The art of musical improvisation involves imagination and ability: An unfettered muse supported by the specific skills necessary to turn creative impulses into clearly expressed ideas. It is the discipline of musical composition carried out moment to moment. In real time.

Because of the “real time” demands of improvisation, it’s natural for our brains to find patterns to rely upon to simplify the task. This is both good and bad. Good because it leads to connectivity, cogency, fluidity. Bad because it can also lead to us getting stuck playing many of the same things the same way over and over again.

As I listen to many jazz improvisation students, I’m many times struck by the lack of rhythmic imagination in their improvisation. In jazz pedagogy there is, in my opinion, too often an over emphasis on pitch studies (harmony, scales, passing tones, tensions, resolutions, etc.) at the expense of rhythmic studies.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think it is absolutely essential to gain control over this vast amount of tonal material in order to improvise deeply, effectively and personally in the realm of modern jazz. (Lots to practice!)

Yet it is the energy of movement that turns pitch choices into music. That’s where time and rhythm come in. But too often I hear jazz improvisers playing the same rhythmic patterns,  the same predictable accents, with far too much of an cadential emphasis on the form of the song they’re improvising over.

When I give a first lesson to a student of improvisation, I’m listening for many things, trying to get an idea of where they’re at with their skill and conception. Whenever I hear a student that can play with a considerable amount of fluency (holds the song form and makes the changes with relative ease), but a rather limited rhythmic conception, I always ask how he or she practices the materials of the music (scales, arpeggios, intervals and other patterns).

What I usually observe as the student plays through scale, arpeggio and other exercise patterns is far too much respect to a “4/4” kind of symmetry. Everything fits nicely into the bars and ends on the downbeat. For example, secondary triads in major keys (C major here as an example) might be played as follows:

As you can see, there is a metric grouping of 4 notes emphasized by virtue of the tonal pattern. (I use accent marks here to outline the rhythmic subdivisions). There’s nothing wrong with practicing this pattern in this manner, but you must realize if you (or my student) were to do so exclusively (or even primarily), you’d be seriously limiting how you might use this intervallic movement in your improvising. Lots of emphasis on the downbeats, and lots of emphasis on the “box” of the four bar pattern.

In essence, you’d be depriving yourself the opportunity to develop your rhythmic imagination and control to its fullest. No matter how much harmonic material you get under your fingers and into your ears, you’d be missing out on so many movement possibilities.

So a very simple thing you can do in your practice to open up your rhythmic imagination is to avoid putting all your scale, arpeggio and interval patterns in these neat little boxes.

Here are three techniques you could employ to make the pattern  from above a bit more interesting and challenging while still maintaining the continuity of the line:

1. Rhythmic displacement-You can move the starting note of the pattern to different places in the bar. Here are two examples:

In the first example I displace the pattern by one half beat by starting on the upbeat of one. This kind of playing “turns the time around” so that the downbeat sounds like the upbeat. The second example has the pattern displaced by one full beat. You could go on and displace the pattern on each part of all four beats, learning to feel the movement of the pattern from many different angles.

2. Polymetric modulation-By slightly modifying the notes in the pattern you can imply different meters. (I’ve used accents to clarify.) Here is a 3/8 over 4/4 pattern:

I’ve modified the pattern above by simply omitting the fourth note (the repeated 3rd of the triad) of each group.

Below is a 5/8 over 4/4 pattern which I create by adding a fifth note to each previous group of four notes (the root of each triad):

And here’s a 7/8 over 4/4 pattern (accents on groups of 4 and 3).  This pattern is a bit more complex, but easy to understand. I simply remove the fourth note (again, the repeated 3rd of the triad) from every other previous group of four notes.:

(If you’d like to explore polymetric modulation and rhythmic displacement in a thorough, methodical way, please consider my eBooks, Essential Polymeter Studies in 4/4 for the Improvising Musician, and Rhythmic Dissonance.)

3. Rhythmic modulation-By placing a 4-note grouping in the pulse of a triplet, you can create an interesting kind of rhythmic tension:

You could also use the same kind of metric modulation to with the other modified patterns from above. There are many, many ways to vary this simple triad pattern.

And I haven’t even touched upon the possibility of adding more variety by combining rhythms (mixing eighth notes with quarters, sixteenths, using ties, rests, etc; that’s a topic for another article). As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to show you here how to play patterns with a continuous pulse.

So try some of these technique next time you practice your scales, arpeggios and intervals. (If you like to play licks and other patterns you’ve learned from transcribing solos, you could also practice them in this more rhythmically multi-dimensional way.)

Of course, you should always use a metronome to check your accuracy and control. Practice each pattern with the metronome clicking on each beat, and with the click only on beats 2 and 4 (backbeat swing feel).

And if you’d like to approach these kinds of variations and explorations in time, rhythm and meter in a more methodical, challenging and comprehensive way, you might consider my e-book, entitled Rhythmic Dissonance.

