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Jazz Composition will guide you through a carefully chosen set of concepts that inform mainstream jazz songwriting. You 'll learn variations of form, building from the blues structure, creating a compelling chord progression, and melodic development, as well as working with motives, different meters, and modes.
- How to Properly Craft A Jazz Composition Video
- One Important Aspect For Jazz Composition Before Going Further
- How to Place Your Chords Properly
- Why Melodic Rhythm Matters
- How to Give Your Song Sections More Identity
- How Different Registers Create Variety
- How Chord Progressions Influence Your Jazz Composition
- One Jazz Composition Trick That Creates Obvious Distinctions Between Sections
- How to Balance Familiarity & Novelty
- How to Advance from Mediocre to Pro
Before going any deeper, take 7 minutes to watch how Steve discusses important elements of jazz composition: Now that you have watched the video above, let’s go deeper into the concepts discussed.
The first thing you need to do is decide on the form of your jazz composition. A jazz composition, just like any other tune, can be divided into distinct sections. Think of each section as a complete musical statement. We label sections in music as letters (A, B, C, D, etc.). What we call an A section is the first musical idea in the tune. The succ...
The first aspect you want to consider is harmonic rhythm. Harmonic rhythm simply talks about when and how long are the chords being played out. For example, the A section of Green Dolphin Street has this particular harmonic rhythm: The harmonic rhythm as shown above is Fmaj7 for 2 bars, Abmaj7 (or Fm7(9) in other versions) for 2 bars, and then the ...
The second thing you need to look at ismelodic rhythm. You want the rhythms of the melody of each section to be distinct. For instance, the A section of Green Dolphin Street uses long rhythms. In the B section, we have different rhythmic patterns going on to match the verbiage of the lyrics: The C section also gets busier rhythmically speaking: Let...
The sequence of pitchesyou use to build your melody matters a lot. This is what makes a melody recognizable. nt each melody to be distinct from each other. This is the melody for the A section of Green Dolphin Street: Now this is for your B section, that is completely different from the A section: If you look at the C section, only the first few no...
The next thing to consider is playing your different sections in different registers. For instance, when we go to Green Dolphin Street, the A section is somewhat in a middle register. The B section goes to a bit of a lower register than the A section. Lastly, the C section goes low and then goes to a higher register towards the end. The use of diff...
When writing music, consider the chord progressionyou use for each section. Once you’re done drafting out a melody, you can harmonize it in different ways. The chords you use per every melodic idea all depend on the melody notes. Each melody note is almost always a chord tone of a particular chord. Given that one note can be a chord tone of at leas...
The secret here is to make sure that you’re using a completely different starting chord for each section. This will influence the way you write your melody. This will also dictate how your chord progression will go. For instance, the A section of Green Dolphin Street starts on the I chord. In contrast, the B section starts on the ii chord. It’s a p...
When most people listen to music, they usually want a blend of something familiar with a bit of spice. This where you balance the use of diatonic and chromatic chordsin your tune. Diatonic chords are also what some people call family chords. Family chords are called such because they exist naturally in a given key. Chromatic chords don’t belong to ...
Do you feel stuck at an “intermediate” level? Did you hit a wall in your playing? Maybe you have spent countless hours on a YouTube “masterclass”, only to be more confused than ever before. What you need is a mentor that can clear all that confusion. Someone who has taught hundreds of students how to create their own tunes and original works, maste...
Dec 19, 2018 · Today, we’ll be continuing our discussion of John Szwed’s “Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz“, with a look at some of the more elusive skills required by jazz musicians. While improvisation, composition, and arranging may seem like three separate skills, they’re actually more related than you might think.
Published Compositions and Arrangements. Visit Earl’s eJazzLines online catalog where you can listen to audio samples, read descriptions of each piece, and purchase big band and 10tet charts. An incomplete list of Earl MacDonald’s compositions and arrangements is posted here. This list will be expanded and updated. Arranging and Composition Syllabi
introductions. and more. Peter Martin lets you sit in on his philosophy and technique of composing as he writes and arranges 8 tunes from his new album release Generation S right in front of your ears. Level 4. 9 videos. 3.5 hourS. Downloadable pdfs. Subtitles: English. Meet Your Instructor.
Compositions and Arrangements by Geoff Peters On this page I provide the lead sheets (chords, melodies) for some of my original jazz compositions. Wherever possible I've also provided links to a recording of the song.
Fundamentals of Jazz Composition contains 23 chapters covering such topics as: Rhythm and Meter. Pitch and Harmony. Turnarounds and Cycles. Key Modulation. The Blues. Melody and Song. Chord Tones and Non-Chord Tones. Harmonising Melodies. Melodic Phrases. Arrangement. Substitutions. Elaborations. Modes and Modal Jazz. Non-Functional Harmony. Scales
