16th Note Improvisation – “Sassy” Transcription
Welcome to part 2 of this transcription tutorial on the tune “Sassy” by Wynton Kelly.
In the last lesson we talked about the importance of transcribing from your favourite players and playing along with the recordings to develop your sense of swing. Playing along with swingin’ records is the best way to improve your swing feel and imitate the sounds of the masters of jazz.
In this lesson we will play the first 12 bars of Wynton’s solo that we covered in the last lesson, and also move onto the next 24 bars of his solo which contains some more complex improvised material.
Swing 8th-Notes, Triplets, & 16th-Notes
Previously in this course we have just explored improvisation exercises using swing 8th-notes and triplets. In this part of the solo, we explore Wynton’s use of 16th-note lines.
This incorporates the theory that we have studied previously in this course, in particular using chromaticism in your improvised lines We explore Wynton’s use of chromaticism in his 16th note runs.
Motif Development
We will also analyse some interesting examples of motif development. This is a core part of improvisation and will add more structure and coherency to the lines and ideas that you are playing.
Stating, repeating, and developing motifs will help you tell a story and set a narrative in your improvised solos.
Lesson Downloads
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Jazz Blues Voicings File Type: pdf
Related Lessons
You can use the specific bassline demonstrated for playing solo piano, learning different blues heads, and for practising improvised solos.
Using the tune “Georgia” – we will also explore the concept of the major blues scale and how to apply this to major 251 progressions.
The altered contains every possible altered chord tone and is a great scale choice to improvise over altered dominant chords.
Practice Tips
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Playing along with the recordings that you like the sound of is one of the most effective ways to develop your jazz feel.
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The first step is to transcribe the notes that you are hearing on the recording and then work out the rhythmic placement of the notes.
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At this point you can start to play along with the record and try to get it as close as possible to the original recording.
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Once you are feeling more comfortable with this, you can then try to play the solo with the iRealPro App with voicings in your left hand.
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Add notes into the lines, take notes out, change the rhythmic placement, change the point of resolution etc...
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Use the ideas as a springboard to develop your own improvised material.
I’m still a little confused about transcribing. When you transcribe, do you go over and over a short section, then write it out using Musicscore or similar software? Or do you memorize a little bit at a time?