Embellishing Your Major Scale

So now I'm going to show you some ways to embellish your major scale.

You don't just want to be improvising by running up and down scales; they're really fundamental building blocks. But to create music, we might want to look at some other approaches.

I'm going to show you how to embellish a few phrases and build up some common jazz articulation and touches to your playing.

Standard Phrase in G Major

Here's a standard phrase, swung in G major:

• Grace Notes: The first thing I'm going to do is put a little grace note in at the start.

  • Just having a little grace note, a little preparation to the starting note, is quite a common feature of jazz phrasing.
  • I might let you detail your phrases a little more.

• Semiquaver Triplets: Another approach, which looks really busy on the page, is found in printed Figure 2.7.

  • I've added a semiquaver triplet, which may look daunting, but actually, it's very subtle.
  • Instead of just going from D to C, I'm putting a little triplet up to the E.

Inspiration from Great Saxophonists

If you listen to lots of great saxophone players, Charlie Parker was particularly known for these kinds of embellishments. They add:

• Detail
• Colour
• Authenticity to your playing

Practice Suggestions

You could practice using the major seven workout tracks, going through all the different keys.

Feel free to:

• Practice these phrases and embellishments.
• Deviate from what I've written.
• Try to put your own embellishments in as well.