Taking Your Improvisation to the Next Level

So, having tried improvising over all those dominant seventh chords in Dominant Seventh Workout, let's talk about various techniques you can use to take that to the next level.

Connecting Chords

One of the things I'd like you to think about is how you connect one chord to the next in your lines.

• Rather than thinking of each idea in a separate box, consider:
  • There's no connection between any of the chords.

Let's try playing lines that go across the bar lines. Start on one chord and finish on the next.

Example

1, 2, 3, 4.

Notice how I join the E arpeggio. I carried on and found a target note for the A7, the C sharp.

Broken Chord Patterns

Another thing that will make a huge difference to how this sounds is if you've done a bit of work on broken chord patterns.

• For C7, for instance, you should know a basic broken chord that goes up the inversions.
• This creates a loop that you can try over the different chords as well.

Displacement of Patterns

As with all the broken chord patterns we looked at earlier, it helps tremendously if you think about displacing the pattern.

• Starting with a pickup:
  • This pattern places the last note on the beat.
  • 1, 2, 3.

I'll play the chords in the left hand, and so on.

Now you've got the fourth note of the group on the one.

Accent Variations

Let's try it with the accent on the second note.

• With a one-note pickup:
  • 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on.

Three-note groups are also great for practice.

• Even though there are four notes in a chord, you don't have to play all of them at once.
• Here's a three-note group for B flat seven in triplets.

Importance of Fingering

A good reason to practice all this is to work out the fingering.

• If you haven't done that, you might easily trip up or mess up the fingering when trying to implement these ideas in your improvised solo.
• To play them cleanly, this preparatory work is essential.

Going back to that three-note group:

• Instead of starting on the beat, let's put the accent on the third note of the group.
• We're now starting on the middle note.

Exploring Patterns

In fact, the notes of the chord don't even have to be played in sequence.

• You can create a lot of fascinating patterns by playing alternate notes.
• For instance, for D7, let's do that pattern in triplets.

Additional Triplet Pattern

Now, this is going to be a little bit of a challenge.

Another useful triplet pattern I'll demonstrate is based on C, which is a bit easier and falls under the fingers more smoothly.

• You can see this outlines the inversions.
• It's just a figuration based on the very first one that we did.

Practice Guidelines

So, try to get fluent with these patterns:

• Not just on the chords I've demonstrated but on all the ones in the cycle.
• Eventually, you don't have to practice all at once.
• Take a little chunk of the cycle (two or four chords) and work out the fingering for just those four.
• On another day, you can focus on some of the others.