February 21, 2025 • 25 mins
Welcome to The Harmonious Blacksmith,
your go-to podcast for mastering music theory and unlocking the secrets of musical improvisation. In this episode, Ep.14 Improvisation_Part_2, we dive deeper into the art of improvisation and how to apply essential music theory principles on the fly. Whether you’re a music student, a professional musician, or a music theory enthusiast, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips to elevate your improvisation skills.
We explore key concepts such as chord progressions, scales, and modes, and show you how these can be used to create improvised melodies and harmonic structures. By breaking down real-world examples, we provide you with the tools to confidently navigate through complex musical landscapes. If you’ve been looking to sharpen your jazz improvisation, classical improvisation, or any other improvisational style, this episode is for you!
Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of how music theory can fuel your creative expression and improve your ability to improvise effortlessly. Don’t miss out on this episode of The Harmonious Blacksmith—your key to mastering the language of music and improvisation. Subscribe and stay tuned for more insightful episodes!
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
A one, two, a one, four.
(00:38):
Hey, what's up everybody outthere, fellow music theory
lovers and enthusiasts.
We are back with another episodeof The Harmonious Blacksmith.
Welcome, and I hope that you'reenjoying my podcast so far.
This is going to be episodenumber 14 of season two, and it
(01:03):
is part two of my improvisationseries.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
Oh no, don't do it.
No.
No, don't do it.
Oh my
SPEAKER_00 (01:18):
God.
Oh, they did it.
Thanks everybody.
Thank you so much.
So today we have a extra saucyepisode about improvisation part
two.
And I want to go ahead andaddress any of my new listeners
out there.
(01:38):
First of all, welcome.
You found your home to musictheory and the exploration of
such in a podcast form.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I will go ahead and let you knowthis is a linear and cumulative
podcast.
And so if you're coming in forthe first time on this episode.
I do recommend going all the wayback to season one in episode
(02:02):
one.
It starts from scratch andbuilds from there.
We have been building onmultiple concepts to get to the
point where we are now.
And so if you are a flatbeginner, you might not be able
to follow everything I'm talkingabout today.
And look, that's okay too.
And if you don't, you might justwant to go back and start my
podcast from the beginning.
(02:22):
So let's go ahead and start witha quick review of what we did in
episode 13 is we were learningthe components, the building
blocks of how to create somegood improvisation.
Do you remember what thosecomponents were?
I'm going to answer thatquestion by posing another.
(02:45):
Where does everything in musictheory come from in the
beginning?
UNKNOWN (02:51):
Music
SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
Yep, it comes from scales.
So we're starting with scalepatterns.
Does anybody remember the secondcomponent?
It is arpeggios.
So quick review.
Scales are a melodic successionof notes one at a time that go
in a stepwise order from a lownote that we call a root all the
(03:16):
way up to what we call anoctave, which is the higher
version of the root.
And in between, the notes areformed based on formulas that
have conditions previously.
And what is an arpeggio?
Can any of y'all remember itfrom the arpeggio episode?
(03:39):
It is just the components, theoutline of chords.
So as we know, chords are threeor more notes played
simultaneously, but arpeggiosare when you break that up into
its individual notes orcomponents.
And that's where we can reallyhave fun and get creative.
(03:59):
Arpeggios are one of my favoritethings in music theory of all
time.
I just really think that peoplehave the ability to to really do
their creativity and their artwith arpeggios combined with
melodic scale tones.
So that is really how we'regoing to improvise.
So let's start with the scales.
(04:21):
There were four main scales thatyou use that can allow you to
improvise to literally like 90%of music.
Do you remember what they are?
They are diatonic major,diatonic minor, major
pentatonic, and minorpentatonic.
(04:44):
So those four patterns combinedcan allow you to improvise over
the overwhelming majority ofmusic that you hear or come
across.
I promise you that.
So let's play through all ofthem first.
I'm going to go ahead and startin the key I was in when I
recorded the intro.
(05:05):
which was G.
Let's do G major pentatonic,which sounds like this.
And G minor pentatonic wouldsound like this.
(05:25):
G major diatonic would soundlike this.
minor diatonic.
Okay, and I'm assuming most ofyou are probably familiar with
(05:49):
these by now, but let's go aheadand review the differences
between the pentatonics and thediatonics.
Do you remember what they are?
