This Improvisation Exercise Changes Everything

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Do you struggle to improvise with good time over chord changes? I’ve just found an amazingly simple technique that anyone can learn, which will immediately get you playing lines that sound great or right inside the changes and swing.

So, in this video, I’m going to show you exactly how this technique works and how to use it to level up your improvisation skills right away. What I’m about to show you comes straight out of the latest Better Sax course, the Magic of Melody, by Adam Larson that is available as part of the Better Sax membership.

Navigating Easily Through Chord Changes

This technique can be applied to any song in any musical style. Today I’m going to use the jazz standard Autumn Leaves to demonstrate.

Typically, when beginners look at the chord changes to a tune like this, they don’t know where to begin when it comes to improvising. They might ask, “What scale can I use to play a solo on this tune?” The problem is, there isn’t one scale that will work over all of it.

You have to learn how to navigate your way through the chord changes, or you’re going to end up playing a lot of wrong notes, getting lost in the form, and sounding pretty bad. With the trick I’m about to show you, we can quickly play something swinging that is right inside the chords and will keep us from getting lost.

Why Simple Sounds Better

To get you started, all we need are two notes for each chord, the root and the second scale degree. Let’s look at our chord progression for the first four bars of the tune. I’m playing alto sax, so this sheet music is transposed.

Inside the full course, everything is written out for you and transposed for alto as well as tenor saxophones. We’re gonna apply this rhythm to our two notes. Watch the video to hear what the first chord, A minor, its going to sound like.

Our second chord is D7. So we again will take the root and second scale degree and apply a rhythm. Third chord is G major 7. And bar four has a C major 7. Have a listen in the video above to all four bars together.

The fact that it’s easy to do is actually the secret. So much of jazz study material is really hard, which gives us the false impression that jazz always needs to be complex and difficult to play.

A lot of times jazz improvisation is actually very simple and just swinging. I wish someone had told me this when I was first learning because after years of trying to play with complexity, I realized that simple and swinging just sounds a lot better to me most of the time.

Easy Two Note Rhythmic Formula

Let’s keep going and apply our little two note formula to the next four bars. In bar five, we have an F sharp minor 7 flat 5 chord. The scale we typically use on this type of chord is the Locrian mode. Don’t worry too much about that for now. All you need to know is that the second scale degree is flatted.

So, we’re going to play F sharp and G. The next chord is B7 flat 9. So, we’re going to play B and C. Again, the second scale degree is flatted. If you’re a member of Better Sax, you have access to my Harmonic Foundation course, which explains all the music theory you need to know to improvise in a really easy way. If you don’t know what a flat 9 is for now, don’t worry about it.

And now we have an E minor chord, and we will play E and F#. Let’s now put all eight measures together with our formula. Feel free to play along with me. It’s easy swinging and gets you right inside the chords so you learn the progression and never get lost. This is just the first step, but already you can see how this will lead to improvising with a lot of confidence.

Apply This Easy Method To Any Other Song

There are several more levels to this, and when you go through the full course, not only will you be ready to improvise, weaving through the chord changes of a classic jazz standard, but you’ll be prepared to apply this method to any other song in any other style for the rest of your life. With this technique, you will always be ready to nail the changes with strong rhythm.

BetterSax Session Alto

In this video, I’m playing on the new BetterSax Session Alto in our Bond Villain Black Matte Lacquer. We’re planning to release this saxophone soon. The mouthpiece is the Better Sax Burnin’ and the reed is our BetterSax Jazz Cut 2.5. Let me know what you think of this horn in the comments.

Giving Yourself Easy Options

Let’s jump ahead to the next step, which is to play the same pattern, but start on the third of each chord like this. Already I’ve got multiple easy options that I can use on each chord that will always sound good. By practicing this, you’re training yourself to play with good time and outline the harmony, which are the critical elements that all good solos must have. Listen to the example of me mixing those first two options up.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I had been given this method when I started to learn how to improvise, it would have sped up my progress by many years. Don’t get me wrong, though. This isn’t just for beginners. I’m applying this practice method to standards I play today and getting great results.

There are literally endless possibilities with this approach and Adam shows you these throughout the full course which is now available at bettersax.com. To become a member, follow this link and get access to this course as well as dozens of others.

Practice This Method with Autumn Leaves

Go ahead and apply this two note rhythmic formula to the rest of the chord progression for Autumn Leaves and practice it on your own. Besides giving yourself a great warm-up workout, you will immediately feel more confident improvising on this song. Our BetterSax members have been improving their sound, rhythm, and improvisation skills and sounding better and better every day.

You may have noticed that in this video we’ve been using chord tones as our anchor points for improvising. It’s incredibly effective and another trick I wish I had been taught a lot earlier.