Soloing and jazz beyond the big band

Hello and welcome to today's music lesson. I'm Miss Mansell, and I'm gonna be guiding you through today's lesson. Let's get started. And today's outcome is going to be, I can understand some typical features of small ensemble jazz and understand how jazz solos work. Here's some keywords for this lesson. Head, a chorus that repeats, and often starts and finishes a song. Performers improvise over the accompaniment in between. Break, when the accompaniment briefly stops and the soloist plays a short phrase alone. Lick, a short melodic idea that soloists add into their solos. Scat, a style of singing that uses made up nonsense words and often imitates instruments. Today's lesson on soloing and jazz beyond the big band is in two parts, Jazz beyond the big band and Soloing in jazz. Let's start with part one, Jazz beyond the big band. While the big band is a key ensemble in jazz, there are many other combinations of instruments that are popular in the genre. Many of these are small ensembles, like the jazz trio. This features three musicians, usually on piano, double bass, and drum kit. The piano plays both chords and melody, while the bass plays a bassline and the drum kit plays a drum groove. Can you pick out all three of those in this clip? Pause the video and have a listen. Jazz quartets are another popular ensemble consisting of melodic instrument, for example, a trumpet or a saxophone, chordal instrument, for example, a piano or guitar, bass instrument, for example, a double bass or bass guitar, and a drum kit. Have a listen to this clip. What is the instrumentation in this jazz quartet? Pause the lesson now. What did you think? "The instrumentation was trumpet, piano, double bass, and drum kit." From the 1950s onwards, jazz continued to evolve. In some sub genres, such as free jazz, the harmony became even more complex and dissonant. The rhythms became much more free, and music sound was experimental. Listen to this clip from a 1961 song. Notice that the rhythms, melody, and chords all sound very different from earlier jazz. Pause and have a listen. It also evolved by drawing influence from other styles. This clip is a typical example of jazz-funk, where elements of jazz have been mixed with elements of funk music to create a fusion. Have a listen to this clip. What key features of jazz can you hear in this fusion? Pause and listen now, You can hear improvisation, syncopated rhythms, and extended chord. Let's do a check for understanding. Which of these instruments would be most suitable to play melodies in a jazz ensemble? Is it A, double bass, B, piano, C, cello, or D, drum kit? Have a think. It was B, piano. If you got that, well done. Which of these instruments would be most suitable to play chords in a jazz ensemble? Is it A, violin, B, saxophone, C, guitar, or D, trumpet? If you got guitar, well done. Let's do task A. Listen to each of these clips and complete the table. For each clip, list the instrumentation, write down what type of ensemble it is, and which instrument plays the melody. You can find this grid on the worksheet. Have a go at task A now. How did you get on? For clip one, the instrumentation was piano, double bass, and drum kit using brushes. It was a jazz two with the piano playing the melody. For clip two, it was trumpet, electric piano or keyboard, double bass, and drum kit, and that's a jazz quartet with a trumpet playing the melody. And for clip three, it was electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum kit, which is a jazz trio, and the electric guitar was playing the melody. Let's move on to part two of today's lesson, Soloing in jazz. Improvisation is an important aspect of all jazz music. Performers express themselves and demonstrate their skill in improvised solos. Soloing effectively is the key skill as a jazz musician. The most common instruments that solo in jazz, melodic instruments such as trumpet, saxophone, trombone, piano, and guitar. This clip features typical virtuosic solos. Which instruments take solos? Have a listen. It was the saxophone and trumpet taking solos in this clip. Instruments that do not usually play melodies also improvise solos in jazz. Drum kit solos are common. Have a listen to this clip to hear a drum kit solo. Bass solos are also a feature of many jazz songs. What type of bass instrument is soloing here? Pause and have a listen. Did you work out what instrument it was? It was the double bass. Vocalists also sometimes take improvised solos using a technique called scat singing. Scat is where the singer uses nonsense words and made-up sounds instead of real words. Often they try to make their voice sound like an instrument. This vocal solo uses a mixture of scat and real words. Pause and have a listen. A common feature of solos is the head. The head is the main chorus in a song that is usually heard at the start and the end. A basic jazz structure will look like this. So an intro, head, three solos, head, and an outro. The solo sections are based on the same chord sequence as the head. Pause and listen to this clip of the head. This solo is based on exactly the same chords, and the rhythm section are comping very similar parts to the head. Pause and have a listen to this. Another common feature of solos is licks, a short melodic idea that soloists add into their solos while improvising. Performers often have signature licks that they use in lots of their solos. The legendary saxophone player Charlie Parker used signature licks in many of his solos. His signature lick is referred to as the Charlie Parker blues lick. It is based on this