So for example, we start withthe major diatonic, which starts
on root G and goes whole, whole,half, whole, whole, whole, half,
(06:10):
right?
And how do we extract, I'm doingquotes in the air right now, how
do we extract the pentatonic?
Because it really lies in thesame realm, right?
For major, all you do is removescale degrees four and seven.
SPEAKER_02 (06:28):
So,
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
So we start with scale degree one, then we go to
two, then to three, skip four,go to five, six, skip seven, and
go to eight.
From major diatonic to majorpentatonic is really just a
matter of removing scale degreesfour and seven.
So now I'm going to play thoseback to back.
(06:56):
This is diatonic.
And this is pentatonic.
So you can tell they aresimilar.
They do share the same pitchesbasically, except diatonic has a
couple more.
Another friendly reminder, youget yourself in trouble using
(07:18):
diatonics because they have halfsteps in them and pentatonics do
not have half steps.
This is an important thing toremember because if you're
playing something melodicallywith a scale and improv, if
you're You can get yourself introuble if you play the wrong
(07:41):
half step over the wrong chord.
So like if I'm playing a C chordand I accidentally play a B
underneath a C chord, it couldbe really harsh sound and things
like that.
So really, you want to startwith pentatonics and then
graduate to diatonics fromthere.
Pentatonics are more friendly.
They don't contain the deadlyhalf steps of the diatonic that
(08:06):
can cause pitfalls and reallyjust bad sounds.
So we're going to start withpentatonic.
So let's also explain the minor.
Do you remember which scaledegrees get moved there?
So minor diatonic would be one,two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight.
(08:26):
And two get removed from thisone, but they're not the same as
major.
What are they?
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
They are scale degrees two and six.
So we're going to go scaledegree one, skip two, go to
three, then go to four, five,skip six, and go to seven, and
then to eight.
So we're skipping two and six.
So again, in major, we'reskipping four and seven to get
(08:55):
pentatonic.
And in minor, we're skippingscale degrees two and six.
All right, so we're almost readyto start our improvisation with
just the scales.
We'll add arpeggios as we go.
But what I want to know is whothat listened to my previous
(09:17):
episode can remember the twogolden rules of improvisation in
the beginning.
They are stay in the scale andstay in time or stay in rhythm.
If you simplify, make sureyou're staying in your scale
pattern and make sure you'restaying within the bounds of the
(09:40):
rhythm.
Your improv will sound good.
And just remember, don't, don't,don't overplay.
It's so easy to overplay and tryto play too many notes and you
get yourself in trouble.
You sound sloppy.
Okay.
So don't do that.
Start simplifying.
Simple.
Start with long notes.
Start with whole notes and halfnotes and quarter notes before
(10:02):
you start trying to chop it upinto eighths and sixteenths.
Keep things simple.
All right.
So ready to start your firstimprov?
Here's what we're going to do.
My suggestion is start withliterally one chord.
So I am going to be startingwith a G major chord, and I'm
just going to play it in time,and we're going to experiment
(10:26):
with the scales that would workwith that.
So I'm going to start with asimple jangly G like this.
One, two, ready, go.
So Okay, so now I'm going to letthat run in the background as a
(11:00):
rhythm.
And then I'm going to solo overit, starting with the G major
pentatonic scale, the mostfriendly scale for this.
And just as a bonus for y'allout there that have been
listening to my podcast, what isthe relative minor of G major?
UNKNOWN (11:20):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:21):
That's right.
It's E minor.
So you can also use E minorpentatonic, but I'm just going
to start with G major pentatonicfor now.
And that would sound like this.
One, two, ready, go.
Okay.
(11:54):
Okay, that's simple enough andsounded pretty good.
Let's see if you can now tellthe difference between that
sound and adding scale degrees 4and 7 to turn it into a major
diatonic.
You'll just hear the other twocolors, and that would sound
like this.
1, 2, ready, go.
(12:15):
1, 2, ready, go.
Hmm, interesting, right?
(12:37):
So we really do have a differentpalette of colors there, despite
the fact that they're sosimilar.
You're going to get this sort ofboxy, even sound in pentatonic,
and then with diatonic, when youadd the half steps back, you
just get these sort of subtlecolors, these sort of in-between
colors that come in that reallydo make it a little more
(12:59):
interesting in the end.
So now let's try this experimentover an A- minor chord.
