No conversation on making music can start without first addressing the importance of listening. I’ve done my best to provide a lot of information in a coordinated way, but the only way it’s going to sound like music is by developing a clear sense of what sounds good. Not just note choices, but rhythm, time-feel, tone, contour, and any number of other qualities that are only understood through a lot of focused listening.

It’s not my place to tell you what to listen to. Listen to what you like. That will inform the type of musician you will become, which is good because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to play music you don’t like.

That said, most serious jazz musicians go through a phase (or several) in which they listen almost exclusively to the artists that had the largest influences on the style: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and the list goes on and on and on.

For me, I spent ton of time listening to and transcribing Hank Mobley. While lesser known, his melodic lines were highly musical, harmonically interesting, and logical. You could do much worse than to spend an entire year absorbing his work.

I think it comes down to this. In order to play good music, you need to:

1. Love the music - this gives you the motivation to keep pushing when things inevitably get frustrating.

2. Know the quality standard you are striving for - without this you can’t listen to yourself critically and understand what you need to improve.

Both of these foundations imply you’re listening constantly in order to get better.

The listening I am talking about is active, not passive, listening. The best listening experiences you will have, and what will provide you the most value, happen when you are doing nothing else other than focusing on the music, and ideally a certain part of the music - the soloists’ rests, the drummer’s high-hat, the pianist’s left hand, etc. Then come back and listen to the recording “in full.”

If you’re trying to drive or work out while listening, you won’t accomplish much besides entertain yourself, which is fine, but progress is made through focus. Walking alone is probably fine.

I view transcribing as a way to get the music you want to play into your ear and subsequently into your fingers. But not by aping the source - I’ll have more to say more about that.

There are so many reasons a certain piece of music or even isolated phrase might sound good. You can come up with dozens of rules that can provide guidance on how to produce something that sounds good, but trying to be even moderately comprehensive is impossibly complex.

Better is to take something that you know sounds good and just learn it. Then do it again and again and again. You’ll eventually gain the experience that tells you how to construct a good line even if you can’t exactly describe why. Your brain, ears, and fingers all synthesize the vast amounts of information to build that intuition.

This is the process of transcribing, and it looks different depending on the person. One approach is writing down what you ear, usually with your instrument to help you. Then you may or may not learn to play it. Even if you don’t learn to play it, the act of communing with the music is the important part.

Another way is to learn the music on your instrument directly. This skips the writing step but the communion is still there, especially if you learn to play it perfectly.

I think you should do both. You’ll need more or less of one or the other at various points in your musical development, which never stops.

This communion I’m talking about is the real value in transcription. We are not aiming to start plugging in Charlie Parker licks wherever they may fit in the harmony. The goal is to build intuition by interacting with and analyzing the source material closely. From there you never need to play the transcribed material ever again. The act of transcribing is enough.

Incidentally, this is why I see almost no value in studying someone else’s transcription. Sure you can get some interesting concepts from it, but you’re not doing the work that builds musicianship at the most basic level.

I should also note here that this deep interaction with “good music” also helps set a standard in your ear for what is “good.” When you are practicing and recording yourself so that you can listen back critically and figure out where you need to focus, you need a firm standard to compare yourself to. Building your inner “critic” is time well spent.

Another critical component to your practice of improvisation is focus. You need to spend time working your weaknesses. These could be time-feel, certain progressions, time signatures, or tempos, sight reading, playing in various sections or registers of your instrument, etc.

For me, at one time or another I’ve had trouble with all of the following:

• Playing swinging eighth notes

• Playing over the following progressions:

  • bIII dim —> II-7

  • #IV dim —> I

  • II7 —> II-7 —> I

  • bVI7#11 —> V7alt —> I-7

  • …and many others

• Playing in 3/4 time

• Playing on the 6th thru 4th strings btw frets 9 and 15 - kinda a no-man’s land for me to be honest, esp during fast, non-standard root movement such as on Inner Urge or Giant Steps

• Not rushing

When you identify a weakness in your playing (you’re recording and listening critically to yourself, right?), you need to focus on addressing it, ideally to the point of making it a strength. One of the best ways to do this is by writing etudes. These are short studies that prompt you to work through a specific element of playing. They can be completely composed, or allow some space for improvisation. I prefer a combination.

I’ve written dozens of etudes to help address many weaknesses. For example, to address the bVI7#11 —> V7alt changes, I wrote a series of them in different keys, set the metronome and improvised over them for hours.

To deal with a difficult progression in 3/4 time that my band wanted to play, I took a similar approach but wrote out a solo that would be technically challenging and force me to internalize the groove without thinking about it.

Check out some of the etudes in the Inspiration section of this site to see the types of things you can do to bring focus to your practice and accelerate your growth as a musician.

Just ask.

A common way to get acquainted with the sound of common harmonic devices and functions is to play chord tones in succession. The concept is great but I find the execution generally lacking. The problem is people stop too soon and avoid most harmonic context outside of the very basic major II-V-I.

Certainly the major II-V-I is a great place to start, but you should take the next step, which is to practice all common applied dominants in the context of a parent key.

