and kind of just get used
to fitting into the pocket.
(16:13):
And that brings me to the bigtwo rules when you're first
starting improvisation, whichare...
Stay in rhythm and stay in thescale.
It's actually that simple.
If you stay in the scale patternthat we talked about and you're
able to keep the notes onrhythm, it will sound good,
(16:35):
especially if you're usingpentatonic.
Pentatonic doesn't reallyproduce bad sounds the way
diatonics can.
So stay in time and stay in thescale and everything will sound
pretty darn good to start.
SPEAKER_01 (16:50):
But Kevin, come on, son.
The got to be more to it thanthat.
I mean, come on!
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
well you're right in the end there's actually a lot
more to it than that it is thatsimple to get started the two
big rules staying in time andstaying in rhythm so here's my
suggestion and warning it's aboring start to improvisation
but you gotta start somewhereand build from there my
(17:18):
suggestion is start by justtrying to harmonize using whole
notes and half notes so iObviously, whole notes are four
full beats, cover a full measureof 4-4, and then you'll have two
half notes per 4-4 measure.
So the idea is that you startthat simple so that you know
(17:38):
you're lining things up, theyharmonize and are in time, then
you can build from there.
So I'm going to do one fullround of whole notes against a
1-4-5-1, and then the secondround will be half notes on the
same chord progression.
Here is an example of what thatwould sound like.
(18:00):
A one, two, three, four.
One, two, three.
(18:32):
So sorry if the counting was alittle annoying.
I just wanted to make sure youknew where my head was at with
the rhythm and the beat.
And then you could hear theother pitches harmonizing,
starting in whole notes.
And then the second round, wedid half notes.
Then the question becomes, howdo you make your note choices?
(18:53):
And that's where we come back tothe concept of...
arpeggios.
Remember our last episode aboutarpeggios and how they really
are just outlines or individualnote sequences outlining triads
or chords.
(19:14):
So those are the notes that aregoing to best harmonize with the
chord that you are playingagainst.
So let's do a quick review ofthat.
In the key of G major, whenyou're on a I chord, your
outline for your one arpeggio isgoing to be scale degree one
scale degree three and scaledegree five when you're on a
(19:37):
four chord it's going to bescale degree four then 6, and
then back to the octave, or 1again.
Then when you're on 5, it'sgoing to be, of course, scale
degree 5, then 7, then 2, andthen we're back to 1 again.
So you can literally hear thechord progression when you go
(19:59):
through those.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(20:10):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
You can hear me outlining a one, four, five.
And if you're not there yet,that's okay.
I have one episode on eartraining in season one.
If you want to go back and checkout intervals, I have more of
those to come and they're goingto be really fun and educational
and necessary for any musicianthat really wants to hear and
(20:33):
process music correctly.
And some of you might havealready caught something that I
already know by now, which is,wait a second.
If you're going through thosescale degrees like that,
pentatonic does not includescale degrees four and seven in
major.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
That's correct.
(20:54):
So that's when you're switchingover into diatonic land, because
when we're harmonizing with theroot of a four chord, that's
scale degree four.
And when we're harmonizing witha five chord, the third of the
five chord is scale degreeseven.
So we are, in fact, using thosetwo pentatonic.
arpeggios.
(21:15):
I know, I know, it sounds likeI'm being conflicting or
oxymoronic or whatever term youwant to use, but the truth is
all of this stuff workstogether.
So just to recap, stay in time,stay in rhythm, start with
pentatonic, then work your wayto adding the extra two scale
degrees for diatonic, then we goto arpeggio.
(21:38):
So let's do a little round ofthat with 1-4-5.
I'm I'm going to start with apentatonic round that then goes
to a diatonic round and thenends up with an arpeggio round.
Ooh, we're going to get a lot oflittle nuggets here.
So that would sound like this.
One, two, three, four.
UNKNOWN (22:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (22:42):
So were you able to follow all the different types
of patterns there?
You may want to go back in theaudio and just listen again.
Again, the first pass waspentatonic.
The second pass included thefour and seven of the diatonic.
And the final pass was justarpeggios that were outlining
(23:03):
the triads of the chords.