melodic idea. Have a listen. Listen to these three clips of different Charlie Parker songs. Try to pick out the same signature lick in each one. Pause the lesson video and listen to the three clips. Some jazz musicians borrow famous licks from others. This is a way of paying tribute to other jazz musicians. Can you hear the Charlie Parker lick in this later performance by Eric Reed? Pause and have a listen. Another common feature of solos is breaks. So a break is when the accompanying instruments stop playing and the soloists briefly play completely on their own. This often happens at the start of solos, helping to draw attention to the soloist. This is common in traditional jazz. Pause and have a listen to this. You can also hear it in modern jazz and jazz fusion. Pause and have a listen to this clip. In both cases, the improvised solo starts with a break. All of the other instruments stop for a few beats or bars. Quick check for understanding. True or false? Improvised solos are always made up entirely on the spot. Is that true or is that false? Have a think. If you got false, well done. And why is that? While improvised solos are mostly made up on the spot, musicians often build in their own signature licks or melodic ideas that are borrowed from the other music. Let's have a look at creating a jazz solo in Avalon. Because it's in the key of C major, we're going to improvise based on the C scale, the white notes. We can also experiment with adding some chromatic notes as jazz musicians often do. In this song, occasionally using E-flat works effectively. You can see E-flat on the screen. Before improvising, you can create a signature lick. Watch the video of how to do this. Before I create my lick, there are a couple of things I need to do first. First is I'm gonna delete this audio track of the original saxophone melody because I've recorded it in myself here, so I can get rid of this entirely. Only do this once you're absolutely happy with how you've recorded the melody in, because once you've deleted it, you won't be able to get it back. The next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create a section for my solo. So I need an extra 32 bars 'cause we're gonna be copying the head, but I don't want the melody in there because we're gonna be having a solo instead of the melody. So I'm gonna take my chords and my drum tracks and I'm gonna loop them for another 32 bars so that they'll last up until the end of about 65. And you'll see there that's also where the base track, where the sounds in that base track ends. So they should line up at the end of bar 65. And then it's in this section here from bar 34 to bar 65 that we're gonna be having our improvised solo. And the final thing is I need to create a new track for my solo instrument, and I need to choose an instrument that will be suitable for a solo in jazz or something like a saxophone, a trumpet, maybe a guitar or a piano. But since I've already got a piano in there, think I'm gonna go for something a bit contrasting. And a really typical instrument would be a trumpet, so I'm gonna go for that here. Trombone also works effectively if you want something a little bit lower pitched. So now that I've got this all in place, I've got this section here where I'm gonna be creating my solo, I've looped my head backings to last up to about 65, and I've got my correct instrument. Now, I'm gonna have a go at creating a lick. And the first thing to is just to familiarize myself with the C major scale, also potentially incorporating some E-flats as well. So C majors are the white notes. And then we've also got E-flat that we can build in. That's the set of notes we're gonna be using. And the notes, the two octaves I'm playing there are really typical range for a trumpet. I wouldn't want to be playing trumpet notes really low. The trumpet can't play those notes. And I don't wanna play super, super high because again, the trumpet won't be able to play those notes. So find a range that sounds natural for that instrument. Now, once I familiarize myself with that scale, I'm then just gonna improvise some short ideas until I come up with one that sounds like a catchy, memorable lick that I'm gonna be able to use throughout my solo. And for this I want it to be quite short, so maximum sort of three or four beats. And I want it to be a really distinct shape or rhythm. So something that when we hear it we're like, "Ah, yeah, that's that lick again," it's sort of a distinct signature, little melodic idea. So I'm just gonna improvise some ideas and see what I come up with. So various different ideas. There's some of them are conjuncts, so moving by step like that, and some of them have big leaps in them as well. And I quite like that one there actually. I think that's a really distinct melodic shape. So when we hear that, we'll instantly recognize it. So that's what I'm gonna use as my lick. It has some leaps, a smaller leap, then a step. And I think that'll be a nice versatile lick that I'll be able to use in lots of different ways during my solo. Then practice playing that lick, starting on different notes in the C scale. Again, watch the video to see how it's done. Now that I've got my lick created, I'm gonna practice playing it in different places in the scale, so keeping the same melodic shape and rhythm, starting and finishing on different notes to what I originally created. So this is my original lick. And I'm just gonna try moving that around, playing it on different notes and seeing where it sounds effective and where it maybe doesn't sound so effective. Can do it starting on E like that. I could try