 Hi guys, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson we are going to talk about how you can improvise over a single chord. Yes, you got that right, one chord. So we are going to pretty much take one chord throughout this entire lesson and figure out techniques to improvise and to make our own melodies and our own licks, phrases, riffs, if you will, over that one chord. And then once you learn how to improvise over that one chord, you can pretty much do a lot more. So another thing which is going to remain consistent in this entire lesson is going to be the rhythm pattern. So you don't get to play over too many chords, it's just one chord and you also are going to play over just one rhythm pattern. So it's just a two bar phrase which I have come up with, so one chord and one rhythm pattern. And what would really help with the learning process with this specific lesson is if you can head over to our Patreon page where I have prepared a lot of backing tracks on various scales which you can practice either along with this video or maybe even after the video. You can download all of those backing tracks. So requesting you guys to head over to our Patreon link which is in the YouTube description that will also help our channel grow a great deal. So moving on, let's get started. So the chord I have chosen for this lesson is B flat major deliberately because most lessons seem to talk about the C major scale, the C major chord. So I just like the B flat major. I'm also a horn player or an aspiring horn player. So B flat is awesome. So is E flat. If you play horns, you should ask horn players, they'll tell you. Anyway, so I'm taking the B flat major chord which is B flat, D F, B flat, D F. So just get used to the chord B flat, D F or you could try out the inversions. So that's the chord which we are going to improvise on. And improvisation is the ability to just play freely, but you're playing freely within a playground. There is still a finite area which you play within. So I've developed a two bar phrase which is on the swing feel. Let me just try and vocalize it for you and after which we'll get started with the piano and building the melody. So the rhythm feels like, that's pretty much the crude form. So that's 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2, 3 and 4 and. So the first bar is quite simple, right? It's 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. So I'd advise you to just start off playing the rhythm with just a singular note or maybe a chord, you know, or maybe just a single note. And like I said earlier, this is the swing feel. So you go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and da, da, da, da, da, not, da, da, da, da. Of course you can but in this lesson, I'm presenting most of what we have to learn in the swing feel. So that'll be pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. And one of the reasons what I think makes this rhythm a bit interesting is I don't have beats or notes all over the place. I'm not doing something like da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. It's not an endlessly flowing set of notes. It's divided into small segments. So this is what helps build a musical phrase or a musical sentence, if you will. So it's sort of split up into about 3 units, something like pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. You can actually think of it like a comma, you know. So that's a very important thing when you're improvising. The rhythm pattern I've given, yes, it is fixed for our lesson, but to have made it, we need to think of some nice phrasing. And a great way to think of phrases is to divide your performance or your melody or your riff into smaller segments. So the way I look at it is pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, and then pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. And then pa, pa, pa, pa. It's sort of like a conversation happening between people. So you go pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. And of course I'm singing something. I'll get to what we are actually supposed to play. But for the moment, just vocalise it with anything. Like ta, ta, ka, ra, ka, ra, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, one, two, and four, and one. And you'll also observe by nature the way I'm snapping to the music. I'm always snapping. Not on the one, two, three, four. I prefer to snap at the 2 and the 4 of the bar, this I feel is another interesting thing about improvisation in general, especially rhythmic improvisation, you get to feel what you're doing a lot better, where you don't go on all the four beats of the bar, you just go on the 2 and the 4, which is 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. So this kind of opens up a lot more ideas, so if you can feel the 2 and 4 while playing your music, it will be great. So that's another thing which is needing to be practiced, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 and I'll sing it. Ta-pa-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-ra-ba-rum, pa-pa-pa-rum-pa-rum-pa-rum, pa-pa, enjoy it a bit, try and move a bit, move your body a bit, move to the pulse, like enjoy the rhythm before you attempt playing it, and then your timing will be absolutely sorted. So pa-pa-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-rum, pa-pa-ra-ba-rum, pa-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-rum, pa-pa-ra-ba-rum, pa-pa-ra-pa-rum, pa-pa-ra-pa-rum, pa-pa-ra-ba-rum, 3, 4, a-1, 2, 3, 4, a-1. So that's pretty much the phrase, ta-ta-ka-da-ka-da, ta-ta-ga-ga-da, pretty much dividing the pulse into two, we are swinging it, and there are some gaps which create a very nice musical phrase. And now getting on to the melody which you have to play on your preferred instrument, be it the piano, the guitar, or the horn or whatever, well we have to play notes. So we are going to take that same rhythm pattern, and we are going to essentially improvise and play notes on those hit points, but following a few things which I am going to share with you guys over the lesson. So the first thing is just on the chord, we are going to just improvise on the B-flat major chord, and use an assortment of the notes, and I've come up with this melody which you could try out, of course you can come up with a million such melodies, but the one I have come up with I think is quite cool, so you could start with this and then move on. So you go pa-pa-pa- pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-Pare-baro- Let me play that for you, playing this in my right hand on the piano. While in my left hand I could just hold the chord or the root note of the chord, or just keep the pulse that'll be nice, so you go pa-pa-pa-sa-ta-da-da-ra-ra-ta-da-da-ra-ra. See it sounds quite nice right, I am just playing on three notes, yes those three notes could be scattered around. You could play them in different environments but it's still the three notes of the B-flat major triad which is B-flat, D and F. Right, let's just hear this two tempo at about 105 BPM. Right, so that's about improvising over the major chord. Now let's look at building this a bit further. What you could do with a major chord is you could embellish it a little bit by colouring it up with a sixth and we call that a major sixth. So B-flat, D, F, G. Right, so that G adds a lot of colour. So even though your musician friends or your song seems to indicate B-flat major, you could consider adding that sixth note for flavour which is G with respect to B-flat. If you're not aware of the key of B-flat, maybe you could look at C. The sixth of C is A, isn't it? So let's get started and build a melody using the major sixth chord. Let's now look at another way to embellish the triad. If you take B-flat major, it could also have the dominant seventh which is a flat seventh. With respect to B-flat, it's the A-flat. B-flat, D, F, A-flat. Now depending on the context of what you're trying to do, whether a chord needs to resolve or whether it's stable, the B-flat chord will either be embellished with a major sixth or in this instance, a dominant seventh. A dominant seventh is a very strong sound used a lot in blues music. It's also used to resolve to another chord. So if you feel that your chord needs to be a little bluesy or unstable, if you will, you could embellish the B-flat triad or any major triad with its flat seventh. B-flat, D, F, A-flat. And the melody I've come up with using this chord will be. Let's play that on the piano. I've also written a variation of this melody which has a higher note somewhere at the end. So I'll let the trumpet play that for now. Right guys, so so far we've looked at improvisation over three kinds of chords. One is the vanilla triad, B-flat, D, F. Then we've embellished it with a major sixth. Then we've embellished it with a dominant seventh for a more unstable bluesy quality.