And again, I know it's notamazing sounding yet, but these
are the types of concepts thatyou lock in and build on in
order to find your improvisationvoice to find out what suits you
in the end what avenue you'regoing to go to but I do need to
(23:27):
bring up my next rule ofimprovisation which
SPEAKER_02 (23:31):
is
SPEAKER_00 (23:33):
Don't overplay.
The number one thing people doin the beginning is they try to
overplay.
They try to over impress.
They want to impress theirfriends.
They want to impress anybody whowill listen.
And look, I totally understandthat.
I get that.
But if you start doing that, Ipromise you, you're going to
(23:54):
sound like a clown at a circus.
And I'm not even lying to aseasoned musician.
musician like me that's what yousound like so i'm being point
blank here i'm i'm giving youthis in order for you to gain
some wisdom beyond your years nomatter how young you are no
(24:18):
matter how old you are no matterhow experienced you are as a
musician i promise you thisnugget of wisdom will serve you
well do not overplay make thingsfit don't play too many notes
that is the number one signalthat you are very immature in
improvisation is playing toomany notes.
(24:40):
So let's go ahead and do a recapof what we learned about the
foundations of improvisation.
So remember, number one, startwith a simple chord progression.
I choose to start with majorbecause that is more prominent
in our system.
And I choose to start with a1-4-5 progression because that
(25:01):
is the most prototypicalprogression Then once you have
that, you put together yourpentatonic scale that will work
with it, and you practiceplaying whole notes and half
notes that match up with thetiming of the chords.
Then you can gravitate towardsdiatonics, and eventually you
(25:22):
can start trying thosearpeggios.
And in the end, you're going tohave a lot of fun combining
those things together, and I'mgoing to be doing some
workshop-type podcast episodesgoing forward, including the
next one I do, which is going tobe an expansion on this one.
So if you feel like this was agood start for you on
(25:44):
improvisation, on where you'reat in your journey, then pay
attention to the next episodethat's coming out because it is
just going to be a part two onthis.
And honestly, I'm probably goingto run this series for like
three or four episodes in a row.
That's how much there is to talkabout with improvisation, which
also turns But now it's time forbreakdown Today's lucky episode
(26:20):
number 13 was all aboutimprovisation Improvisation We
learned the main two rules ofimprovisation.
Stay in rhythm and stay in key.
We learned the four scales thatyou can use to start.
(26:42):
Major pentatonic, minorpentatonic, major diatonic, and
minor diatonic.
We learned about pentatonicversus diatonic.
And how you can start with oneand expand to the other, but
what the scale degreedifferences are.
Remember, major pentatonicdoesn't have four and seven.
(27:04):
Minor pentatonic doesn't havetwo and six.
And in the end, we just learned,do not overplay.
Keep things simple.
Start with whole notes and halfnotes.
Line things up perfectly.
Establish your habits that way.
And build from there.
(27:27):
Thanks again for tuning in,everybody.
I hope that you learned andenjoyed this episode.
And I will look forward tocontinuing this music
exploration with all of you.
(27:48):
Have a great week, everybody.
One, two, three
SPEAKER_00 (00:47):
Oh, music theory lovers in the world like myself.
Welcome back to another episodeof The Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate you spendingsome time with us this week, and
I hope that you are enjoying thejourney we are on so far.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
(01:10):
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
baby.
Y'all sound energized.
Y'all sound rested.
Y'all sound ready to learn somemusic.
Let's go, y'all.
Let's have fun today.
So we're coming off an episodeabout arpeggios last time in
episode 12, which is one of myfavorite things.
(01:33):
But I got to thinking that weneed to do an episode on
improvisation.
And today's episode, luckynumber 13, is going to be all
about improvisation.
So before we begin with today'sepisode, let me go ahead and
welcome anybody new out therethat might not have listened to
(01:56):
my podcast before.
Welcome.
We are so glad that you arehere.
And I'll go ahead and just letyou know, this is a linear and
cumulative podcast.
And so we're building blocks onblocks on blocks.
And our first 12 episodes haveled up to lucky number 13 here.
