Thematic Improvisation Explained Step-By-Step

Are you asking yourself: "How can I improve my solos playing a more, logical, consequential way?"

In many 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.

I have also attended masterclasses on "thematic improvisation" by eminent players like John Abercrombie and Steve Coleman who stress the importance of developing your solos starting from short melodic/rhythmic ideas.

In my effort to develop this aspect of my guitar playing, I found that the approach of Hal Crook (trombonist with the Phil Woods Quartet and chair of jazz improvisation at the Berklee college of music, Boston) to practice thematic improvisation is absolutely the easiest to follow.

So, based on Hal Crook's approach to practicing thematic improvisation, here are 3 main techniques you can use to expand your solos thematically:

1) Imitation
2) Extension
3) Fragmentation

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

Step 1: Choose a very easy 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 original 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 instantly 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 all over the harmonic progression. You can play the same group of notes thoughout or decide to replace notes in different areas of the tune (e.g., AABA)

If you practice this way for a few weeks I guarantee that your solos will start sounding way more consequential. The cool part is that your band mates will be intrigued by your way to put forward melodic and rhythmic ideas and will help you build up your solos developing the improvisational segments you started.

I hope that this short article gave you a few ideas on how to practice thematic improvisation. If you are intrested in a more step-by-step approach to practice soloing I strongly recommend to start working regularly with Hal Crook's "How To Improvise", where imitation, extension and fragmentation improvisational techniques are explained very clearly.

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