starting on D. C. Try starting on B. So try starting on each degree of the scale, each note in the scale to really get a feel for it, and make sure you're keeping that same melodic shape and rhythm so it's really distinctly still that lick. I'm still doing the leaps in the same place, the same rhythm, and the step in the same place as well. And finally, improvise a whole solo, trying to build the lick in in a few places. Watch the video. So now it's time to try and improvise a melody. And remember, when you're improvising a melody, there's no wrong way of doing it. An improvisation has to be made up on the spot, and it won't sound really polished all the time. There might be things when you listen back that you're like, "Oh, that sounds a bit messy." But that's all part of the process of improvising. So really get stuck into this and just give it a shot. And if things don't sound perfect straight away, that's fine. That's part of the joy of improvisation. That's part of what makes jazz such an exciting style is it's not predictable, it's not polished, it's not really highly produced all the time. So we're gonna be doing our solo from bar 34. So we're gonna be starting there, and we're gonna be recording in our solo track from there up to the end of bar 65. I'm gonna be trying to build in my lick throughout in lots of different places on the scale. And I'm gonna be trying with my solo as well to start it quite simply and to gradually build up in excitement. So I don't wanna start going really crazy, playing really impressive, fast, virtuosic patterns and then have nowhere to go and build to. Want to start it more easy, more sort of simple and then gradually develop the complexity so it builds to a bit of a climax and sort of towards the end of my solo. So that's what I'm gonna be going for here. And as I say, it won't be perfect when you do it, but that's part of why we improvise is 'cause it's really raw and in the moment. Okay, so I'm ready to record. I've got my right track and I've got my scale and my lick. Let's go for it. So that's my solo. If you were really paying attention there, you might have noticed a few places where I built the lick in in a couple of different pitches. And you'll notice even just looking at this region here, you can see it starts simpler, there's a smaller range, there are some more sustained notes. And then as we go further on, it gets more complex, faster notes, faster runs, more virtuosic player. So when you get onto your solo, give it a shot. Don't worry if it doesn't sound perfect straight away. And really try and get used to using that lick, get used to moving around that scale, and see if you can come up with something that sounds really typical of the style. Here's a recap of the steps. Create a new track with a suitable jazz solo instrument. Copy the backings, chords, bass, and drum groove, from the head to create an extra 32 bars for your solo. Create a signature lick by improvising short ideas using the C scale and maybe E-flat. Practice playing the lick by copying the rhythm and melodic shape using different notes. Improvise and record a 32-bar solo over the backings, trying to build your lick into it a few times. Here's a check for understanding. Which of these would be a suitable lick? A. B. Or C. What do you think? Did you get C? If so, well done. What is a break? Is it A, when the soloist stops playing, B, when all of the instruments stop playing, or C, when all of the instruments except the soloists stop playing? If you got C, well done. What do the rhythm section play during a solo? Is it A, different chords to the head, B, the same chords as the head, or C, no chords at all? What do you think? Well done if you got B, the same chords as the head. So let's do task B, recording a 32-bar jazz solo in Avalon. Here's a reminder of the steps. Create a new track with a suitable jazz solo instrument. Copy the backings, chords, base, and drum groove, from the head to create an extra 32 bars for your solo. Create a signature lick by improvising short ideas using the C scale and maybe adding E-flat. Practice playing the lick by copying the rhythm and melodic shape using different notes. Improvise and record a 32-bar solo of the backings, trying to build your lick into it a few times. And here are the success criteria for that. Copy the backings from your head to create an extra 16-bar section to improvise over. Your solo should last for that whole section. It uses an appropriate melodic instrument for jazz, for example, a trumpet, piano, or saxophone. You use your own signature lick, a short melodic idea, and you use the notes of the C scale, and occasionally E flat. There's a reminder where the E flat is. So have a go. How could this jazz solo be made even more typical? Have a listen. It could show off more by using more variety of rhythms and different notes. At the moment, it uses the same few notes and repeats a lot of patterns. It could also build to a greater climax towards the end of the solo. Let's summarize today's lesson on soloing and jazz beyond the big band. There are a wide variety of common jazz ensembles, including trios, quartets, and others. Jazz has evolved since the golden age and now is a diverse style encompassing many different influences. Jazz solos are virtuosic and are often technically complex. Soloists often build signature licks into their solos, and singers sometimes take improvised scat solos. Solos usually take places over the chords from the head, and sometimes feature breaks. Thank you for joining me for today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed learning with me.