Just to switch the palette alittle bit, I'm going to start
with an A minor strum, and weare going to do A minor
pentatonic and compare that to Aminor diatonic.
So first, A minor with justpentatonic, and that sounds like
(13:21):
this.
A one, two, three.
UNKNOWN (13:28):
So
SPEAKER_00 (13:34):
Oh, that is so fun.
All right, now let's try thatsame A minor jangly strum, but
with the diatonic notes.
See if you can hear the colorsand tell the difference.
(13:55):
And it sounds like this.
A one, two, three, four.
UNKNOWN (14:00):
A one, two, three, four.
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
So again, hopefully you can hear the subtle shading
that goes on when we add scaledegrees two and six.
back from the minor pentatonicto the minor diatonic.
So again, we just displayed thatfour scales can play a whole lot
of music.
And isn't that wonderful?
But there is one cool componentthat I haven't even gotten into
(14:43):
yet, which again is arpeggios.
So let's break down arpeggiosreal quick.
Basically, arpeggio is taking achord.
So I'll just take A minor, theone I was just using and
breaking it into its components.
(15:07):
Now, how many ways can I dothat?
It is practically infinite,okay?
Like there are so many ways thatyou can do it with rhythm, that
you can do it in the order ofthe chord.
You can do it with differentvoicings and things.
It is almost infinite the waythat you can spread out
arpeggios.
That's why I love them so much.
(15:27):
And so basically what I'm goingto do is I'm going to do a few
passes with just arpeggio tones.
So again, if I'm doing, I'mgoing to go back to Who out
there remembers where thosechord tones come from, by the
way?
they come from the scales wowlike that's a big surprise if
(15:51):
you've been listening to myseries so recall the skipping
method to build triads andremember triads turn into chords
and both triads and chords lendthemselves to arpeggios so let's
do some examples all right so ifi have a g scale with scale
degrees one two three four fivesix seven eight remember the
(16:14):
skipping method you start withone And then you go to three and
then you go to five.
And those are the three pitchesthat create the triad, right?
Which ultimately creates thechord.
You probably remember that.
I just wanted to remind you.
And so one, three, and five aregoing to be the main pitches
(16:36):
we're going to use as ourarpeggio tone.
So now let's do a pass where youhear a jangly G again, and we
just use the one, three, andfive and see what that sounds
like and it would sound likethis.
One, two, ready, go.
(17:11):
So you can tell right away thatarpeggios have this kind of
bouncy jump around kind of soundbecause obviously we're skipping
notes and skipping notes just,it makes the ear work a little
more because it bounces around.
The intervals are bigger.
If you remember intervals andthe distances between pitches,
(17:33):
it's just a lot easier and moreagreeable for our ear to latch
onto scale tones where thepitches are close together.
But Arpeggios are so cool.
They do a lot of interestingthings, and you can tell they
bounce around and really giveyou this sort of open, bigger
sound.
So now let's ramp it up a littlebit.
(17:55):
Let's do a little comboexercise.
So over the jangly G strum thistime, I'm actually going to use
pentatonic scales along witharpeggios to show you what that
sounds like.
One, two, ready?
Go.
(18:31):
Oh, now we're getting somewhere,right?
So now when you combine scaleswith arpeggios, you really get
some very interesting and variedsounds.
And notice, I'm going to pointthis out.
I haven't even left one chordyet.
Did you notice that?
And I'm doing that on purpose tomake a point.
(18:54):
Building improvisation is aprocess just like building
anything that's worth building.
It takes time and it hasmultiple steps and it takes
patience and it takes runninginto issues and solving them,
all kinds of things like that.
So be patient, start with onechord, learn how to wield
(19:15):
pentatonic scales and diatonicscales, learn how to put the
arpeggios together, and thenlearn how to combine them that
way before you even leap into amore complex progression.
So now for my last audio exampleon this particular section i'm
going to go ahead and go back toa minor we're going to do an a
(19:37):
minor strum and i'm going tocombine a minor diatonic with a
minor arpeggio notes which againwill be one three and five from
the a minor scale that wouldsound like this a one two three
four so All right.
(20:13):
So now again, we're getting alot of colors there, but they're
in minor now.
So that was minor diatonic alongwith arpeggio notes for A minor
again.
Look, I urge you to try theseexercises.
All I'm really doing is I'm justhitting record and using a basic
metronome to keep my tracks intime.
