Chromaticism

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

The previous sections in this chapter have been concerned with choosing notes that reinforce the harmony. The primary goal of improvisation is usually melodic rather than harmonic, however. That is, creating a strong melodic line more important than playing notes that happen to fit the chord changes. There are many situations where it might be appropriate to use notes not in the scale you are otherwise using over a particular chord. The use of such non-scale tones is known as chromaticism.

Some examples of chromaticism have been discussed already, in the section on Voice Leading from the chapter on Melody in the unit on Music Theory. For example, a chromatic passing tone is a note used in a scale-like passage to connect two notes, one a step below, and one a step above:

[EXAMPLE]

A chromatic neighboring tone is used to ornament a single note a step away:

[EXAMPLE]

Using chromatic tones in this manner can make a line smoother. However, chromaticism can also be used to create tension. For example, sideslipping, in which a line is contructed from a scale a step away from the expected scale, creates tension that is resolved by returning to the original scale:

[EXAMPLE]

A relatively simple line, constructed from an unexpected scale, can sound complex and harmonically rich:

[EXAMPLE]

Thus, it is useful to consider chord/scale relationships when playing chromatically, so that you can deliberately choose a scale that will increase tension, and then resolve it by returning to an expected scale.

It is not always necessary to relate everything to the original scale, however. The line itself is more important than its relationship to te chord. Sometimes the melodic line that follows most naturally from what you have played so far is not one that would have been suggested by the chord specified at that point in the progression. If your melodic line is strong enough in its own right, there is no reason you must alter it to fit the chord. For example, consider the following line:

[EXAMPLE]

A pattern has been established, and the natural followup phrase would be:

[EXAMPLE]

Even though this phrase does not fit the chord particularly well, it is still one of the most appropriate things to play in that situation. The dissonance created vertically (against the chord) is hardly noticeable compared to the logic of the line horizontally (with respect to the rest of the melody). There is some tension, but nothing that cannot be resolved in the next measure:

[EXAMPLE]

A highly chromatic line can actually be less dissonant than a line with only a couple of chromatic notes in it. For example, consider the following line:

[EXAMPLE]

It contains only a few notes that do not fit the chord, and they sound especially dissonant by comparison. Contrast this with the following line, in which most of the notes lie outside the expected scale:

[EXAMPLE]

Here, the line itself is ambiguous tonally. It does not have a strong enough harmonic identity to clash with the prevailing harmony. That is why these types of lines work particularly well.

It is up to you to decide how comfortable you are with doing this. If you have enough confidence in your lines, you can play chromatically for an extended period. Some improvisors may play a whole solo without direct reference to the chord changes. This type of extreme chromaticism was used by Eric Dolphy, among others:

[EXAMPLE]

Just because these lines do not obviously relate to the harmony on a chord-by-chord basis, the improvisation as a whole still relates to the progression as a whole. The feel of the dominant/tonic resolutions is preserved through phrases such as this:

[EXAMPLE]

Also, the modulations in the original progression are preserved through modulations in the chromatic line:

[EXAMPLE]

And the climax of the solo matches the climax of the original progression:

[EXAMPLE]

In general, if you really know the changes, and feel the contours of a progression, this will come out in your improvisation, regardless of the actual notes you choose. It takes a great deal of confidence in your own ears and abilities to pull this off successfully, however.

These are the most important factors in marking the fine line between extreme chromaticism and just a lot of wrong notes.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Chromaticism