Melodic Development

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.

Consider the following paragraph:

I painted the window trim green. Next Monday is Memorial Day. The Rockies beat the Cardinals, but I didn't catch the score. The kitten must have come in an open window during the night. Be careful not to cook the asparagus too long or it will become mushy. The professor claimed the photos were of UFO's. One of them got back from vacation yesterday, while the other comes back tonight. Fortunately, I am going to be near the shoe store anyhow.

The above paragraph made no sense. The individal sentences were clear enough, or at least, would have been in the proper context, but they did not relate to each other in any way. The end result was confusing in its randomness. It was not even stream of consciousness writing; true consciousness is usually more coherent.

Normally, whether speaking or writing, your sentences will relate to each other in some logical fashion. It does not take a lot of effort to do this; it usually happens naturally. All it takes is dedication to an idea; one cannot help but make some amount of sense if you have a clear idea of what you are trying to communicate. Furthermore, if you know what you are trying to say, you will know when you are done saying it, and when it is time to await a response or move on to another idea.

The point, of course, is that musical phrases should relate to each other in some fashion as well. Because we are not as comfortable with the language of music as we are with verbal language, it usually takes more concentrated effort to focus on a single idea while improvising a series of phrases. Still, there is nothing magic about it. You will learn to trust your own intuition regarding the development of a musical idea - how to relate phrases to each other, and when to complete one idea and move on to the next. The remainder of this section describes a few common techniques of melodic development.

The most obvious way to develop an idea is to simply repeat it:

[EXAMPLE]

This is not without value. In music, as in conversation, repetition can serve to add emphasis. But in general, melodic development implies something more.

Another technique is that of reconstruction. This means constructing the same contour again, but in a different manner. This is especially appropriate if the underlying chords have changed since the first expression of the idea. For example, consider the following progression:

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Your original idea might look like this:

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You might first construct it as follows:

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Over the next measures, you might take the same contour but construct it to fit the new chords:

[EXAMPLE]

This leads to the idea of variation. Constructing the same contour in two different ways is one form of variation. You might also alter the contour. Using the above example, you might use the following contour for your second phrase:

[EXAMPLE]

This is similar to the first contour, but slightly different. It might be constructed as follows:

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A related technique is that of elaboration. Here, you state an idea simply the first time, then add more detail on subsequent restatements. For example:

[EXAMPLE]

Another common device is the call and response, or question and answer. Some phrases seem to be more like questions than statements, and they usually suggest their own answers. For example, consider the following musical question:

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There is little doubt that the expected answer is:

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Of course, there is no reason to limit yourself to the expected answer. This is jazz, after all. But the question sets up a form of tension that the expected answer releases. In fact, the most common situation in which to find a musical question is in a phrase that ends on a V chord, and the answer most commonly starts on the V chord and resolves to the I. For example:

[EXAMPLE]

Note the answering phrase above partially restated the question. This is not unlike answering the question "Did you go to the store today?" with the reply "Yes, I went to the store today".

The above examples are all what I consider conversational techniques. They are not especially different from how people talk. There are also dramatic devices, which are less commonly used in coversation but can be quite effective in music. In English, this might be the equivalent of the famous "I Have A Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr., where he effectively alternated the phrase "I have a dream" with phrases that described that dream:

[EXAMPLE]

In music, this same approach might be used like this:

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In general, repeating patterns in which the repetetition comes at calculated intervals rather than right in a row, as in the above example, have great dramatic value. You can also create drama by repeating a phrase longer than the expected two or three times:

[EXAMPLE]

Here, the drama is in wondering when the soloist will stop. For some reason, this device tends to win great audience approval. It is somewhat amusing to me to note audience reactions to this type of repetition:

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Normally, though, any sort of repetition, reconstruction, variation, or elaboration has a natural limit of three. That is, it often seems to be most satisfying to play three different expressions of the idea before moving on. For example:

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This echoes the traditional blues form, in which a phrase is sung once, then repeated, then followed by an answering phrase:

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I tend to use the term "stanza" or "paragraph" to describe a series of related phrases. While three phrases is probably the most common stanza length, some musicians tend to elaborate phrases over longer periods of time. There is no particular reason you cannot perform dozens of elaborations on an idea:

[EXAMPLE]

It seems to me that this requires more creativity to do well than coming up with new ideas does. Often, though, the variations themselves will suggest a new theme, so that there is no clean break between one idea and the next. Your solo tells a single story:

[EXAMPLE]

Use your own judgement in deciding how to balance melodic development with the introduction of brand new ideas.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Melodic Development