Quinn’s Locked Space

Inexperienced musicians should have a cognitive plan for developing a solo before they begin to improvise. Inexperienced improvisers are often overwhelmed by the vast amount of creative decisions regarding notes, phrasing, and stylistic inflections that are made simultaneously during every solo. In order to facilitate this decision making, musicians can create an outline of how a solo will develop before they begin to

improvise. By pre-planning solo shape, beginning musicians encourage themselves to move beyond the minutia of playing correct notes towards the more compelling challenges of creating improvisational intent and choosing specific solo development tools that will be used during a solo. Limiting choices helps improvisers focus on using specific tools to create specific results.

Shape and development within improvisation is an important and often

underutilized tool. Musicians must not only consider the shape of their own solo but must also consider the context and location of their solo within the larger composition. For example, in a big band composition, musicians are rarely given multiple choruses to develop solos. Solos might be inserted in the middle of a piece before a compositionally dense ending or there might be several different soloists in rapid succession. In these scenarios the shape options musicians have to choose from become more limited. In these cases, musicians may have to play solo shapes that fit into the overall compositional shape of the piece.

In situations where there are multiple soloists, musicians must listen and be aware of the shape and development of previous solos. For example, if a previous soloist ends with an extreme decrease in tension, a musician would probably not choose to begin their

I

Length of solo Length of

solo

Length of solo

Intensity

Length of solo

Length of solo

Intensity Intensity

their solo with an extreme increase in tension, it would be awkward for the following soloist to begin at an extreme low point in tension. The landscape of melodic

development often looks more like rolling hills than sharp mountain peaks and valleys.

Alternatively, in small combos, musicians might have to develop three or more choruses of solo. In this scenario, development and pacing is extremely important so that musicians don’t exhaust their creative and technical resources or the attention of listeners before the end of a solo.

There are countless solo shapes that improvisers might play. Shape is only limited by the length of a solo and the musician’s imagination. For demonstration purposes, the following shapes can represent common two chorus blues solos:

Figure 1 Figure 2

Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 5

Intensity in music can be created in any number of ways. The following is a list of tools that musicians use to increase and decrease intensity during solos.

Intensity

Intensity

Chapter Six: Developing Melodic Solos

How do improvisers build intensity during a solo?

1. By playing in increasingly higher registers- Gradually increasing range to play in higher registers during a solo builds tension for listeners.

2. By playing with increasing speed- Technique and speed can build tension and intensity within a solo. This type of intensity can be used to communicate a range of more aggressive emotions to an audience.

3. By sustaining notes- Holding out notes for long periods of time can increase tension and defy expectations of listeners. When a musician holds out a note, listeners create an internal expectation of when the note will end. If the

expectation is not met, tension continues to build while listeners create a new set of expectations. The longer a note is held and the more listeners expectations are defied, the more tension increases.

4. By phrasing in an unexpected way- Phrasing solos in an unexpected way can increase the intensity felt by a listener. Listeners intuitively expect phrases of certain lengths and melodic rhythms. Altering the length and placement of phrases can be an unexpected and interesting surprise for listeners.

5. By playing louder- Increasing volume alters the amount of tension that listeners feel. By combining phrases that are both loud and soft, improvisers can imitate a vocal quality in a solo that is both engaging and intuitively understood by

listeners.

6. By using repetition- Repetition reinforces improvisational ideas to listeners.

Continued repetition increases intensity during an improvised solo.

7. By adding harmonic tension- Harmonic tension is created when musicians play notes that sound dissonant and resolve to notes that sound consonant. This process of “tension and release” can be accomplished using a blues scale but is most often used in harmonically centered improvisation. Harmonic tension plays an

important role in improvisation and there are countless options and techniques that musicians can apply to create it.

How do improvisers decrease intensity during a solo?

1. By playing gradually in lower registers- Gradually decreasing range and playing in decreasingly lower registers creates an audible decline in intensity for listeners.

2. By playing simple phrases- Phrases of less technical and rhythmic complexity create an audible decline in intensity for listeners.

Chapter Six: Developing Melodic Solos

Length of solo

Intensity

3. By phrasing in an expected way- Constructing simple phrases that meet the

expectations of listeners decreases improvisational intensity. Phrases that begin on downbeats, are two or four bars in length, and coincide with strong harmonic changes, tend to meet listener’s expectations and can decrease intensity.

4. By diminishing overall volume- Playing at a softer volume can audibly decrease the intensity of a solo.

5. By effectively using space- Leaving significant amounts of rest bars or space in a solo decreases the audible intensity for a listener.

Once a musician chooses a shape for a solo, he or she must then choose the melodic development tools that will be used to create that shape. At first, musicians should limit the number of tools that they allow themselves to use when developing a solo. Limiting choices focuses musicians on practicing specific techniques that can be immediately integrated into improvisation. The following exercise will help musicians construct a shape for a solo while limiting the development tools used.

A Practice Solo Roadmap for Melodic Development