Enclosures & Chord Tone Targeting Drills
In this jazz piano improvisation lesson, we explore one of the most important concepts in bebop improvisation: enclosures and chord tones.
If your improvised lines feel disconnected from the chord changes, the issue is often not the scale you are using, but where your phrases resolve.
This lesson will show you how to use enclosures to target important chord tones including 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths so that your improvised lines connect and sync with the underlying harmony.
This lesson introduces the “bullseye” concept to help you structure your melodic lines so that the chord tones land exactly on the strong beats.
What You Will Learn in This Lesson:
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How to define and map melodic enclosures over jazz standard chord changes.
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The "Bullseye" phrasing concept to lock your melodies into the underlying harmony.
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Technical drills for executing both single note and double note enclosures.
- Strategies for creating forward motion and anticipation in your improvised melodies.
What Are Enclosures in Jazz Improvisation?
Enclosures are melodic approach patterns that surround a target note from above and below before resolving into it. In jazz improvisation, the target note is usually a core chord tone, such as the 3rd, 5th, or 7th of the chord.
Targeting chord tones using enclosures creates a strong sense of resolution and helps your improvised lines sound deeply connected to the underlying harmony, rather than simply floating aimlessly over the chord changes.
The Bullseye Concept: Targeting Chord Tones
The bullseye concept is a highly effective, visual way to understand jazz phrasing. Think of your target note as the centre of the bullseye, and the enclosure as the guide that draws your line directly into that note.
In classic bebop language, chord tones typically land on strong beats, especially beats 1 and 3. Conversely, non-chord tones, chromatic approach notes, and passing tones usually fall on the weaker parts of the beat, such as the “and” of each beat.
By practicing these targeting drills, you will start to instinctively feel how great jazz lines are anchored around clear resolution points.
Single Note Enclosure Drill – Autumn Leaves
The first drill focuses on single note enclosures. These approach the target chord tone using just one note above and one note below before resolving cleanly into the target.
Example: When targeting the 3rd of C-7, the enclosure surrounds the note E♭ from a half step above and a half step below before landing squarely on the chord tone. The single note enclosure starts on beat 4 of the previous bar.
We practice this drill systematically through the entire form of ‘Autumn Leaves’, targeting the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of each chord. The goal here is to clearly visualize the target chord tone first, then use the single-note enclosure to lead into them both rhythmically and melodically.
Double Note Enclosure Drill – Autumn Leaves
The second drill introduces the double note enclosure which creates a longer and more sophisticated approach pattern into each target note.
These advanced enclosures begin earlier in the previous bar —on the “and” of beat 2 —which means we anticipating the next chord over half a bar before it arrives!
This anticipation is an essential element for creating forward motion in jazz improvisation.
While double enclosures can feel mechanically difficult at first, they are uniquely powerful for training your ear, hand, and mind to aim ahead toward the next chord change or resolution point.
Creating Forward Motion in Your Solos
The primary benefits of dedicated enclosure practice is that it forces you to think ahead, visualise the form, and anticipate the chord changes. Instead of reactively playing a chord only when it arrives, you begin preparing for the chord changes and resolution points well in advance.
This shift gives your improvised lines a much stronger sense of direction, purpose, and momentum. You are no longer simply playing static notes over a chord; you are actively playing into each chord changes.
Practicing Enclosures with Autumn Leaves
‘Autumn Leaves’ serves as the perfect training ground for practicing enclosures because its harmony is repetitive and built out of standard major and minor 2-5-1 movements.
In this lesson, the enclosure drills are applied over the full form of Autumn Leaves, starting first without a backing track and then with the backing track at 120BPM.
You can find the 120BPM backing in the download section, and it’s highly recommended to download the “Quartet Backing Track app” which gives you more control over the speed and repeats.
Combining Enclosures with Strategic Space
While these foundational drills require you to practice enclosures on every single chord change, authentic jazz improvisation demands space to allow our melodies to breathe.
At this stage, these exercises sound very much like a drill and lack the personality of a true improvised solo. Later in this course, these core enclosure shapes will be integrated with arpeggios, resolution phrases, and rests, to construct natural, breathing jazz solos.
The primary purpose of this lesson is to build the targeting system, ensuring your resolution points become clear, confident, and intentional. Don’t underestimate the importance of these drills – they are critical and foundational components for everything that we study in the next lessons.