(20:34):
And I'm just doing a janglystrum on one chord.
And that way you can just hitplay and then you can just
practice doing this over andover again and create a loop for
minutes and minutes and minutesall this is really easy and you
can get started on improvisationreally easily so to recap what
we just did we talked about howimprovisation starts with the
(20:57):
four main scales that can getthrough like 80 to 90 percent of
music out there that you listento and hear and those scales are
the major and minor pentatonicas well as the major and minor
diatonic we heard the subtletiesin the differences between those
when you take away those scaledegree four and seven from major
(21:17):
diatonic or scale degrees twoand six from minor diatonic.
And then in the end, when we addthe arpeggio notes, the outlines
of the chord we're playing, youget more of a varied, bouncy
sort of jump around sound thathas bigger intervals and more
colors.
So combining these four scaleswith your arpeggios can take you
(21:41):
really, really Okay, so that wasa lot.
Let's breathe a little bit andtake it in.
(22:12):
When I switch to a C chord, forexample, just think about that.
Does my scale change?
Are G and C in the same keytogether?
Just think about thosequestions.
What would you change once yougo to a C in your scale pattern?
(22:35):
We'll get into that in the nextone.
And I have another question foryou.
When we switch from a G to a C,what will change about the
arpeggio notes that we'replaying, right?
So we're not just going to beplaying 1-3-5 anymore.
We're now going to be outlininga C chord, which would be 4-6-1
to give you, a preview of whatwe'll be getting into.
(22:59):
So coming up soon, we're goingto do more of this same kind of
stuff, but with more of a chordprogression rather than just a
stagnant chord.
That way we can continue tobuild the skills that we have
already started to build.
But now it's time for breakdown.
(23:25):
Today's episode was the secondepisode in my improvisation
series.
We started with the four mainscales to use in improvisation.
Major pentatonic, minorpentatonic, major diatonic, and
minor diatonic.
(23:46):
We talked about the scaledegrees four and seven being
removed from major to getpentatonic and scale degrees two
and six being removed from minorto get minor pentatonic.
We also reviewed triads, chordsand arpeggios and started to add
arpeggios to what we do.
(24:10):
I reminded you about the twogolden rules of improvisation.
Stay in the scale and stay inrhythm.
Keep it simple.
We learned how to start with thepentatonic scale against one
chord, graduate to the diatonicscale, and eventually add
(24:32):
arpeggios in with that tocombine those things.
Thanks again for tuning in toThe Harmonious Blacksmith.
And until next time, I will lookforward to continuing this music
exploration with all of you.
(24:53):
Have a beautiful music-filledweek, gang.
A one, two, a one, four.
(00:38):
Hey, what's up everybody outthere, fellow music theory
lovers and enthusiasts.
We are back with another episodeof The Harmonious Blacksmith.
Welcome, and I hope that you'reenjoying my podcast so far.
This is going to be episodenumber 14 of season two, and it
(01:03):
is part two of my improvisationseries.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
Oh no, don't do it.
No.
No, don't do it.
Oh my
SPEAKER_00 (01:18):
God.
Oh, they did it.
Thanks everybody.
Thank you so much.
So today we have a extra saucyepisode about improvisation part
two.
And I want to go ahead andaddress any of my new listeners
out there.
(01:38):
First of all, welcome.
You found your home to musictheory and the exploration of
such in a podcast form.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I will go ahead and let you knowthis is a linear and cumulative
podcast.
And so if you're coming in forthe first time on this episode.
I do recommend going all the wayback to season one in episode
(02:02):
one.
It starts from scratch andbuilds from there.
We have been building onmultiple concepts to get to the
point where we are now.
And so if you are a flatbeginner, you might not be able
to follow everything I'm talkingabout today.
And look, that's okay too.
And if you don't, you might justwant to go back and start my
podcast from the beginning.
(02:22):
So let's go ahead and start witha quick review of what we did in
episode 13 is we were learningthe components, the building
blocks of how to create somegood improvisation.
Do you remember what thosecomponents were?
I'm going to answer thatquestion by posing another.
(02:45):
Where does everything in musictheory come from in the
beginning?
UNKNOWN (02:51):
Music
SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
Yep, it comes from scales.
So we're starting with scalepatterns.
Does anybody remember the secondcomponent?