Make it your mission to find new ways to work out your melodic material in a less predictable way as you expand your tonal language.

Having the ability to call upon these rhythmic devices and learning how to “land on your feet” (always knowing where you are in the bar) will vastly improve your spontaneity and control as you improvise. If you make this a regular part of your practice you’ll really surprise yourself with how you can think and move in new ways. Imagination supported by skill.

Here’s a video performance of the late, great, Warne Marsh playing Body and Soul. Listen to how he floats and subtly shifts the cadences of the song and beautifully creates and resolves rhythmic tension against the steady pulse provided by the rest of the band. A master at work. Enjoy:

There seems to be a conflicting theme these days expressed by some veteran jazz musicians (from the widely know to the more obscure) about the current culture of young, “up and coming” artists.

On the one hand, I hear many complaints about the lack of individuality in sound and approach perceived in many of these young musicians: “They sound generic. There’s nothing that identifies them immediately in what they play. When Coltrane, Miles or Monk played,  you could tell it was them in one note.” (I’m paraphrasing here.)

On the other hand, there are complaints about a “culture of innovation” amongst younger artists  that is sometimes perceived as being overly self-conscious: “What they’re playing sounds so forced, so unnatural. It doesn’t have a strong enough connection to the tradition. It comes across as too cerebral. It doesn’t swing.” (Again, I’m paraphrasing.)

I’m not here to agree or disagree with the sentiments expressed above. Rather, I’d like to talk about this conundrum specifically. I’ll start with this rhetorical question: As an artist, is it more important to be innovative or authentic?

Both innovation and authenticity have great value in art. In the world of jazz, some of the greatest, most influential improvisers have been stunningly innovative.

Besides the three I mention above, we have Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Ornette Coleman, and Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, to name but a few. All of these artists have radically opened up the possibilities of self-expression in jazz by expanding and redefining the role and/or capabilities of their respective instruments in the act of improvisation (or in the case of Mr. Ellington, compositional and orchestral possibilities).

But we also have a wealth of artists who are less innovative, yet highly influential and highly valuable to the jazz lexicon. For example, Cannonball Adderley, Kenny Dorham and Kenny Barron, though they didn’t “expand” the boundaries of the music to the degree some others have, are strong and vital influences to the music.  (Great artists with distinctive voices on their respective instruments!)

Whether more an “innovator”, or more a “traditionalist”, or “stylist”, all great artists have one thing in common: Clear, immediate authenticity.

As Thelonious Monk said (another powerful innovator in jazz!), “A man’s a genius just for looking like himself.” I think it’s safe to say all the musicians I’ve mentioned above most certainly fall within Mr. Monk’s definition.

Which brings me to my point: Whatever you want to do as a musical artist, place authenticity first.

By allowing for authenticity (yes, allowing), you free yourself from expectations. (You have nobody to answer to but your own muse, your own impulse to make music.) You free yourself from lots of stifling judgements about your music. (It doesn’t matter how “unique” your music is, as long as it flows freely and generously from you.)

In essence, when you express yourself authentically through your music, you are in a constant state of gratitude. You accept the music that comes through you as a gift, and you share it with the world. You are open and welcoming to so much: ideas, sound, connections with other musicians, time, rhythm and more.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that the vast majority of innovators in the history of jazz weren’t trying  to be innovators. They were just working with the materials of music as they found their way to their own need for artistic expression. They were “looking like themselves” as they followed their curiosity and passion.

It’s probably impossible to consciously try to make music that is “innovative”. For music to be deemed innovative, it must, by definition, change the course of the art form, and significantly expand the vocabulary of the expressive language. It must have a measurable, lasting influence on the artists of the present and of the future. That’s huge. You can’t force that happen out of sheer will. It either does or doesn’t.

Just like the greats, all you can do is follow your curiosity and passion. If your music is innovative, it will most likely rise from  a natural and authentic curiosity. Curiosity about the materials of music, curiosity about your instrument, curiosity about yourself. And passion as the fuel for action (practice and study).

Aim for making music that is truly beautiful to you. Don’t second guess it. If it touches you, it will, without doubt, touch others. And that makes what you do so valuable. Don’t let the need for innovation steer you into making music that isn’t beautiful to you. (Likewise, don’t let the fear of unknown artistic territory keep you from surprising yourself with new musical discoveries.)

Allow the possibility that your viewpoint (tastes, ideas, values, perception, etc.) can change and grow. As I get older, my music making seems less conceptual and “cutting-edge” to me, but so much richer, more clearly conceived, more expressive and more beautiful than ever before. (It’s more me than ever before.)

Whether or not your musical expression falls well inside the mainstream, or far from it, if you hear and feel something that lights you up,  go after it. As long as it’s it’s truly yours, you’ll be glad you did.

“Who are you?” is the question that can best guide you. So take plenty of time to stay on the path of self-discovery as you cultivate your curiosity and expand your possibilities. Enjoy the beauty you create along the way.