The seek for the full domain – Part VI

Using already made phrases

Hey, guys! What’s up? This month we are going to talk about the use of already made phrases in an improvisation.
The use of already made phrases helps the instrument player to find out melodic paths at the instrument and to create a musical identity of the player. What determines an improviser to use already made phrases is, many times, a question of personal taste. In this part of our studies, we are going to use the same phrase to different contexts, what means to different chords.

Look (and play) the phrase below:
<<example 1>>

Now play the same phrase upon the following chords:
<<example 2>>


This part of the improvisation study may seem a little bit weird once we are talking about already made phrases which should sound like an improvisation, which means something made on the fly! However, studying already made phrases is a way of internalizing ideas with beginning and ending, melodic ideas well defined which not always sound at the same melodic region. To make it easier, think that in a sentence in Portuguese it is necessary to use a comma to breath; not always, in an improvisation, we “breath the ideas”, I mean, not always we give the listener the impression that the next note can be a great new!

Tips for these studies:

a) Make your already made phrases “stock” bigger and try to use them out of the context where you have learned them. As in the example above, the phrase is played on a Dm7, but it can be played on any chord from C Major harmonic field. The same phrase can sound different depending on the chords which it is being played on. The exercise of “listening and playing” many improvisation is an inexhaustible source of phrases you can “stock”.
b) Try playing the same phrase on chords not even a little connected to it… Better, play the same phrase on ANY chord! Like this:
<<example 3>>

c) Study the same phrase with options of “rhythmic dislocation”. Below, you have an example of the same phrase being played at the head of time 1 and all the notes being played a sixteenth note after time 1. Try also to maintain the same accent used when the phrase at the head of the time is played!


<<example 4>>

d) Sing absolutely everything!


Search at YouTube stuff about a piano player from Minas Gerais called Írio Junior!!

A big hug and see you!