How to Boost Your Lines with Chromatic Cells

When we talk about modern jazz technique, Michael Brecker was one of the most influential players after Coltrane. He has concepts that he took from Coltrane and developed in his own way. One of the big concepts that he used was chromatic cells, and we’re going to take a look at that today.

The best way to look at chromatic cells is as a melodic fragment that can be twisted and turned to create new lines. We’re going to look at them as separate from chord changes, really as their own device. 

But before we get going, if you want to follow along with how Ryan plays through any of the examples we talked about today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, How to Boost Your Lines with Chromatic Cells. And if you want to check out this topic in more detail, check out our course with Ryan Devlin, Modern Saxophone Techniques.

Our first cell that we’re going to look at is as simple as it gets—it’s a four-note cell, and we’ll characterize its key by the first and last notes. This cell descends from the 1 to the 7 to the b7, back to 1. 

Chromatic cell moving from 1, 7, b7, 1

We can play this in different sequences, and the best way to think of this is chromatically. We’ll start first with ascending.

Ascending chromatic cells

And then descending.

Descending chromatic cells

You can also try this in intervals of minor thirds, going up the diminished. 

Chromatic cells ascending by minor third

Or you can do this in circle of fourths.

Playing chromatic cells through circle of fourths

Being able to play this in different sequences and be flexible is very cool. 

Now, like we just mentioned, taking these chromatic cells and using them as their own harmonic device is really cool. So we’ll think about playing this over maybe rhythm changes or a blues—something you're comfortable with. As we think about playing a bunch of chromatic cells all together, we can start mixing and matching a couple of them. 

Another cell that we can practice is a minor third cell. This cell has a minor third at the beginning of it, and then it's chromatic after that. So if we start in C again, it's gonna be C, Eb, D, C. 

Minor third chromatic cell

You can practice this the same way—chromatically, fourths, minor thirds and so on.

Ascending with this minor third cell

Another one is a longer cell, or what we call a “compound cell”, which is more than one cell combined.

Creating a compound cell with more than one melodic cell

You’ll want to practice this the same way—minor third, perfect fourth, chromatically up and down, through the full range of the horn. You’ll want to be as flexible with these as possible to use them in this harmonic device concept. 

Using compound cells in ascending line

So if we think about this from an improv perspective, let's play an F Blues to keep it simple. We’re going to think about playing a bunch of these chromatic cells in a row as our concept of improvising. We’ll give context every once in a while as to where we are with our resolution tones, but we’re going to mainly play the chromatic cells. 

Use of chromatic cells on F Blues

That’s all we have for today, but if you want to dive even deeper into this, make sure to check out our course with Ryan Devlin, Modern Saxophone Techniques, which covers this and more in detail. And if you want to hear how Ryan plays through any of the examples we talked about today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, How to Boost Your Lines with Chromatic Cells.

We’ll see you next time!