Thus far, we focused on the properties of the blues, and basic improvisational strategies involving playing with blues riffs, and using the call and response technique. We'll finish lecture two with a discussion of the concept of one scale improvisation. As emphasized earlier, the blues scale is an androgynous collection, neither major nor minor. And we can capitalize on that unique characteristic by advancing our musical narrative using one scale only. Without worrying too much about underlying chords, about establishing incorrect chord scale relationship. The only thing we will worry about is the rhythm and the rhythmic organization of our melodic ideas. The rhythmic phrases that were introduced earlier in the session now will come very handy. Because you can derive your melodic ideas exclusively from the blues scale, or from the major blues scale and just worry about playing with a good sense of time. We will now demonstrate together with Christian how to improvise, how to tell a musical story using the one scale method. So Christian, how about on a generic blues progression played two choruses using the blues scale exclusively. And again, just imagine how a blues scale sounds like this. [MUSIC] So what's you're going to hear from Christian are only those notes in these two choruses. And the challenge that Christian has is to be musically convincing and interesting. And at the same time, convey a particular story. Remember about the properties of the blues scale. The characteristic of blue notes. The hierarchy among those notes. When you listen to flat five, it's right on the related blue note, the sound of this note will project more expressiveness in your playing. All these details and Christian has to deal with while he improvises. So let's do that. One scale improvisation, two choruses. One, two, a one, two, three, four. [MUSIC] Very nice. Was very effective. And you could hear that his phrasing was very strong. The second chorus, as you might expect, went to the higher register. His melodic ideas were extremely strong, very powerful. His distribution of blue notes, very convincing. Not too much of the flat five, but just to give another expressive dimension he's playing. But what was particularly effective in his playing is his sense of phrasing, which was asymmetrical. He wasn't confined to the four bar units. He wasn't thinking about two bars, two bars, two bars. His phrases frequently begin on measure four and carry into the next section, and that's very effective, which brings me to an important point, that with limited melodic devices, it is ideas derived from a single scale. You can play a convincing solo. So Christian, tell me about your solo, what were you thinking, while improvising on that piece? >> I was just thinking about keeping my ideas simple, not trying to keep the ideas in two bars or so. Just kind of thinking over the bar line and keeping it interesting. >> So that's very important. So you're not really confined about or confined within a formal constraints of the form, but you're thinking in a way above this formal constraint. You're focusing on melodies, on the melodic properties, but at the same time delivering these ideas with a strong sense of time and rhythm, and articulation. So all the things that we've talked about in these sessions, playing with a good sense of time, remembering about emphasizing odd beats, emphasizing odd beats with a little accent, prioritizing odd beats. And playing across the bar lines and using swing eight notes, come really into play in once performance. So in a way, our playing was a little bit abstract. Because we didn't have any melody to work with, so I basically asked Christian to improvise a musical story without any point of reference and he did pretty amazing job, I think. No melodies, but the things are a little bit different when you're actually faced with a melody that you have to improvise on. So what I asked Christian to do is to compose a contrafact. A pre-existing melody on the pre-existing co-changes. The blues, so we can actually have a melody on which Christian can improvise. So on the screen you can see his contrafact called East Main Blues. So let's play it, okay? One, two a one, two, three, four. [MUSIC] Okay, so we have a specific melody now. We don't have only chord changes, we have a melody to work with. So Christian, can you tell us a little bit about that melody? >> I basically just used the B flat blues scale and I try to think about simple rift that would work on all of the changes, so I used the first quarter note of the first measure to use it like a call. And then in measure four, the last two eighth notes I used it as a response to the very first quarter notes, so, I thought that would be really effective. And then, later, it ends with three eighth notes to just answer back to the original first quarter note in the beginning. >> Very nice. So all of the melodic content from Christian's composition is derived from the blues. And they're like rhythmic intricacies in a way the melody's composed. So in order to be successful at improvisation, whether you work on a blues tune, on a jazz instrumental, or jazz tanda, you have to connect your improvisational content with the melody. So that the same harmonic progression of the blues can be used in different tunes is fairly obvious. And there are numerous contrafacts written over the same chord changes. But jazz improvisers do not improvise on chord changes. But they improvise on specific melodies. So it's really, really important to reference that melody in one's improvisation. So we would like to finish this session by playing the tone and improvising a couple of codices and just make those, the melody focus in your playing, okay. Let's try. So let's play one chord melody. Then two chords of improvisation and then melody out, okay, so four chords altogether. One, two a one, two, three, four. [MUSIC] Very nice. That's a great performance and you could hear in the first chorus, when you go back and listen one more time, notice the first full bars of Christian's first solo were entirely based on the original motif with slight rhythmic variations. So instead of playing the consecutive eighth notes, he distributed them into the string of up beats. And his first goals were maintained with the same register established by the melody. Only the second course Christian went up and introduced more complex rhythmic and melodic vocabulary, but still within the confines of the blue scale, so very effective. So thank you so much, Christian, for your participation. Great playing and great suggestions to the audience. In the next sessions, we are going to talk about keyboard skills and discuss four different methods of realizing harmonic progressions on the piano. Thank you.
