Five Easy Steps To Practice Thematic Improvisation

Have you ever been wondering: "How can I improve my improvisation building up ideas in a more, thematic way?"

In lots of jazz improvisation books you can read about the "call and response" system however, in my experience, little or no time is spent on how to practically train your brain to do that step by step.

So here there are 3 main strategies you can use to build up your improvisation thematically:

1) Imitation
2) Extension
3) Fragmentation

In this short article, I'll introduce the idea of imitation.

Step 1: Pick a very simple rhythmic and harmonic setting (e.g., 4/4 , G7)

Step 2: Choose a very short melody (3-4 notes) and play it again and again.

Step 3: Create a variation of the primary melody using the same rhythm and melodic curve (if you don’t know what a melodic curve is, just write down the notes of your melody and then join them. You’ll immediately see what your curve is).

Step 4: Play the new melody 4 times, then play a new set of notes (still same melodic curve)

Step 5: Now choose a chord progression (e.g., II V I or an easy standard) and practice imitation throughout the harmonic progression. You can play the same group of notes thoughout or decide to replace notes in separate areas of the tune (e.g., AABA)

There you have 5 easy steps to start working on your thematic soloing.

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Francesco Amico is a jazz guitarist with over 20 years of performing experience. If you found this article useful, subscribe to his newsletter and get instant access to a FREE guitar video lesson: www.topguitarlessonsreviewed.com

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