What follows is an etude (study) that, once mastered, should instill the beginnings of:

1. an ability play chord tones of common functional harmonic sequences

2. a fair familiarity with the sound of these harmonies

3. an ability to play them anywhere on the neck without worrying so much about “position” [guitar only]

You’ll see this etude emphasizes chord tones, but also adds in some common ways to connect those tones, extensions available on each chord, some common alterations. For guitar, I’ve included fingerings to force playing in various zones of the neck. As you play through this, you should aim to connect the physical patterns and how they feel with the harmonic functions, subdominant, dominant, tonic.

This etude is written in the key of F. Certainly you could transpose it - that would be a good exercise.

What I would do, however, is learn this etude, then do a lot of listening and transcribe 1-2 simple solos. Then write your own etude over these same chord progressions in a different key. I’d choose C or Bb so (for guitar at least) you have to grapple with different patterns.

One thing you may have noticed in the etude I just showed you was that it covered secondary dominants to every tonality within the parent key of F. Some of these were major chords (the I and IV chords, F and Bb), and some were minor (the II, III, and VI chords, G-7, A-7, D-7). Let’s look conceptually on how you start building a melodic line over the major II-V-I.

The II-V-I in F is G-7, C7, and F. You will see a lot of textbooks give you a scale to play over each of these chords. Something like:

• Over G-7 play G Dorian

• Over C7 play C Mixolydian

• Over F play F major or “Ionian”

We’ve never talked about modes before because I think they’re entirely useless in this context. Sure they’re great over more static progressions, but we’re talking about the building blocks of functional jazz harmony. All of those modes mean the same thing - the collection of notes in the F major scale. They say nothing about how to organize those notes into music other than a vague hint to start on the root of the chord they’re applied to. Lame.

What about just saying F major for the entire sequence? That causes the same problem - there’s no guidance in that on how to make music and even begin to outline the sounds of the II-V-I.

What you need to do is recognize the II-V-I emphasizes different parts of the major tonality - subdominant, dominant, and tonic - each of which is characterized by different “weights” on various notes.

Within and relative to F major:

• The G-7 emphasizes the subdominant part of the key

  • Any note other than the leading tone, Ti, in this case E, is “good.”

  • The most obvious notes are Re, Fa, La, and Do - G, Bb, D, F. Those are your go-to notes for outlining the sound of the subdominant.

  • Approaching any of those tones from a half step below or using enclosures to emphasize them works well.

  • Connecting them with scale tones also works well.

  • Fa and Do (Bb and F) are your “guide tones” - they define the sound of the chord even without any other notes. Moreover, the Do (or 7th of the II chord) moves down a half step nicely to Ti, or the 3rd of the V chord.

  • Add Mi and Sol (A and C in F major) the 9th and 11th of the II chord (G-7 in this example), for color. Instead of using them to connect chord tones, they can be emphasized themselves, usually if played in a higher register with the underlying harmony well established.

As you go through the etude, pay attention to the particular patterns over the G-7 chords. These generally outline the “subdominant zone” in the key of F major. You’ll start to see these as you practice the G-7 arpeggios while keeping the F major context in mind.

Check out the video below:

Let’s move on.

Within and relative to F major, the C7 emphasizes the dominant part of the key:

• The most important tones in the “dominant zone” of F major are Ti (E) and Fa (F), the 3rd and 7th of C7.

• The one note you want to avoid emphasizing is the most stable tone of the scale, Do (F, also the 4th of C7). Remember the point of the dominant function is to add tension and motion.

• Any other note is fair game as long as you know how to handle it. You have a ton of flexibility over the V chord which is why it is so important to nail that basic tritone, Ti and Fa, and keep the listener grounded in where you are harmonically.

• You have your chord tones Sol (C) and Re (G). Both are fine to play but will not introduce a lot of tension since they’re actually pretty stable on their own, and Re is a nice sound on the I chord. They don’t add a lot on their own, but do use them if they make sense melodically.

• Mi and La are next. These sound great over the V7 chord and represent the 13th and 9th extensions of the chord (see if you can figure out why). Like Sol and Re, they don’t add a ton to the “tension” in the chord since they work well over the I chord (tonic) too, but they add a lot of harmonic color.

• Mi and La also emphasize that you are resolving to major, since these notes are less associated with a pure minor sound.

The general takeaway from the above is you can play any note “over” the dominant, C7, as long as you’re not sitting on Do. You want to emphasize the notes that add tension, such as E and Bb (Ti and Fa) by placing them prominently, typically on the strong part of the beat or otherwise via the shape of your line. You’ll also notice from the etude that you can use approach notes or enclosures to further add interest to your lines and emphasizes the right notes.

You can probably tell that the concepts of how to emphasize certain notes are really difficult to explain, and the more rules I might try to throw out there, the harder it will be to follow all of them. This is why listening, transcribing, playing etudes, and trial-and-error are important. They help build that intuition without a lot of rules.

