Music Lesson: Exploring Chromaticism and Harmony in the Blues

Playing chromatic notes within a solo is a great way of making things sound more natural and vocal.

Improvise Like You Sing

A great way to learn how to improvise is to be able to sing what you play. I'm going to try and do that right now while playing the blues with scale chord tones and chromatic ideas.

• There are quite a lot of interesting things going on.
• While we're still using the essential chords of the blues, adding extra elements makes it sound really interesting.

I'll play a chorus now of the blues using these formats. Afterward, there's a backing track you can listen to and play along with at home. It will have about three or four choruses of this interesting blues structure.

Have fun! Improvising is all about expressing yourself while using the template and harmony that you've been given to develop your ideas.

Exploring Voicings

Now, one of the things we must discuss when dealing with more interesting harmony is voicings.

• It's all very well to play, but some voicings can be slightly boring or dry.
• Great ways of playing voicings over these tunes are to use chromaticism within the voicing.

For example, when we have F7, we can easily play that with the nine and the six. While this crunchy sound may not seem nice on its own, when we put it all together, it sounds really good.

Example: B Flat 7

This is another great voicing for a B flat 7 (the fourth chord in the blues). Here, we have:

• The 7th
• The 9th
• The 3rd
• The 6th

Many of these types of voicings are found within the rocks, school pieces, and syllabus. However, it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly what they are. So, breaking them down and hearing them individually is a fantastic way to understand your musical vocabulary and grasp some of these slightly trickier voicings.

Chord Structures

A lot of voicings that piano players use don't necessarily include the root. For example, this one is a B flat 7 that doesn't have the root in it.

Minor Chord Example

There's another great minor chord I can show you, which is really useful to play over the 2-5-1 heading back to the final I chord of the blues form. This consists of the 7th, 9th, minor third, and fifth. Then, the same chord can become a dominant.

This is just a taster of the hundreds of different ways you can use voicings and improvisation to explore and create your own unique sounds.

Applying Techniques Across Keys

The best method is to experiment with different chords, voicings, and scales, applying them to all 12 keys. We're using the blues in F for simplicity, but many musicians play blues in various keys, particularly B flat, C, G, and often, if you're playing with guitar players, tunes in E, because guitarists love to hit those big open strings.

Putting It All Together

I'm going to play another chorus now, using everything we've learned today. After that, I recommend trying a backing track that I've created for you.

• Explore ideas for yourself using your right hand first to grasp chord tones, the blues scale, and chromaticism.
• Finally, use your left hand as a form of accompaniment.

In the previous example, I focused on hearing and thinking about what I was playing, not just playing a line or chord tones. I considered all the techniques and skills I've learned, building them together to create a cohesive sound.

The Language of Music

Learning a language starts with words, then moves to phrases, then sentences, and eventually, we have a full conversation, all coming from our head.

A great exercise is to try and sing the lines of what you play. You don't have to be a singer, but if you can hear what you're playing, this is an amazing way to be authentic in your improvisation.

Here's an embarrassing example of my singing, it's not the best to listen to, but it's a great way to develop your technique and understand the harmony of what you're playing.

Summary

To summarize:

• We're using more interesting chords and harmony within the blues form.
• We're taking 2-5-1s in both major and minor keys and changing them.
• The overall form becomes more interesting by combining the blues scale, chord tones, and some chromaticism in our music.

We're bending up notes and utilizing passing chords, which all contribute to a more engaging harmony. When you combine it all, you have an intriguing template for harmony.

Remember: Improvisation is about expressing yourself, so enjoy the journey!