Andrew Robertson

When we're playing the bass line in jazz, there is a number of ways we can actually do that. One of those is called the 2 feel, which means we have 2 notes per 4/4 bar, which is 2 minims, and that sounds like this, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4

[Person playing 2 feel bass while Andrew counts]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

When we play the bass line in jazz, we can also "walk," which means playing four beats per bar in a 4/4 bar, 4 crotchets. We can do that in a simple way by just playing the root note of each chord, and that will sound like this, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing walking bass line using root note while Andrew counts]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Extending that idea, we can still walk in 4, i.e. Having 4 crotchets per bar, but we can also use notes of the triad, the arpeggio of the chord. And that also sounds like this. 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing walking bass using arpeggios while Andrew counts]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Taking this to the full extent, where you may get a professional jazz bass player doing a walking bass line in 4 beats, so 4 crotchets per bar, not necessarily using triads and not using the root note but walking with chromatic passing notes - so we're linking from one chord to the next by using a note, a chromatic note away.

So in this example, we might go C, B, B-flat to A. That's our note that we're actually aiming for, so we use the chromatic passing note to get there. And that would sound like this, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing walking bass using chromatic passing notes while Andrew counts]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Andrew Robertson

We're going to demonstrate now, one of the standard jazz swing patterns on the drum kit, which is hi-hat plus cross stick. The cross stick is when we hold the stick on its side and play the rim of the drum, and in this demonstration, our drummer is going to play that on beat two. And it sounds like this, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing swing pattern hi-hat plus cross stick]

This is another standard swing groove that drummers will play as a variation to the original one. This is when we move to the ride cymbal, the larger cymbal just above the kit, and also the toms. And what we're doing with the tom, the tom-tom, is to replicate what would have been played by a conga pattern. And it sounds like this, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing swing pattern ride cymabl plus toms]

We're going to now demonstrate the great variety that you can get from a drum kit when you play with brushes. We often play with sticks, but brushes gives us a great variety and brings down the volume of the kit, great for solos or slow ballads when we're playing underneath the soloist. The way that the jazz drummer would play with brushes, is to play with their right hand. The swing pattern, ta, ta, tee-ta, ta, tee-ta, ta, tee-ta; and with the left hand, they'll move in a circular motion, which we call, funnily enough, stirring the pot, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing swing pattern with brished]

When we play jazz drums, we play the bass drum in quite a different way than we would in pop music, which is called feathering the bass drum, and feathering means we actually get the drummer to play on a very soft foot mallet. They play tap, tap, tap, tap. So we only just hear it. In fact, if you're playing in the band, you wouldn't even know it's playing.

Why do we do it? A couple of reasons. A: it keeps the drummer in time, but B: originally, it was used to help an acoustic bass, which would stand in front of the drums. And the air moving from the bass drum would actually push the sound of the acoustic bass out because in those days, they didn't have amplification. So let's have a look at how our jazz drummer would play that, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Person playing swing pattern feathering the bass drum]

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Andrew Robertson

In jazz, underneath the melody or a solo, the piano player and the guitar player make up their own rhythms with the chords that they play, and that is called comping, C-O-M-P-I-N-G. So where do we begin to make up our own rhythms? Is it random? What can we do that fits within the jazz style.

A great way to start is with the Charleston pattern. The Charleston is an old dance from the 1920s, and the pattern goes like this – 1, 2, 3, 4, Charleston, Charleston. So using the chord sequence 1, 6, 2, 5, let's listen to how the Charleston works with that, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4

[Playing piano and counting aloud]

a 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

An alternate rhythm that you may like to use in your comping, makes use of syncopated rhythms, but it is one that goes like this, 1, 2, 3, 4. [Vocalising rhythm].

Using our chord sequence 1, 6, 2, 5 -- as per the song, how does that sound? Let's hear it, 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Playing piano and counting aloud]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

So we've heard two different rhythms that we could use in our comping patterns. We've heard the Charleston, [Vocalising rhythm]. And we've heard the other one, the alternate rhythm, 1, 2, 3, 4 [Vocalising rhythm]. What does that sound like when we put it together? [Vocalising rhythm]

We can use either one independently or put them together, and it will all sound fabulous. This is our comping pattern when we put that together, a 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4

[Playing piano and counting aloud]

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Speaker

When we play guitar in a jazz setting, we tend not to use bar chords. Instead, we use three note shell voicings that exclude the fifth. These are easy to play and allow for good voice leading in our playing. In this piece we use C6 –

[Guitar riffing]

– A minor 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– D minor 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– G7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– and in the B section, we use G minor 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– C7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– F6 –

[Guitar riffing]

– B-flat 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– C6 again –

[Guitar riffing]

– E minor 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– A7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– A flat 7 –

[Guitar riffing]

– G7sus –

[Guitar riffing]

– and G7.

