Solo like a composer

The Big Idea you will take home from this video is that you will improve your improvised solos by using techniques that composers use to construct melodies. This is a Big Idea for absolutely all musicians--it is just as relevant no matter how long you've been playing, and no matter what your style is. My illustration today uses a jazz standard, but the Big Idea here is for anyone, in any genre to use.

I get this question a lot: "Rob, what was that lick you played at 5:32?" The answer is, I have no idea--I don't even think in those terms. And I encourage you all not to as well. Make a melodic statement, don't think in terms of licks. In some sense, licks are little melodies, but what we are going to learn today will free you from the need for them.

Strong melodies have a balance between Unity and Variety. A lot of devices are available to build unity, and that's where I think a lot of players could use some help. So today I will be showing the practical application of several compositional devices in an improvised solo, with the idea in mind that these will help your solos sound stronger. Here's your scorecard so you can follow along:

1) parallelism (look for light blue highlights)
2) repetition (look for green highlights)

Both these devices are put to very good use in the original melody, so drawing deeply from that reservoir for inspiration helps to further establish a connection between the original melody and my improvised melody.

Parallelism is when the same musical material is reused, usually a rhythmic figure or other definite characteristic, across a couple of phrases. Here you'll see it at 4-, 2-, and 1-bar intervals. It can happen across bigger musical structures too. It unites a pair (or more) of phrases into a larger, coherent musical structure. Often parallel phrases begin in a similar way, but end differently, which helps create that balance of Unity and Variety.

Repetition is just what it says. Here we will mostly encounter single note repetition. This device is used very effectively in the original melody at the climactic point (where the English lyrics are "miss you most of all"). Repetition creates a sense of tension--the longer the note is repeated, the more it builds the expectation that something different will soon happen to release the tension. In this solo I don't run any repeats too long, but you will see this device at work throughout.

You should be able to put these two fundamental ideas to work in your improvised solos regardless of you experience or ability. Just remember my simple slogan: "If it sounded good the first time, do it again!" With a little practice, you will find that making use of these deices comes quite naturally. Your improvised melodies will sound stronger and it will feel natural, because almost all music you've heard before uses these techniques.


Hopefully also I will be demonstrating (but not specifically annotating) a few other good habits, namely

1) use of space (rests)
2) varying your textures (more or fewer notes in a bar)
3) creating interesting shapes with your melodies
4) chord tones on down beats
5) moving lines (voice leading) inside the melody lines


This recording came about when I was working on getting the best settings for recording my melodica. I played this tune a few times with a prerecorded backing track and was using this as sort of a sound check. Because of that, I never captured any video of playing. So instead, we will analyze this solo using this transcription (done using cutting-edge pencil-and-paper technology and presented on screen here in HD, be sure to click the button!) that I did after the fact. So to be clear, the written transcription was done months after the melodica solo was improvised live in my studio. I'm playing Rhodes here too, but I am not transcribing the comping, sorry.

There are one or two transcription/copying errors, but they really don't effect the fundamental idea being presented here. (So deal with it--this was a lot of work.)

If this sort of tutorial is interesting or useful to you, please leave me a comment and let me know. (less info)