Practice Tips
Start by targeting the 3rds: Practice enclosing the 3rd of each chord first, as this specific chord tone most strongly defines the underlying movement in the harmony.
Count out loud as you practice: Always know exactly where your enclosure starts rhythmically. Single note enclosures begin on beat 4 of the previous bar, whereas double enclosures start on the & of 2 of the previous bar.
Isolate without the backing track first: Before introducing tempo pressure, slowly visualize each target chord tone and its surrounding approach notes manually.
Move enclosures into different registers: Avoid playing patterns in only one area of the keyboard. Practice across higher and lower registers so you can comfortably spot chord tones across the entire piano keyboard.
When I play the enclosures in this and the next lesson, why don’t I flat the E an the B? For my beginner ears, it sounds a little off by not doing so. Thanks.
Hi John,
I’m not sure that I understand your question.
When creating an enclosure, we simply play the adjacent notes of the target chord tone.
For the basic single note enclosure, if the target chord tone is the 3rd of C-7 (the note Eb) then we would play E natural to D and then resolve into the 3rd of C-7 (Eb). The ‘formula’ is a half step above, a half step below, and then resolve into the target chord tone (whether that’s the root, 3rd, 5th, of 7th of the chord).
Most often, this creates tension as the adjacent notes to the chord tone are not part of the underlying harmony. In this case the E natural is very dissonant over C-7, because it’s the major 3rd.
This might be the ‘off sound’ that you are referring to, but after playing these dissonant notes, we then quickly follow with a strong sense of resolution and release when we land into the desired chord tone on the strong beat.
It’s exactly this tension and release that we are trying to achieve here.
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When you say “flat the E and the B” which chord or chords are you referring to? That might help me to better understand your question.
I’m happy to help further if needed.
Cheers,
Hayden
My question was poorly worded – sorry – but you answered the question I meant to ask. Instead of an E, I was playing an F to avoid the tension when enclosing the E flat. I get it now – E. Thanks. By the way, these lessons on improvising are giving me more confidence to add fills-flourishes here and there when I am just playing through the lead sheet and that is a lot of fun. Liberating. Thank you.
No problem, John.
To reply to your point, you could play F then D to target the note Eb. That works fine too and actually we find that in a lot of improvised lines. For that you would start on beat 4 of the previous bar. I’ve made a note to explain that in some of the next lessons as I didn’t specifically mention it here. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
On a related note (excuse the pun):
If we think of the double enclosure into the note Eb, we have the notes Db to D to F to E to D and finally landing on our target note Eb. That enclosure does contain the note F and it starts on the ‘& of 2’ of the previous bar . We could also play a smaller 3-note fragment of that double enclosure for example: F to E to D and then landing on Eb, and that would start on the ‘& of 3’ of the previous bar.
If we take out the E natural, we than have your version which is F to D landing on Eb. As mentioned we would start that on the 4 of the previous bar.
All of these options are fine. The most important thing – for now at least – is that we are resolving purposefully into a chord tone on the strong beats. In a later lesson I will cover ‘delayed resolutions’ where we purposefully land on a dissonant tone on beat 1 and then into a chord tone on beat 3. That’s very common too and creates a nice effect.
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Another reason why I started this course with single note enclosure is that they are very easy to visualise. For example when we include the note F in our approach into the 3rd of C-7, that requires a diatonic awareness in the sense that we must know that F is the 4th or 11th degree of the C minor scale.
Whereas if we simply think a half step above and a half step below the target chord tone, then we don’t need to think diatonically or scale wise, and instead we just focus on identifying, visualising, and targeting the chord tones – which is perhaps the most important skill of all.
The chord tones are the glue that holds everything together (unless we are playing Free Jazz that is) and so I really wanted to start this course with the most elementary and accessible drills that will help students to visualise the chord tones from a melodic standpoint.
My improvisation has gotten a lot better since planning out and preparing this course, and I’m positive anyone studying it will get the same results.
Finally, that’s wonderful to hear that you are adding little improvised flourishes here and there – congratulations on your progress my friend. It’s a fun place to be! Take it nice and slowly in identifying and approaching each chord tone, and be diligent with these drills and I guarantee that it will open doors in your improvisational abilities.
I’m also hosting a seminar on “Beautiful Love” this month, and we’ll dive into similar drills for that tune. You can add to your calendar here: https://www.pianogroove.com/live-seminars/beautiful-love-improvisation-workshop/
Keep me posted on your progress and talk soon!
Cheers,
Hayden