Probably because I’ve been an improvising musician for so many years, every time I discover a new melodic idea that I like (and get it well into my ears), I’m compelled to put it into all 12 keys.

To me, I don’t even begin to “know” the new melodic idea until it’s been expressed and explored in all keys. (This is just a starting point of course, but it is a rather essential one.)

And it is indeed a great habit to cultivate in your practice (whether you improvise or not!). Doing so helps with so many basic musical and cognitive skills.

But I discovered some years ago, that I was taking this idea too far, at the expense of limiting my growth in another area.

In particular: going deeply into each key, one key at a time.

I recently watched a video of a wonderful masterclass given by tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm. (I would say that Joel is, arguably, one of the great living masters of jazz improvisation pedagogy, especially where “language” is concerned.)

This superb musician gave lots of valuable advice and information, but one thing he said really stuck with me, because it is something I had finally discovered myself some years back that significantly improved my practice process and routine.

He said, essentially (I’m paraphrasing here),  in response to one of the masterclass participants questions:

“Whichever key makes you feel most afraid, most insecure…spend lots of time each day living  in that  key.”

That thing he said, “living in it”, rings so true to me.

By allowing myself to patiently explore, to be wrong, to struggle, to be confused, to be stuck, to dig deeper and reach further in one single key, I also allow myself to come out the other side of this “darkness” with tangible assets: better ears, better technique, richer melodic imagination and greater possibilities for melodic invention in all the other keys.

Yes, in all the other keys! By going deep into one key, by really living in it, day after day, week after week, you’ll find that your ability to hear/think/imagine/execute ideas in all other keys becomes more acute and readily avilable to you.

Now, if you don’t want to plunge straight away into the key that “makes you feel the most afraid”, you can also try a different approach:

Which key are you most  comfortable in? Whichever that key is, test yourself to see how easily you can “think” in it, and if you’re pleased with your abilities in that key, move on to the key that follows it in the circle.

So let’s say for example that C major is your most comfortable key. See if you can do everything in the key of F as easily as you can in the key of C.

If you can’t,  you’ve found your staring point. Commit to “living” in F major for a long enough time that you can just as easily think/hear/imagine/execute the things you can in C major.

If you can  do everything in F major as easily as you can in C major, move on to the key of Bb and do the same, and so on, until you find the key that makes you pause a bit to work things out. That’s your starting point. Live in that key for a good long time.

After the weeks of practice pass that enable you to have the same mastery in this key, move on to the next key in circle. You’ll find that it’s not very difficult to bring yourself to the same level of mastery as the previous key.

You’ll also find that each key takes just a bit less time than the key before to gain the mastery you had in your starting key.

And bear in mind that, even if you are super comfortable in one key, it doesn’t mean you’ve even come close to “mastering” that key. You could spend months just exploring the key of C major, finding things that challenge your ears and your technique.

(Take a look at the example I put up at the top of this blog post. Can you easily play this pattern by memory, throughout the entire range of your instrument? Can you sing it? If not, maybe you haven’t completely “mastered” the key of C major.)

So what should you be able to do in any particular key to “master” it?

I don’t know, and I also don’t think there’s a definitive answer for this question. It’s entirely up to you.

But here are some basic skills/activities that I do  think all improvising musicians should be able to easily carry out in any particular key in order to approach mastery:

• Playing the scale from each degree all the way through the entire range of your instrument.
• Playing the scale in thirds, both ascending and descending, throughout the entire range of your instrument.
• Playing the scale organized into secondary triads (triads formed from each degree of the scale), as well as secondary seventh chords (formed from each degree of the scale), all throughout the entire range of your instrument. Played in all inversions, of course.
• Playing chromatic enclosures of each degree of the scale, that is, the upper and lower neighbor tones enclosing each note. (e.g., Db to B natural to C; Eb to Db to D natural; F to Eb to E natural, etc., on each degree of the scale, throughout the entire range of your instrument). I would also say you should be able to play each triad if the scale in “enclosure form”.
• Playing simple diatonic melodies by ear: folk songs, children’s songs, classical music themes, jazz “standards” that don’t modulate or use chromatics (If I loved You, by Richard Rodgers comes to mind here).
• Playing standards by ear that do modulate and/or have chromatics (e.g., Night and Day, by Cole Porter).
• Improvising over ii-V7-I, applying any or all particular tonal alterations (diminished scales, augmented scales, particular substitutions, etc.)
• Improvising over altered chord sequences that begin/end in your key (like the Coltrane Matrix).
• Improvising freely, purposefully and melodically (in and/or out of time) diatonically (no passing tones).
• Improvisng freely, purposefully and melodically (again, in and/or out of time) using chromatics and non-scalar passing tones.
• Exploration/mastery of melodic shapes. This is where you could go endlessly, if you like, finding more and more possibilities in interesting and beautiful melodic movement. (The excellent book, Bach Shapes, by Jon DeLucia, demonstrates just how much beauty can be found in one key.)

Sound like a lot?

It is indeed.

But you have lots of time. You have weeks, months, years if need be. No hurry. It’s a journey as much as it is a destination (perhaps more so!) Keep in mind that the work gets easier each day, because you’re revisiting the same key. You’ll build upon this. And most important, you’ll sense tangible, measurable gains in your improvising skills as you stay with this process.

Just go deep into one key. Like Joel Frahm encourages, “live in it”.

And when you make this kind of deep practice part of your daily routine, also make sure you’re still spending some time each day putting things into all 12 keys (again, still an important daily skill for you to cultivate!) You might just find that this, too,  becomes easier and easier to do as time goes by. Happy practicing!