It is arpeggios.
So quick review.
Scales are a melodic successionof notes one at a time that go
in a stepwise order from a lownote that we call a root all the
(03:16):
way up to what we call anoctave, which is the higher
version of the root.
And in between, the notes areformed based on formulas that
have conditions previously.
And what is an arpeggio?
Can any of y'all remember itfrom the arpeggio episode?
(03:39):
It is just the components, theoutline of chords.
So as we know, chords are threeor more notes played
simultaneously, but arpeggiosare when you break that up into
its individual notes orcomponents.
And that's where we can reallyhave fun and get creative.
(03:59):
Arpeggios are one of my favoritethings in music theory of all
time.
I just really think that peoplehave the ability to to really do
their creativity and their artwith arpeggios combined with
melodic scale tones.
So that is really how we'regoing to improvise.
So let's start with the scales.
(04:21):
There were four main scales thatyou use that can allow you to
improvise to literally like 90%of music.
Do you remember what they are?
They are diatonic major,diatonic minor, major
pentatonic, and minorpentatonic.
(04:44):
So those four patterns combinedcan allow you to improvise over
the overwhelming majority ofmusic that you hear or come
across.
I promise you that.
So let's play through all ofthem first.
I'm going to go ahead and startin the key I was in when I
recorded the intro.
(05:05):
which was G.
Let's do G major pentatonic,which sounds like this.
And G minor pentatonic wouldsound like this.
(05:25):
G major diatonic would soundlike this.
minor diatonic.
Okay, and I'm assuming most ofyou are probably familiar with
(05:49):
these by now, but let's go aheadand review the differences
between the pentatonics and thediatonics.
Do you remember what they are?
So for example, we start withthe major diatonic, which starts
on root G and goes whole, whole,half, whole, whole, whole, half,
(06:10):
right?
And how do we extract, I'm doingquotes in the air right now, how
do we extract the pentatonic?
Because it really lies in thesame realm, right?
For major, all you do is removescale degrees four and seven.
SPEAKER_02 (06:28):
So,
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
So we start with scale degree one, then we go to
two, then to three, skip four,go to five, six, skip seven, and
go to eight.
From major diatonic to majorpentatonic is really just a
matter of removing scale degreesfour and seven.
So now I'm going to play thoseback to back.
(06:56):
This is diatonic.
And this is pentatonic.
So you can tell they aresimilar.
They do share the same pitchesbasically, except diatonic has a
couple more.
Another friendly reminder, youget yourself in trouble using
(07:18):
diatonics because they have halfsteps in them and pentatonics do
not have half steps.
This is an important thing toremember because if you're
playing something melodicallywith a scale and improv, if
you're You can get yourself introuble if you play the wrong
(07:41):
half step over the wrong chord.
So like if I'm playing a C chordand I accidentally play a B
underneath a C chord, it couldbe really harsh sound and things
like that.
So really, you want to startwith pentatonics and then
graduate to diatonics fromthere.
Pentatonics are more friendly.
They don't contain the deadlyhalf steps of the diatonic that
(08:06):
can cause pitfalls and reallyjust bad sounds.
So we're going to start withpentatonic.
So let's also explain the minor.
Do you remember which scaledegrees get moved there?
So minor diatonic would be one,two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight.
(08:26):
And two get removed from thisone, but they're not the same as
major.
What are they?
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
They are scale degrees two and six.
So we're going to go scaledegree one, skip two, go to
three, then go to four, five,skip six, and go to seven, and
then to eight.
So we're skipping two and six.
So again, in major, we'reskipping four and seven to get
(08:55):
pentatonic.
And in minor, we're skippingscale degrees two and six.
All right, so we're almost readyto start our improvisation with
just the scales.
We'll add arpeggios as we go.
But what I want to know is whothat listened to my previous
(09:17):
episode can remember the twogolden rules of improvisation in
the beginning.
They are stay in the scale andstay in time or stay in rhythm.
If you simplify, make sureyou're staying in your scale
pattern and make sure you'restaying within the bounds of the
(09:40):
rhythm.
Your improv will sound good.
And just remember, don't, don't,don't overplay.
It's so easy to overplay and tryto play too many notes and you
get yourself in trouble.
You sound sloppy.
Okay.
So don't do that.
Start simplifying.
Simple.
Start with long notes.
