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| Lesson Nineteen • Motivic Development |
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| After a little hiatus, May's lesson arrives, 121 days past due. I had to pay a fine of 56,000 skadizzles and write "I will not be late with lessons" 100 times on the back of a matchbook cover while standing on one leg. Not really. | ||
If you've visited this page in the last four years, you have seen a lot of eighth notes used to illustrate various harmonic/melodic ideas. It occured to me recently that more time could be spent on motivic development. As a very general "rule" you could say that an effective (i.e. interesting, moving, etc.) jazz solo consists of 60 % motivic development and 40 % running eighth notes, of course depending on the player. At this point, you might be asking yourself "what's a motif?" Then I would say "A short phrase, maybe three or four notes that is developed throughtout the course of a solo, as in the following:" |
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Cool. Three notes. Not a lot of heavy lifting involved here. All you have to do now is move this group of notes around while following the changes and creating interest. Like so: |
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As you might have noticed, one of the things that makes this work effectively is the ability to place the motif in places on the chords that create interest (and tension in some cases.) This means that you want to thoroughly know the possibilties for each chord type in a progression. |
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| Until
next time, AG |
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