And I'm going to be using allthe concepts put together just
(02:20):
about in today's podcast episodeI do appreciate all of you
listening and look I just askthat you go into the episode
description right now whileyou're listening click on the
support the show link and justtake a look at the options there
I'm working really hard to putgood content out for you every
(02:41):
week and so I'm just asking fora little help in return it
really goes a long way.
Anything that you can offer tosupport the show so that I can
continue to create great contentfor you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it very, very much.
But if you are a beginner atmusic theory and that's why you
(03:02):
looked me up and found mypodcast, I do urge you to go
back to the beginning to episodeone and start listening to the
episodes and get caught up withus here.
You're certainly willing to staywith this episode at this time,
but if you are a beginner, theremight be a lot of advanced
concepts here that you haven'tnecessarily heard of before, but
(03:22):
that I have gone throughthoroughly and with detail.
And we are going to be using allof those things to put together
this episode today.
So here's the first question.
What is improvisation?
What is it exactly?
Well, we know what it is inlife.
It means to basically dosomething on the fly without
(03:45):
planning, right?
We don't need a, you know, superacademic definition here.
All about just doing somethingon the fly without planning it,
right?
But let me dispel somepreconceived notions you might
have about improvisation.
Because I'm sure many of youhave been in awe or have gawked
(04:06):
at some people that improv likeincredibly.
And you think, wow, they justmake it up on the spot.
And that's amazing.
I can't believe they do that.
I could never do it.
The secret is they put practicethat improvisation a lot a lot a
lot they spend a lot of time inthe think tank for improvisation
they have things prepared reallywell they understand what
(04:29):
they're doing with all the musictheory concepts and they know
how to put them together withsome organization when the time
comes because they have spentthat thousands of hours
practicing it now don't get mewrong i am not taking away from
those who can do it really wellit is a beautiful art form and I
think of people like FrankZappa, who do it really well,
(04:52):
Herbie Hancock, people likeMiles Davis, John Coltrane, and
even Trey Anastasio.
There is a huge skill and artform that those people have that
is on a really, really highlevel, no matter how much you
practice.
But my point in the previoussegment was just that it's not
(05:13):
as mysterious as you think, andit's not as impromptu as you
think.
Remember the old saying that ittakes 10,000 hours to master
something?
Well, improvisation is nodifferent.
It really takes time, practice,and effort.
You don't just jump in there andjust start making stuff up
(05:33):
willy-nilly.
So let's go ahead and jump intothe concepts that we're going to
use today.
The four main things that you'regoing to use in your
improvisation skill set aregoing to be chords chord
progressions, scales, andarpeggios.
(05:54):
And those are the main fourthings we're going to start
with, but that doesn't meanthere aren't a lot of other
concepts that we are going touse.
Things like harmonies, likedouble stops, things like
bending, harmonics, things likevibrato, things like slurring,
which for guitarists would belike hammer-ons and pull-offs,
(06:17):
but also slides.
And just think of any other kindof musical technique, and we're
going to try and we're going tosee how we can use it in
improvisation.
So the best way to start asession of improvisation is
really to have a chordprogression in mind and
therefore also a key, you know,and these are concepts, of
(06:40):
course, we've gone over inseason one.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to use the key of G,
which is a nice round key withone sharp, which is F, and we're
going to use the one, four, fiveprogression.
progression in G.
So think about what that is forthose of y'all who are music
theory students right now.
What are the 1-4-5 chords in thekey of G?
(07:05):
They are G major, C major, and Dmajor.
The three major chords in thekey of G.
And just for fun, if you want tothink about it, what are the
three minor chords in the key ofG?
Just in case we want to add themalong the way.
The two chords A minor, thethree chords B minor, and the
sixth chord is E minor.
(07:26):
We're not really going to messwith the diminished seven chord
yet, which would be an F sharpdiminished chord.
It's a little more difficult touse, I think, in the beginning
so we're going to stay simple gowith the 1 4 5 g c and d in
major so let's go so our onechord like i said is g our four
chord is c and our five chord isd and then we're back to g again
(07:53):
and actually in my intro of thisepisode which was all improv by
the way i recorded the rhythmand then i recorded the lead
track above it and i alsoincluded the sixth chord the e
minor so basically Basically,that track, just to give you an
idea of what you were listeningto, it was a 1.