Start with whole notes and halfnotes and quarter notes before
(10:02):
you start trying to chop it upinto eighths and sixteenths.
Keep things simple.
All right.
So ready to start your firstimprov?
Here's what we're going to do.
My suggestion is start withliterally one chord.
So I am going to be startingwith a G major chord, and I'm
just going to play it in time,and we're going to experiment
(10:26):
with the scales that would workwith that.
So I'm going to start with asimple jangly G like this.
One, two, ready, go.
So Okay, so now I'm going to letthat run in the background as a
(11:00):
rhythm.
And then I'm going to solo overit, starting with the G major
pentatonic scale, the mostfriendly scale for this.
And just as a bonus for y'allout there that have been
listening to my podcast, what isthe relative minor of G major?
UNKNOWN (11:20):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:21):
That's right.
It's E minor.
So you can also use E minorpentatonic, but I'm just going
to start with G major pentatonicfor now.
And that would sound like this.
One, two, ready, go.
Okay.
(11:54):
Okay, that's simple enough andsounded pretty good.
Let's see if you can now tellthe difference between that
sound and adding scale degrees 4and 7 to turn it into a major
diatonic.
You'll just hear the other twocolors, and that would sound
like this.
1, 2, ready, go.
(12:15):
1, 2, ready, go.
Hmm, interesting, right?
(12:37):
So we really do have a differentpalette of colors there, despite
the fact that they're sosimilar.
You're going to get this sort ofboxy, even sound in pentatonic,
and then with diatonic, when youadd the half steps back, you
just get these sort of subtlecolors, these sort of in-between
colors that come in that reallydo make it a little more
(12:59):
interesting in the end.
So now let's try this experimentover an A- minor chord.
Just to switch the palette alittle bit, I'm going to start
with an A minor strum, and weare going to do A minor
pentatonic and compare that to Aminor diatonic.
So first, A minor with justpentatonic, and that sounds like
(13:21):
this.
A one, two, three.
UNKNOWN (13:28):
So
SPEAKER_00 (13:34):
Oh, that is so fun.
All right, now let's try thatsame A minor jangly strum, but
with the diatonic notes.
See if you can hear the colorsand tell the difference.
(13:55):
And it sounds like this.
A one, two, three, four.
UNKNOWN (14:00):
A one, two, three, four.
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
So again, hopefully you can hear the subtle shading
that goes on when we add scaledegrees two and six.
back from the minor pentatonicto the minor diatonic.
So again, we just displayed thatfour scales can play a whole lot
of music.
And isn't that wonderful?
But there is one cool componentthat I haven't even gotten into
(14:43):
yet, which again is arpeggios.
So let's break down arpeggiosreal quick.
Basically, arpeggio is taking achord.
So I'll just take A minor, theone I was just using and
breaking it into its components.
(15:07):
Now, how many ways can I dothat?
It is practically infinite,okay?
Like there are so many ways thatyou can do it with rhythm, that
you can do it in the order ofthe chord.
You can do it with differentvoicings and things.
It is almost infinite the waythat you can spread out
arpeggios.
That's why I love them so much.
(15:27):
And so basically what I'm goingto do is I'm going to do a few
passes with just arpeggio tones.
So again, if I'm doing, I'mgoing to go back to Who out
there remembers where thosechord tones come from, by the
way?
they come from the scales wowlike that's a big surprise if
(15:51):
you've been listening to myseries so recall the skipping
method to build triads andremember triads turn into chords
and both triads and chords lendthemselves to arpeggios so let's
do some examples all right so ifi have a g scale with scale
degrees one two three four fivesix seven eight remember the
(16:14):
skipping method you start withone And then you go to three and
then you go to five.
And those are the three pitchesthat create the triad, right?
Which ultimately creates thechord.
You probably remember that.
I just wanted to remind you.
And so one, three, and five aregoing to be the main pitches
(16:36):
we're going to use as ourarpeggio tone.
So now let's do a pass where youhear a jangly G again, and we
just use the one, three, andfive and see what that sounds
like and it would sound likethis.
One, two, ready, go.
(17:11):
So you can tell right away thatarpeggios have this kind of
bouncy jump around kind of soundbecause obviously we're skipping
notes and skipping notes just,it makes the ear work a little
more because it bounces around.
The intervals are bigger.
