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Jazz Improvisation: The 12 Step

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Ready to improve your jazz improvisation skills? This

step by step article will help.
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Jazz improvisation is such an amazing art form.

Unlike classical music where the notes are the

same each time, in jazz, each performance of a tune is unique to the
performer doing it!

At the highest levels each time you play a tune it takes on a life of it’s own and
becomes an incredible vehicle for self expression. Improvisation and great
jazz performance are truly one and the same. You don’t have one without the
other.

This is why every aspiring jazz musician needs to learn how to improvise.

To get a headstart, check out this improvisation shapes lesson with Steve.

Then, scroll down grab every detail from this entire powerful article.

Jazz Improvisation Shapes Video The A to Z blueprint for jazz improvisation

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 Jazz Improvisation Lesson: Learn 4 Must Know Shapes

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Jazz improvisation can be challenging, but with the right direction anyone can
learn how to be a great improviser. Let’s look at the 12-step method of
learning jazz improvisation. These 12 steps are in uenced by decades of
wisdom from the greatest jazz legends.
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Step 1: How To Build Superior Listening Skills For Jazz
Improvisation

We say that music is a language and jazz is one
of the most important dialects of that language.
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how to use it by listening rst.

You rst learn how to speak by listening to how

your parents and every person around you would. It’s the same thing with Name
learning jazz improvisation. The rst step to becoming a better jazz
improviser is to listen to the best jazz musicians. 
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How Chick & Herbie Inspired A Jazz Improvisation Virtuoso
In fact, virtuosic jazz improviser David Gar eld swears by this method. David is
the musical director for jazz legend George Benson and has gigged with Sign Up
Freddie Hubbard, Natalie Cole, David Sanborn, Eddie Van Halen, Manhattan
Transfer, Boz Scaggs, etc.

Plus, he’s good friend of Horace Silver. His resume in modern music is a mile
long. So, when a guy with incredible improvisation skills swears by the method Brand New Beginner Program!
you have to pay attention!

David talks about who he learned from and speci c music

elements he picked up from legends like Herbie Hancock,
Horace Silver, and Cedar Walton.

In Chapters 42-45 of The Jazz Improvisation Super System

David demonstrated the speci c musical discoveries he
made from Chick, Herbie, Cedar, and McCoy Tyner too.

The First Step Of Learning Jazz

Improvisation By Listening
Our brains ignore more than 90% of what our senses perceive. It’s designed Perfect Course For Jazz Beginners!
that way. Otherwise, we’d go into sensory overload that we’ll get too
distracted to do anything.
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And so, casually listening like you would inside an elevator playing background Piano Limitations
music won’t help you learn how to improvise jazz. You have to actively
listen.

How Do You Actively Listen?

Go ahead and play any recording by your favorite jazz artist. If you don’t know
where to start, check out 5 recommended jazz recordings to make you a
better musician to give you an idea of what to look for in recordings.

Listening for the Most Important Elements Of Jazz

Great musicians listen and interpret music
di erently than newbies. They are able to digest the World's best selling jazz program. Click
image to access the method.
most important elements of a piece of music and
lter out the less critical elements. So, how do you
do that? Ray Charles Piano Secrets Revealed

Here is a list of starter elements that you can begin to listen to when rst start
listening to jazz recordings.

Groove, Feel, And Rhythms – Get some advice from this great jazz

rhythm lesson by Steve.

Melody – This is either the rst or second thing that will be most obvious
when you listen to the music. What’s the overall shape of the melody? Does it
go up and down? Do you notice various melodic patterns or note sequences.
In jazz we use special melodic patterns and often times use extensions of
chords.

Harmony – We’re talking mostly about the chords that accompany the
melody. It can also be harmonies that go with the melody. For instance, let’s
say you’re listening to Miles Davis’s recording of “So What”.

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Listen to how both Miles Davis and John Coltrane play the melody together.
image to get access now.
Try and gure out if the trumpet is playing the melody or if the sax is playing
the harmony that goes with it.  Also listen for the chords of the piano.
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Every genre has speci c voicings and ways chords are built. Jazz is particular
and it’s essential that as you build your improvisation skills you learn chords
that support your right hand melodies.

(Keep in mind that even if you’re trying to build your jazz piano improvisation
skills, you still can learn from listening to all kinds of di erent instruments).

Dynamics – When do they play quiet? Loud? What sort of expressive elements
does each musician bring to make the music sound alive? How does the
soloist articulate particular notes?

The Form – Is it a 12-bar blues? Does it have a kind of ABAC form? Verse-
Chorus-Verse? AABA? Is it a 16 bar tune or a 32 bar tune?

In jazz, we’re usually improvising over the form and chord changes to a song
so it’s critical that you learn how to play over each element of a form. You’ve
got to know where you are in the form at all times. Learn licks from the legends today.

Texture And Timbre – Which instrument is playing the melody? Are they

playing in counterpoint? Is it just one instrument playing the melody or is are  
another? Does it sound thick?

There are many more elements but ultimately it’s good to understand
that active listening is the beginning of jazz improvisation. Steve Nixon is the
proud owner of
Another important thing about listening is that it is very important that you
listen to great jazz every day.

Not only is this fun but it will be a great way to assimilate yourself to the Freejazzlessons.com. He is a
world touring jazz and blues
many sounds that make up this style of music.
keyboard player and educator.
In the same manner that we learn how to talk, 1. Steve is the author
you have to be immersed in jazz every day to of Premium Jazz Elite
learn how to speak it. Membership

(Here’s a really cool lesson on how to listen to (A comprehensive all-in-one

and learn jazz. Check out Steve’s how to learn online jazz piano course.)
jazz lesson.)
2. He is also the author of
the The Jazz Masters Method
Now, that you understand some elements to hone in on when you listen, lets
DVD. 
talk about how to begin incorporating some of those elements into your own
playing. (A study of 9 legendary jazz
piano players)

Step 2: Imitating What You Hear and the Zero To Jazz Piano Hero
Program.
Just like a baby elephant imitates its mom, the
next step for learning jazz improvisation is to 3. Are you a blues piano fan?
Check out his popular
try and imitate little elements of what you
Breakthrough Blues
hear from recordings.
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That’s because modeling the little musical Piano DVD Course.

phrases of the masters is a great way to 4. Struggling with your

learn how to build your own ideas. improvisation? Check out
Steve’s Jazz Improvisation Super
In fact, this is a proven way to learn how to improvise on piano. System.

Start small at rst and listen to a couple of bars from a recording. Say you
want to do a certain phrase from a solo that you thought sounds cool, try and
do that on your instrument.

Guess what. You have just made the rst step towards transcribing  
music! But more about that in a later section.

At rst, it is most likely that you’ll make mistakes, but that is okay.
When we were started out learning how to speak we didn’t do it
perfectly. Eventually, the more we talked the better we got at it!

When trying this out, start small. It can be as little as one note at
rst. Try and nail that rst note rst. Then play the rst note and
try out the next note.

Keep on repeating this process until you can play that phrase. Small wins can
lead to big ones as you build it. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.