[Guitar riffing]

When we comp, we comp in crotchets, and we accent the 2 and the 4 we keep our notes staccato, but we don't do this by palm muting. Instead, we lift our fretting hand off the fretboard. I'll give an example.

[Playing upbeat jazz rhythm]

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Andrew Robertson

So now that we've heard examples of our bass player, our guitar player, our piano player, and our drums, when we put it all together in a swing, jazz ensemble, it sounds just like this: 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3.

[Rhythm section playing Until my life's a song]

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Andrew Robertson

So to begin with our improvisation, we would like to focus on rhythm, because rhythm is the key part of playing jazz. It's the one thing that really differentiates our style of music from other styles of music, particularly the swing quavers. So, when we're starting to learn about improvisation, we want to learn about how to play in the right rhythm.

So we'll do a call and response but just using clapping. So, body percussion or clapping is a great way to start. I'll do a 1-bar pattern, and you can reply exactly the same way with me: a 1, two, three, four.

[Rhythmic clapping]

So you can see there, that I'm trying to emphasise the swing quavers, the da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da, and that's what I'm trying to teach the students when we're talking about improvisation in the jazz style. So we could extend that to two bars, and that might sound like this: a 1, two, three, four.

[Rhythmic clapping]

Fabulous. So extending that idea into a melodic sense - now we're going to add melody - we're going to use the C pentatonic scale because that's the scale that we can use over "Until My Life's a Song" to solo over. And the C pentatonic scale - C, "penta," five, "tonic," "five notes." The notes for that one are C, D, E, G, and A, and these sound like this.

[Band playing pentatonic melody]

Let's all play that together: 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing pentatonic melody]

Fabulous. So, starting off, we're just going to keep it really simple and work on just one of those notes with the rhythm. So we're really focusing on notes and rhythm, just a simple rhythm. I'll do a two-bar pattern, and we'll just do call and response, just as we did a minute ago: a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing swing rhythm]

So in that example, I'm trying to make sure that I get the swing rhythms and just be really clear with the way that I present my rhythms. And once you've done that a few times around the group, you might have somebody in the group who feels confident to do it, and then one of the students can lead the call. In this case, Tegan is going to do that for us. Over to you, Tegan.

Tegan

1, 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing swing rhythm]

Andrew Robertson

Thanks, Tegan. And the reason that that made it really simple was that the rhythms were super clear for us to play back. Rhythm is essential, and if I play something that's really challenging rhythmically, it's going to be really hard to play back, for example, if I did this one: 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing swing rhythm]

That's a complete mess. So obviously rhythm is the key essential here. Let's expand that idea where we're going to add some more melody notes. Now we're going to go low and high. So we're going to add a C and the second note of the scale, which is D, so me now: a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing swing rhythm]

You can see that even with two low and high can be even a challenge. We're going to add the final element to our beginning, starting improvisation session by adding three notes. Just by adding an extra note, suddenly you've got so many more variations on what we can actually play. So keep it simple. Make the rhythms really clear. And if somebody - if we don't get a line, repeat the line so everyone has a chance to get it. Here we go, one more time with three notes this time: a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Band playing swing rhythm]

And from that point onwards, what we could actually do to finally wrap this up, is actually go around the group and everybody have a chance to be the leader. So you might take a - each person have two attempts at doing the lead and we follow and then the next person do it. And that would be a great way to start beginning of improvisation.

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]

Andrew Robertson

So moving ahead with our improvisation, we would like to employ soloing with scales over moving chord progressions. The beauty of this piece of music is that it is all written around a diatonic harmony in the key of C, and in the middle of the song, it goes to the key of F.

So what that means is we can play a 1-6-2-5 chord progression. Chord one sounds like this: this is C.

[Playing chord]

Chord 6 is A minor 7

[Playing chord]

Chord 2 is D minor 7.

[Playing chord]

Chord 5 is G7.

[Playing chord]

And put that all together, it sounds like this, the opening of our song, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Playing Until my life's a song]

Fabulous. So the scale that goes over that, because it all comes from the one scale, is C pentatonic scale, and that sounds like this.

[Band playing]

So demonstrating improvising with just one scale over the 1-6-2-5 chord progression is Sam using the C pentatonic scale, a 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Playing Until my life's a song]

Student

[Vocalising]

Andrew Robertson

Thank you, Sam. In the middle of the song, at letter B, we go to the key of F briefly, and so that will use chords from the diatonic key of F. And that means we can play the F pentatonic scale over the top of them when we improvise, and the F pentatonic sounds like this.

[Band playing]

F, G, A, C, D. And to demonstrate how that would sound, we're going to go from the B section of our song, G minor 7, C7, F, and B-flat. We've got Paolo to demonstrate that on the baritone saxophone, a 1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Playing Until my life's a song]

Thanks, Paolo. So just using those two scales, we can improvise over the whole of our song.

[Image on screen: NSW Government logo]

[End of transcript]