If you remember intervals andthe distances between pitches,
(17:33):
it's just a lot easier and moreagreeable for our ear to latch
onto scale tones where thepitches are close together.
But Arpeggios are so cool.
They do a lot of interestingthings, and you can tell they
bounce around and really giveyou this sort of open, bigger
sound.
So now let's ramp it up a littlebit.
(17:55):
Let's do a little comboexercise.
So over the jangly G strum thistime, I'm actually going to use
pentatonic scales along witharpeggios to show you what that
sounds like.
One, two, ready?
Go.
(18:31):
Oh, now we're getting somewhere,right?
So now when you combine scaleswith arpeggios, you really get
some very interesting and variedsounds.
And notice, I'm going to pointthis out.
I haven't even left one chordyet.
Did you notice that?
And I'm doing that on purpose tomake a point.
(18:54):
Building improvisation is aprocess just like building
anything that's worth building.
It takes time and it hasmultiple steps and it takes
patience and it takes runninginto issues and solving them,
all kinds of things like that.
So be patient, start with onechord, learn how to wield
(19:15):
pentatonic scales and diatonicscales, learn how to put the
arpeggios together, and thenlearn how to combine them that
way before you even leap into amore complex progression.
So now for my last audio exampleon this particular section i'm
going to go ahead and go back toa minor we're going to do an a
(19:37):
minor strum and i'm going tocombine a minor diatonic with a
minor arpeggio notes which againwill be one three and five from
the a minor scale that wouldsound like this a one two three
four so All right.
(20:13):
So now again, we're getting alot of colors there, but they're
in minor now.
So that was minor diatonic alongwith arpeggio notes for A minor
again.
Look, I urge you to try theseexercises.
All I'm really doing is I'm justhitting record and using a basic
metronome to keep my tracks intime.
(20:34):
And I'm just doing a janglystrum on one chord.
And that way you can just hitplay and then you can just
practice doing this over andover again and create a loop for
minutes and minutes and minutesall this is really easy and you
can get started on improvisationreally easily so to recap what
we just did we talked about howimprovisation starts with the
(20:57):
four main scales that can getthrough like 80 to 90 percent of
music out there that you listento and hear and those scales are
the major and minor pentatonicas well as the major and minor
diatonic we heard the subtletiesin the differences between those
when you take away those scaledegree four and seven from major
(21:17):
diatonic or scale degrees twoand six from minor diatonic.
And then in the end, when we addthe arpeggio notes, the outlines
of the chord we're playing, youget more of a varied, bouncy
sort of jump around sound thathas bigger intervals and more
colors.
So combining these four scaleswith your arpeggios can take you
(21:41):
really, really Okay, so that wasa lot.
Let's breathe a little bit andtake it in.
(22:12):
When I switch to a C chord, forexample, just think about that.
Does my scale change?
Are G and C in the same keytogether?
Just think about thosequestions.
What would you change once yougo to a C in your scale pattern?
(22:35):
We'll get into that in the nextone.
And I have another question foryou.
When we switch from a G to a C,what will change about the
arpeggio notes that we'replaying, right?
So we're not just going to beplaying 1-3-5 anymore.
We're now going to be outlininga C chord, which would be 4-6-1
to give you, a preview of whatwe'll be getting into.
(22:59):
So coming up soon, we're goingto do more of this same kind of
stuff, but with more of a chordprogression rather than just a
stagnant chord.
That way we can continue tobuild the skills that we have
already started to build.
But now it's time for breakdown.
(23:25):
Today's episode was the secondepisode in my improvisation
series.
We started with the four mainscales to use in improvisation.
Major pentatonic, minorpentatonic, major diatonic, and
minor diatonic.
(23:46):
We talked about the scaledegrees four and seven being
removed from major to getpentatonic and scale degrees two
and six being removed from minorto get minor pentatonic.
We also reviewed triads, chordsand arpeggios and started to add
arpeggios to what we do.
(24:10):
I reminded you about the twogolden rules of improvisation.
Stay in the scale and stay inrhythm.
Keep it simple.
We learned how to start with thepentatonic scale against one
chord, graduate to the diatonicscale, and eventually add
(24:32):
arpeggios in with that tocombine those things.
Thanks again for tuning in toThe Harmonious Blacksmith.
And until next time, I will lookforward to continuing this music
exploration with all of you.
(24:53):
Have a beautiful music-filledweek, gang.
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