And then I went to a 4.
And back to 1.
(08:15):
And then I walked down to 6.
Bass lines, walk downs, that'sanother episode.
But that's kind of cool.
And then I went to a 5 chord,which was a D.
And then back to a 4 chord, butwith a little bit of amendment
from before.
I actually added a C add 9 here.
UNKNOWN (08:35):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
So if you remember from our episodes on chord
progressions, on what an add 9is as opposed to a 9, it just
means we have the regular Ctriad, 1, 3, 5, but there's no
7, and we're just adding the 9.
So instead of having a full 9thwhere you would also have the
7th and the 9th stacked on top,we're just adding a 9.
(09:02):
Sounds like that.
And then we go back to 1.
1.
So technically, my chordprogression is a 1, 4, 1, 6, 5,
4, and then back to 1.
But as you can tell, no matterhow much you mix them up, we're
using the 1, 4, 5, which as youknow in major keys is the
(09:27):
prototypical chord progressionin any song, really.
And then we're just adding oneminor chord, and that's the 6
chord, which is really the mostcommon one that gets added.
So what do you think?
you're going to go to now if youwant to start an improvisation.
You guessed it.
It's scales.
Scales are going to be your bestfriend in improvisation.
(09:49):
You're going to be able to buildall kinds of things with scales,
and we're going to get intothat.
So let's start with the G majorscale that would work with this
chord progression, and thatwould go like this.
UNKNOWN (10:06):
So
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Or I could play an extra octave on top of that.
And those are going to be theseven pitches that repeat over
and over again that we're goingto use for improvisation.
It's a place to start.
(10:29):
Now, that's not the only scalepattern that you can use.
Go back and think about thecircle of fifths episode that we
did.
And I didn't get too far intoit, but there are things called
relative keys, right?
And relative keys are major andminor key pairings that share
(10:53):
the exact same pitches they juststart and end on a different
pitch right so g major goes fromg to g and the relative minor of
g major is going to be e minorwhich goes from e to e but the
point is they're relativesbecause they share the exact
same pitches they have all theletters in the music alphabet
(11:16):
but when we get to f it's sharpso e minor would say Sound like
this.
And that is also going to beusable here.
And now I'm going to go aheadand let you in on my secret of
improvisation when I'm teachingfor my students, which is that
(11:40):
there are four main scalepatterns you really want to use
and understand in the beginningbefore you get to advanced.
And those are...
major diatonic, minor diatonic,major pentatonic, and minor
pentatonic.
And remember, the diatonicscales also have Greek mode
(12:02):
names.
So G major, the major mode isgoing to be Ionian, and the
relative minor mode is going tobe Aeolian, in case you are
keeping tabs on modes.
And look, I haven't reallytalked a ton about pentatonic
scales.
Let me give you the basicrundown.
So let me now explain.
A pentatonic scale.
(12:24):
A pentatonic scale has fivenotes and is derived from the
diatonic scales, basically minustwo notes from the diatonic
scales.
So if you're playing a G majorpentatonic scale, it sounds like
this, first of all.
Whereas the diatonic has twoextra notes in it that sound
(12:46):
like this.
UNKNOWN (12:51):
So
SPEAKER_00 (12:52):
So they're kind of one in the same, except the
pentatonic has a different soundbecause it omits two pitches
that eliminate the half steps inthe scale.
So in other words, a pentatonicscale has no half steps, and
therefore it is really the mostfriendly scale you can use in
(13:12):
improvisation.
So if you're just starting out,I would start on pentatonic
right away before you even diveinto diatonic.
So the way the major pentatonicscale works is that you play the
major diatonic scale but youremove scale degrees four and
seven only so as i'm goingthrough the scale i can play a
(13:32):
major scale and go one two threeskip four go to five and then
six skip seven and go to one soyou're skipping scale degrees
four and seven on any majorpentatonic scale let's switch
over to the minor when you're inminor pentatonic you're going to
be skipping scale degrees twoand six every time.