Resolutions using minor tonalities have broad applicability and are a critical piece of a well-developed jazz vocabulary. While resolutions in major are typically applied when your destination is a major part of a major key (i.e. V/I or V/IV), minor cadences are useful in all of the following situations:

1. You are resolving to a minor part of a major key - V/II, V/III, V/VI are all applied dominants to minor chords within a broader major key.

2. You are resolving to a minor key or part of a minor key that is also minor, such as the IV chord. In minor keys, the IV chord is minor.

3. You are resolving to a major chord within a major or minor key.

1 and 2 can be summarized by saying that any time you are resolving to a minor chord, you should be using a minor cadence.

3 is simply the observation that you can use tones from minor cadences when resolving to major, to both enhance tension over the subdominant/dominant functions and increase the contrast between the tension part of the cadence and its resolution.

As previously noted, you don’t typically see major cadences used to get to minor destinations.

The basic minor cadence is the subdominant (i.e. II-7b5 or IV-7) followed by V7 with some combination of b9, #9, and/or b13. Depending on context, you may also have #11. Let’s start with the subdominant, using C minor as our home key:

The subdominant emphasizes notes with some tension except for the leading tone, just like in major. Within and relative to C major:

• D-7b5 emphasizes the subdominant part of the key.

• Scale degrees 2, 4, 6, and 1 or Re, Fa, Le, and Do are the most obvious tones.

• All other tones are good, with two points to note:

  • Me is scale degree 3 in minor, only a half step away from scale degree 2, or Re, the root of the II-5b7 chord. If you were to emphasize Me over II-7b5, you would have what is called a b9 interval, which you generally want to avoid unless you are in a dominant part of a progression. This is because the b9 interval is very dissonant if not handled carefully. You’ll often see people substituting Mi in place of Me in the subdominant context. From a purely harmonic standpoint this makes sense and can sound very good. The obvious drawback is Mi sounds like major, not minor, so melodically it can be tricky to pull off. To be explicit, we are talking about a D-7b5 chord with an E rather than an Eb on top. The Eb defines “minor” in the key of C minor, so it is not straightforward to use an E instead. Knowing when/how to use this note requires a lot of listening, transcribing, and practicing (of course).

  • On the subdominant, you’ll usually use Te rather than the leading tone Ti, reserving the latter for the dominant where it is most effective. This is the “11” extension over the II-7b5 chord (G over D-7b5) and is a very nice sounding color.

• These “points” to note on the subdominant in minor can be organized (or summarized) into a melodic minor scale starting on Fa. We’ll say more about that in a later section.

In a traditional minor cadence, you typically have the dominant following the subdominant function. You have a lot of flexibility here - thinking of the dominant function in C major, you want to be emphasizing the leading tone - B or Ti - and F or Fa, which “lead” respectively to C and E, stable tones of the tonic.

Outside of that, you have a lot of flexibility. In the context of the major cadence, we simply filled in the rest of the tonality with notes from the home key, taking care to de-emphasize Do, so as not to resolve the tension too early. You can do the same in minor - what does this imply?

• Let’s start with the obvious chord tones of the dominant in minor - in C, these would be G, B, D, and F. We already talked about B and F.

• G and D (Sol and Re) are good notes to include. They sound good, if not somewhat obvious, over the dominant chord. They also work over the tonic, so you can carry them through from dominant to tonic or resolve to them.

• The minor scale that contains Ti is harmonic minor. Let’s consider the other notes in the scale and how they relate to the dominant chord/tonality.

• C harmonic minor is spelled as follows: C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B, C - we already talked about C (avoid it or use as a passing tone), G, B, D, and F (the chord tones of G7). That leaves Eb (Me) and Ab (Le).

• Eb is the b13 relative to G7. In major, you would have E natural, or the “major” 13, so you can think of b13 as an alteration, or lowering, of the 13 in major, or simply the natural “13” in minor.

  • In minor, the b13 resolves to the 9 of the tonic chord, or D over C minor. This is fairly typical - melodically it is just Me to Re.

  • In major, the b13 is an alteration to increase tension relative to the natural 13. Instead of say Mi to Re, you can have Me to Re, in the context of dominant to tonic. You also have the option of going Me to Mi, since Mi is the 3rd in major.

• Ab is the b9 relative to G7. In major, you would have A natural (La), so you can think of b9 as an alteration or lowering of the 9 in major, or simply the natural “9” in minor.

  • In minor, the b9 resolves to the 5th over the tonic chord, or G over C minor. Melodically you have Le resolving to Sol. This is extremely common in Charlie Parker’s music (and all of bebop frankly, and any music influence by the bebop language…)

  • In major, b9 increases tension relative to the natural 9 that you’d typically see in a major resolution. Because La (the natural 9 of G7 resolving to C major) is also a stable tone over the tonic, you can resolve Le not only to Sol but also to La. Note that a resolution to La also works in minor.

• All of the above can be summarized by - play harmonic minor in the home key (or target) whenever you have a dominant, taking care not to emphasize Do, and to resolve unstable tones to stable tones over the tonic. Explicitly - C harmonic minor over the G7 in the key (or target) or C.

• But what about Te? Te occurs in natural minor, and it’s a great note to include over your dominants, representing the #9 alteration.