Five Easy Steps To Practice Thematic Improvisation Posted By : Francesco Amico

Five Easy Steps To Practice Thematic ImprovisationHave you ever been asking yourself: "How can I improve my solos building up ideas in a more, thematic way?"

In many jazz improvisation books you can read about the "call and response" technique but, in my experience, little or no time is spent on how to practically teach your brain to do that step-by-step.

So here there are 3 main techniques you can use to build up your solos thematically:

1) Imitation
2) Extension
3) Fragmentation

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

Step 1: Pick a very simple 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 initial melody using the same rhythm and melodic curve (if you don

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