(13:57):
So you go one, skip two, go tothree, four, five, skip six, go
to seven, and then go to theoctave.
And that's the way they work inevery key.
(14:37):
I always teach them to startwith pentatonic because it's the
most friendly.
So let's start with an exampleof what a pentatonic
improvisation would sound like.
And I'm going to go ahead andjust go through a plain old
1-4-5 progression like this.
(14:59):
And now for a simpleimprovisation over it using G
major pentatonic to start.
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
Bye.
that was the most amazing soloever!
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
Look, I know it wasn't.
And actually, that's by design.
The whole point was to startsimple and make it work.
So all I did was play verysimply and make sure the notes
lined up and sounded prettygood.
And there are ways to make surethat that happens, and we're
going to talk about that.
But the truth is, if you want totry an exercise like this,
(15:52):
record yourself playing a I did,and then just loop it and
practice playing thosepentatonic scales over it.
The G major, and we're about toget to E minor pretty soon, and
you can use both or either ofthem and kind of just get used
to fitting into the pocket.
(16:13):
And that brings me to the bigtwo rules when you're first
starting improvisation, whichare...
Stay in rhythm and stay in thescale.
It's actually that simple.
If you stay in the scale patternthat we talked about and you're
able to keep the notes onrhythm, it will sound good,
(16:35):
especially if you're usingpentatonic.
Pentatonic doesn't reallyproduce bad sounds the way
diatonics can.
So stay in time and stay in thescale and everything will sound
pretty darn good to start.
SPEAKER_01 (16:50):
But Kevin, come on, son.
The got to be more to it thanthat.
I mean, come on!
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
well you're right in the end there's actually a lot
more to it than that it is thatsimple to get started the two
big rules staying in time andstaying in rhythm so here's my
suggestion and warning it's aboring start to improvisation
but you gotta start somewhereand build from there my
(17:18):
suggestion is start by justtrying to harmonize using whole
notes and half notes so iObviously, whole notes are four
full beats, cover a full measureof 4-4, and then you'll have two
half notes per 4-4 measure.
So the idea is that you startthat simple so that you know
(17:38):
you're lining things up, theyharmonize and are in time, then
you can build from there.
So I'm going to do one fullround of whole notes against a
1-4-5-1, and then the secondround will be half notes on the
same chord progression.
Here is an example of what thatwould sound like.
(18:00):
A one, two, three, four.
One, two, three.
(18:32):
So sorry if the counting was alittle annoying.
I just wanted to make sure youknew where my head was at with
the rhythm and the beat.
And then you could hear theother pitches harmonizing,
starting in whole notes.
And then the second round, wedid half notes.
Then the question becomes, howdo you make your note choices?
(18:53):
And that's where we come back tothe concept of...
arpeggios.
Remember our last episode aboutarpeggios and how they really
are just outlines or individualnote sequences outlining triads
or chords.
(19:14):
So those are the notes that aregoing to best harmonize with the
chord that you are playingagainst.
So let's do a quick review ofthat.
In the key of G major, whenyou're on a I chord, your
outline for your one arpeggio isgoing to be scale degree one
scale degree three and scaledegree five when you're on a
(19:37):
four chord it's going to bescale degree four then 6, and
then back to the octave, or 1again.
Then when you're on 5, it'sgoing to be, of course, scale
degree 5, then 7, then 2, andthen we're back to 1 again.
So you can literally hear thechord progression when you go
(19:59):
through those.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(20:10):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
You can hear me outlining a one, four, five.
And if you're not there yet,that's okay.
I have one episode on eartraining in season one.
If you want to go back and checkout intervals, I have more of
those to come and they're goingto be really fun and educational
and necessary for any musicianthat really wants to hear and
(20:33):
process music correctly.
And some of you might havealready caught something that I
already know by now, which is,wait a second.
If you're going through thosescale degrees like that,
pentatonic does not includescale degrees four and seven in
major.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
That's correct.
(20:54):
So that's when you're switchingover into diatonic land, because
when we're harmonizing with theroot of a four chord, that's
scale degree four.
