Rhythmic Variation
Lesson time: (1min 23sec)
Ollie Weston shares ways to break up your pentatonic lines with rests and rhythmic variation, instead of running endless streams of quavers.
Course preview
This lesson is part of the course Exploring Jazz Saxophone: Part 1 - Getting Started
Watch a preview of the full course below.
Lesson transcript:
Exploring Rhythmic Transitions in Pentatonic Lines
In today's lesson, we will look at ways to move beyond just playing reams of quavers with our pentatonic lines. This is an opportunity for you to explore your own creativity.
Rhythmic Technique
To get you started, here's a kind of rhythmic transition that I'm going to demonstrate with my quavers:
- I will still be playing in groups of four.
- However, I'll introduce some strategic rests to:
A. Allow me to breathe
B. Break up the rhythm a little bit
Playing the Pattern
I'll be playing the same pattern I used before, but with some variation in rhythm:
- "1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4."
Take your time with these rhythms and feel free to explore different ideas of your own.
Shifting Rhythms
In this exercise, I have moved my four quavers between being on the beat and off the beat. This creates a nice, interesting kind of rhythmic shift with each group of four quavers.
Happy playing!
About the instructor
Since graduating from the Leeds College of Music (BA Hons) and the Guildhall School of Music (Post Graduate Diploma in Performance), Ollie has built a busy and varied career in music. As a saxophonist he has performed in live and studio settings with artists as diverse as Amy Winehouse, Tim Minchin, Bonobo, Frank Turner, the London Jazz Orchestra, the Hackney Colliery Band, the Ambient Jazz Ensemble and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. He is also the co-leader of the jazz quartet 'Time Is Of The Essence', and composes and arranges material for this and other ensembles. Ollie is active in music education, currently as course leader for the jazz department at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (junior school), where he runs jazz ensembles, big band and theory classes. He has written a series of 'Exploring Jazz' books for Schott Music that are published worldwide and feature on exam syllabuses in the UK. Ollie has also run workshops for Oxford University, Pro Corda Strings and BABSWE, as well as the Guildhall School of Music summer schools. In his Exploring Jazz Saxophone courses, Ollie takes you from getting started right through to soloing confidently over songs and chord sequences, building the improvising skills that put a real jazz player's vocabulary at your fingertips. read more