The final way to practice chord tone based musical improvisation with the use of seventh chords with upper extensions is to apply the above exercises to the chord structure of an actual song that contains these types of chords.
#Music improvisation exercises free#
The ultimate application is to create a free form musical improvisation that only utilizes the pitches of each seventh chord, and outlines the chord changes of the progression. The musician should start with a simple applications like this, and then create more complex arpeggiated patterns. The cycle can be repeated with a starting key that is half a step higher in order to cover the other 6 possible keys. This pattern will cycle through 6 of the 12 possible keys. This exercises cycles through all the keys by converting the root of the I chord at the end of the progression into a ii9 chord for the next progression. Finally, it arpeggiates back up the I maj9 chord starting on the third. This pitch is tied over from the previous chord since it is a common tone of both chords (13th of the V and the 9th of the ii). It then arpegiates down the V13 chord starting on the 13th. The exercise arpeggiates up the ii9 chord, starting on the third. In this exercise, a simple pattern is created by arpeggiating through the 2-5-1 progression. However, now we cycle through the chords by descending through the circle of fifths. The third exercise arpegiates up and back down starting on the root, just like the first exercise. This time we cycle through the keys by descending chromatically. The next exercise arpegiates down and up the chord starting on the root. Every key is covered by ascending through the keys in half-step increments. The first exercise arpegiates the chord up and back down by starting on the root. In these first three exercises, the pitches of each major 9th chord are arpeggiated in three different ways. Since the upper extensions commonly used for minor seventh and dominant seventh chords differ from this, I will display exercises that cover each of these qualities of chords. In addition the 6th can be used in place of the 7th. For major seventh chords, the most common upper extensions are the natural 9th and the # 11th.
However, only certain upper extension are applied to various seventh chord when performing in most common musical styles. In this same fashion, we can used the upper extensions of most seventh chords to create scales that can be used for musical improvisation. If we lower these three pitches one octave, and insert them between the chord tones of the Cmaj7 chord we end up with a C major scale. If we continue to stack diatonic thirds beyond the seventh of this chord we get the pitches D (the 9th), F (the 11th) and A (the 13th). To demonstrate this connection, let’s use a Cmaj7 chord as an example. There is a connection between the scales and the chords that we use in musical improvisation. The following exercises are designed to help achieve that ability. To improvise using these pitches, we must obtain the ability to rapidly recall and perform these pitches at will.
My previously posted video entitled Learning Music With Ray: Chord Color Tones helps to explain the various types (qualities) of upper extensions that can be added to seventh chords.
Before we can improvise using the chord tones of various seventh chords with upper extensions, we must know those chord tones.
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