And when we're harmonizing witha five chord, the third of the
five chord is scale degreeseven.
So we are, in fact, using thosetwo pentatonic.
arpeggios.
(21:15):
I know, I know, it sounds likeI'm being conflicting or
oxymoronic or whatever term youwant to use, but the truth is
all of this stuff workstogether.
So just to recap, stay in time,stay in rhythm, start with
pentatonic, then work your wayto adding the extra two scale
degrees for diatonic, then we goto arpeggio.
(21:38):
So let's do a little round ofthat with 1-4-5.
I'm I'm going to start with apentatonic round that then goes
to a diatonic round and thenends up with an arpeggio round.
Ooh, we're going to get a lot oflittle nuggets here.
So that would sound like this.
One, two, three, four.
UNKNOWN (22:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (22:42):
So were you able to follow all the different types
of patterns there?
You may want to go back in theaudio and just listen again.
Again, the first pass waspentatonic.
The second pass included thefour and seven of the diatonic.
And the final pass was justarpeggios that were outlining
(23:03):
the triads of the chords.
And again, I know it's notamazing sounding yet, but these
are the types of concepts thatyou lock in and build on in
order to find your improvisationvoice to find out what suits you
in the end what avenue you'regoing to go to but I do need to
(23:27):
bring up my next rule ofimprovisation which
SPEAKER_02 (23:31):
is
SPEAKER_00 (23:33):
Don't overplay.
The number one thing people doin the beginning is they try to
overplay.
They try to over impress.
They want to impress theirfriends.
They want to impress anybody whowill listen.
And look, I totally understandthat.
I get that.
But if you start doing that, Ipromise you, you're going to
(23:54):
sound like a clown at a circus.
And I'm not even lying to aseasoned musician.
musician like me that's what yousound like so i'm being point
blank here i'm i'm giving youthis in order for you to gain
some wisdom beyond your years nomatter how young you are no
(24:18):
matter how old you are no matterhow experienced you are as a
musician i promise you thisnugget of wisdom will serve you
well do not overplay make thingsfit don't play too many notes
that is the number one signalthat you are very immature in
improvisation is playing toomany notes.
(24:40):
So let's go ahead and do a recapof what we learned about the
foundations of improvisation.
So remember, number one, startwith a simple chord progression.
I choose to start with majorbecause that is more prominent
in our system.
And I choose to start with a1-4-5 progression because that
(25:01):
is the most prototypicalprogression Then once you have
that, you put together yourpentatonic scale that will work
with it, and you practiceplaying whole notes and half
notes that match up with thetiming of the chords.
Then you can gravitate towardsdiatonics, and eventually you
(25:22):
can start trying thosearpeggios.
And in the end, you're going tohave a lot of fun combining
those things together, and I'mgoing to be doing some
workshop-type podcast episodesgoing forward, including the
next one I do, which is going tobe an expansion on this one.
So if you feel like this was agood start for you on
(25:44):
improvisation, on where you'reat in your journey, then pay
attention to the next episodethat's coming out because it is
just going to be a part two onthis.
And honestly, I'm probably goingto run this series for like
three or four episodes in a row.
That's how much there is to talkabout with improvisation, which
also turns But now it's time forbreakdown Today's lucky episode
(26:20):
number 13 was all aboutimprovisation Improvisation We
learned the main two rules ofimprovisation.
Stay in rhythm and stay in key.
We learned the four scales thatyou can use to start.
(26:42):
Major pentatonic, minorpentatonic, major diatonic, and
minor diatonic.
We learned about pentatonicversus diatonic.
And how you can start with oneand expand to the other, but
what the scale degreedifferences are.
Remember, major pentatonicdoesn't have four and seven.
(27:04):
Minor pentatonic doesn't havetwo and six.
And in the end, we just learned,do not overplay.
Keep things simple.
Start with whole notes and halfnotes.
Line things up perfectly.
Establish your habits that way.
And build from there.
(27:27):
Thanks again for tuning in,everybody.
I hope that you learned andenjoyed this episode.
And I will look forward tocontinuing this music
exploration with all of you.
(27:48):
Have a great week, everybody.
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