Soloing lessons - Mixolydian
Music lessons for soloing and piano improvisation with focus on understanding for chord and scales relationship plus developing music ear. Focus is the Mixolydian mode.
The Mixolydian Mode are a common feature in blues and jazz and works especially well over dominant chord (the mode is sometime referred to as the Dominant Scale). In jazz and blues tunes with exclusively dominant seventh chords, the Mixolydian can be used for soling over the whole tune. To make it sound right, the Mixolydian scale should change to corresponding with the notes. In other words, C Mixolydian is played over C7, D Mixolydian is played over D7 and so on. Quite logical.
It's hard to hear which chord the other instruments are playing; therefore, these lesson will develop your abilities by only include a few chords, which let you develop your ear without too much things going on.
Lesson: soloing over a 12-bar progression
Part one. The first soloing lesson involve the I - IV and the I - V chord changes.
Instructions: The G Mixolydian scale (diagram 1) should be played over the G7 chords, the C Mixolydian scale (diagram 2) should be played over the C7 chords and the D Mixolydian scale (diagram 3) should be played over the D7 chords (see Backing track 1 below).
Tips:
1) Give the chord notes extra importance. G, B, D, F are the chord notes in G7; C, E, G, Bb are the chord notes in C7 and D, F#, A, C are the chord notes in D7.
2) Notice that G, A, C, D and E are commons notes in all involved scales. It means that you could play these notes during the whole tune, since these are "safe notes".
3) Although it can be comfortable using only the "safe notes", try also to include "target notes", such as Bb over C7 and F# over D.
4) Passing notes can create effectful movements. For example, playing the notes G, Gb, F timing the C7 - G7 change. Notice that since passing notes such as Gb in this case is outside the scale, they will not always sound great in general and should only be played for a short duration.
5) Try to only involve a few notes, which lets you focus on simple note sequences or riffs instead for involving all the notes in the scale. For example, playing only the first, third and fourth notes in each scale.
6) Try to repeat similar note sequence for the different scales, which could make your soloing figures work rhythmic and thematic.
7) An advanced concept is to play the chord tones on the beats and the rest of the tones (the passing tones) on the upbeats, this imply that eight notes are accomplished by the pianist in which the beats are the 1, 3, 5, 7 beats and the upbeats 2, 4, 5, 8 beats.
Diagram 1. G Mixolydian
Diagram 2. C Mixolydian
Diagram 3. D Mixolydian
Backing track 1
Tempo is BPM 100, which means that 1 bar = 2.4 secs. Chord progression is G7 (4 bars) - C7 (2 bars) - G7 (2 bars) - D7 (2 bars) - G7 (2 bars). It all repeats 4 times. When chords are played for two bars, a chord change happens every 4.8 seconds.
Part two. The second soloing lesson involve again the I - IV and the I - V chord changes, but is based on other chords. Notice, however, that the intervals is the same.
Instructions: The F Mixolydian scale (diagram 1) should be played over the G7 chords, the C Mixolydian scale (diagram 2) should be played over the C7 chords and the D Mixolydian scale (diagram 3) should be played over the D7 chords (see Backing track 1 below).
Diagram 4. F Mixolydian
Diagram 5. Bb Mixolydian
Diagram 6. C Mixolydian
Backing track 2
Tempo is BPM 100. Chord progression is F7 (4 bars) - Bb7 (2 bars) - F7 (2 bars) - C7 (2 bars) - F7 (2 bars) for 4 repeats.
Conclusion. Soloing exercise based on the 12-bar structure is a good start for improvising in jazz since it's few chord changes and they are relatively easy to catch.
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More backing tracks for piano.