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From Vocabulary to Language
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TOPICS By Randy Hunter / Best Saxophone Tips and Techniques, Special Feature / Ear Training, Jazz
Improvisation, Music Theory, Practicing, Saxophone Lessons

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard educators and musicians refer to Joseph C. Sitompul on From Vocabulary to Language
Recording
learning about jazz improvisation as “learning the jazz language.” Believe it or
Reeds not, the more I learn about jazz improvisation, the more I agree that this analogy
Resources is spot on. The biggest issue that many folks run into, however, is turning the
vocabulary into the language. I’d like to share with you some of the thoughts and
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methods used in my personal practice and in my lessons studio for converting
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the vocabulary into the language.
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Saxophone Parts The ABC’s of Jazz

Saxophone Technique Having good working knowledge of our vocabulary is essential both to our ability
Tone Production to converse with words and with music. No matter how much you dread
practicing, memorizing, and internalizing scales and arpeggios, there’s no getting
Transcriptions around the fact that they are the A B Cs of our musical language.
Video
Scales and arpeggios serve as our musical nouns and verbs. Since arpeggio tones
form the basis for chords and are often the target tones of our musical lines,
their natural role in the language is as musical nouns. Guide tones (typically the
3rds and 7ths of the chords) and scale tones are often used in moving our lines
forward. These serve in the action role as verbs.

We have many musical adjectives including auxiliary tones and passing tones. It
could be argued that certain chordal alterations are adjectives or nouns
depending on how they are used.
I don’t want to run the risk of letting our focus shift from language to theory, so
I’ll just mention that there are many types of scales and arpeggios related to the
various chords found in jazz. A long-term study of scales and arpeggios will help
you develop fluency with the vocabulary while also building technique.

Musical Topics
As with any conversation or story we might tell, it is important to have an
understanding of the topic of discussion. The same is true with our musical
language. I think of chord progressions and melodies to tunes as musical topics.
In order to have a musical conversation with a rhythm section, other horn
players, or an audience, we need to know and understand the tunes we are
playing.

Knowing the lyrics is an important part of knowing a tune that is often

overlooked by horn players. This provides us with an understanding of how to
phrase the melody. When to breathe and articulate, the use of inflection, and the
way we use dynamics are often affected by the words of a melody.

Understanding the form and chord changes of a tune we are playing helps us
with note selection and creating musical sentences (phrases) that tell a story
about the tune. This way we can get beyond just playing chord by chord.

Learning and recognizing common chordal groupings helps when it comes to

understanding how chord progressions work. We’ve all heard of ii-V-I’s, but there
are many other common chordal groupings and tonal center shifts you should
learn to recognize. A common tonal shift is to the relative minor key- another
one that many tunes include is a shift to the tonal center of the IV chord on the
bridge. Analyzing chord progressions numerically can help you learn to recognize
chordal groupings and tonal center shifts.

The Way Things Are Played
We often spend so much time learning the notes that work on chords, the
vocabulary in other words, that we forget to think about how we play things as
we improvise. Just like we all have a certain amount of character and personality
in the way we speak, we want to develop character and personality in the way
we tell our musical stories.

Long tone and overtone practice can help us learn to control and voice the
sound. They can also help us learn how to locate different timbres and textures
in our tone, providing us tools for creating expression in the sound. At times we
may want a sweet tone- other times a strong and centered tone- and other
times an intense, harmonically rich tone.

The way we say and play things is also affected by the inflection we use. This can
include things like vibrato, growls, bends, scoops, falls, and even embellishments
like grace notes and turns. Listening to great players can help us learn to
recognize some of the inflection techniques we might want to search out in our
playing. Awareness is the key. If we know something exists, we can work to find
it.

If you listen to great players, you’ll also notice that one of the most defining
characteristics of their musical voice is their personal style of articulation.
Compare the sounds of Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt and you should
immediately notice a marked difference in their articulation. Begin your
articulation practice with traditional “doo,” “dah,” and even “tah” articulations. As
your command develops, search for other articulation styles to include in your
playing. Just like there are a number of consonant syllables in our spoken
language, there are a number of types of articulation we can find on our saxes.

Rhythmic variation provides us with different ways of stating ideas. By having

different rhythmic options, we are able to get more mileage out of our
vocabulary. We are also able to change the energy of passages through
syncopation, triplets, and even 16th notes. This allows us to match the mood and
intensity of our language with the mood of the musical moment.

Licks and Transcribing
Transcribing is a great way to learn what others have played and how they’ve
played it. You can benefit by transcribing complete solos, melodies, or even licks.

One thing I found valuable in my early days (Yep, I’ve been playing for many
years!) was to just put on a recording of one of my favorite players and play
along. It didn’t really matter if I found the exact notes being played. The focus
was on matching style and phrasing. I learned how musical story lines were
developed. I also learned about the players articulation, dynamics, and
relationship with the rhythm section.

As a natural companion to transcribing, writing etudes is also beneficial for

learning to assemble the language. In writing an etude, you can take licks or ideas
from transcriptions or from other vocabulary you are practicing, and work at
assembling them in a logical storytelling manner. This way you can compose
your musical story, then go back and edit it to be certain it makes good musical
sense. I believe that some of the most productive practice I have ever done
came in the years when I was writing my jazz etude books.

The Conversation
One of the best ways to polish our musical language skills is to play with others.
Whether with a teacher, at a jam session or a gig, or just with fellow musicians
and some play-along tracks, nothing beats playing with others. This provides
opportunities to react, respond and interact with others.

It’s important in these situations to work at listening to, imitating, and anticipating
the musical ideas of the people you are playing with. After all, good conversation
involves listening.

Beyond the Vocabulary
We’ve covered many aspects of your jazz improvisation vocabulary and
identified ways to incorporate them into your musical language. Keep in mind
that we all have different ways of speaking that define our personal voice to our
friends and acquaintances. Our goal is to get beyond the vocabulary and develop
our musical language skills in a recognizable manner that represents us as
individuals.

Randy Hunter is a professional saxophonist and private instructor based in Atlanta,

Georgia. He offers Skype lessons and has an extensive series of mixed media jazz
improvisation and beginning saxophone lessons available at
www.beginningsax.com.

Related Articles:
1. The Magic of Chromatics for Technique and Improv Vocabulary
2. How To Keep Your Solos Fresh Using Lower Neighbor Tones
3. Musically Stuck! So What Gives?
4. Improving Your Sax Playing the Fast Way
5. This Is Probably The Most Useful Scale In Jazz Improvisation

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