How to Build Better Solos on Jazz Standards ft. Kellin Hanas
- Jazz Lesson Videos
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Bebop is full of fast moving and sometimes complicated harmonies, and it demands a strong command of your instrument. Today, we’re going to look at some material from Kellin Hanas’ new resource with JLV, titled 25 Jazz Standard Etudes, which covers how she improvises over 25 different jazz standards, including the concepts we talk about today and more!
So what’re we waiting for? Let’s get playing!
Contents
Solo arcs
You’ve probably heard that soloing and improvising is kind of like telling a story. Do you remember being in middle school English class and learning about the story arc of a book, what makes a good book, and what keeps a reader on their toes? Maybe you've read a book where the story starts with the character in their hometown, having a good time, and then all of a sudden they go on this crazy adventure—and everything resolves in the end, right? That in itself is a story arc. Or maybe the book starts off with the main character in trouble, and then it goes through the whole storyline and shows how they got there. That’s a different story arc, and you can have many different story arcs with your solos.
The best way to start is with generic, basic story arcs, which start low intensity, eventually get all the way up to its peak, and then before the solo ends, return all the way back to its baseline. It's important to have a solo arc because it keeps your audience engaged, and also it's important to have a cohesive beginning, middle, and end to your solo. After all, what’s a story without a beginning, middle, and end? It makes it more interesting and ties our story up in a little bow.
So what do we have in our improvisational toolbox to help us build a solo arc? Well, we can use things like rhythm, harmony, speed, articulation, dynamics, and range. You can use all of these things to convey low and high energy in your solo.
If we're talking about rhythm, using simpler rhythms—quarter notes, whole notes, and less syncopated rhythms—might help you convey a lower energy, whereas shorter notes—eighth or sixteenth notes, or more syncopated and complex rhythms—will help you indicate a higher energy going on in your solo. Here's an example of some low energy rhythms.
Here's an example of some higher energy rhythms.
We can also use harmony to indicate a lower or a higher intensity in our solos. For example, if you want to have a lower intensity, you might play more diatonically, more in the key center.
If you wanted to increase the intensity, you might play a little bit outside of the changes, which we'll talk about in a second.
As far as dynamics go, you can use a lower dynamic or a softer dynamic to indicate a lower intensity. So playing softer is going to feel lower intensity, and playing louder is going to mean higher intensity. The stronger that you articulate a note, the higher intensity that note will be, and the less articulation you give it, the lower intensity.
You can also use the full range of your instrument note-wise to show where you are in your solo. Lower notes indicate a lower intensity, and higher up in your range can really help you get to that peak of your solo. Let’s look at this concept in one of the etudes from the book over the chord changes from “I'll Remember April,” and then we'll analyze it together.
Going back to the beginning of this etude, you can see that we utilize some of those tools that we mentioned earlier, such as dynamics and rhythm. We start off our solo with some longer rhythms. As the solo progresses, we start to use faster rhythms. But at the very beginning, we’re using things like quarter notes, half notes and even some triplets to kind of give it a slower feel, even though the tempo is fast.
So playing something like this at the beginning of our solo, it helps the solo start off with lower energy that contrasts with the rest of the etude.
As we get into the bridge of the etude, we can see that we start to use some more complex rhythms, some triplets, some more eighth notes, even some sixteenth notes. We start to increase in volume here as well.
This is the part of the etude that we can call the rising action. We started here with those half notes and quieter notes, and now we're coming up to reach the peak of our solo, which is that last A of the etude. In the last A of the etude, we use more of those tools, such as range, by increasing our range and going up a bit more. We’re still going with those eighth notes. And then by the end of the solo, we return back to that baseline. We do that by decreasing our range, decreasing our volume, and giving the solo a very clear ending, saying, “this is the end of the book.”
After you get this resource and you check out the etudes and how it's done in there, you can start making your own solo arcs. Try using these three story arc shapes: low to high, high to low, high-low-high.
Motivic Development
The second concept we’ll look at today is motivic development. This is also something that you can add in to create a solo arc, but it's big enough to be its own category. Motivic development starts with a motif—a small recognizable musical idea. Often this is at the beginning of your solo, but it can be anywhere in your solo. It's a short idea that you really like and want to develop a little bit. It’s something that gives the rest of your solo context.
There are many different ways that you can develop a motif. One of the most common and easiest ways is just repetition. If you have an idea that you like, play it again and again and again. This can also help you build momentum in your solo and get to that peak of the solo arc that we were talking about earlier. Other than repetition, you can use other concepts, such as displacing the rhythms, changing the notes around, extending an idea or shortening it, and you can also use this original motif to transition yourself into other motifs and other ideas.
A good way to practice this, try to remember the motif that you played and bring it back in the middle and end of your tune. This helps your memory, and it also helps bring intentionality and cohesion to your solo.
Now let’s look at this concept over a blues that's included in the resource.
At the start of the etude, we already have a motivic idea that we want to develop, and it starts like this:
Then we play it again, but slightly differently.
Then we play it again. And from measure three into measure four of the etude, we play it again, but this time we add some more notes to the motif and build off of that initial idea.
So here's the full development of that idea in context.
At the end of that fifth measure, that final phrase, we played part of the motif again, but this time we adjusted the harmony to match the chords that were with it. You can see that later within the same chorus, we have another motivic idea that we developed, and it goes like this.
It's important to have motivic ideas in your playing, because when you think about it, you're kind of a composer. Improvising is composing in the moment, and every single song that you've listened to has a motivic idea that's like the main melody, which gets stuck in your head, right?
So if we're composing on the spot, we want our improvisation to be like a song and have a catchy melody, and thinking motivically is going to do that.
You can also see at the end of the first chorus, we have another motivic idea that we use.
Substitutions
The third concept that we’ll look at today is substitutions. Chord substitutions are really helpful in creating tension in our solos, and they're very helpful in getting you to think about the changes in a different way and maybe feel a little bit less restricted.
The first kind of substitution that we're going to talk about is a diatonic substitution. Diatonic substitutions are when you take a chord that belongs to the same diatonic scale and you insert it or imply its sound over the chord changes.
For example, we can use this over the bridge of Rhythm changes. The entire bridge of Rhythm changes is just a bunch of V dominant chords.
The first two bars for trumpets is E7—something you can do is insert the ii of that key. So for example, if E is V of A, the ii would be Bm7, and we would insert that in the first bar of the bridge of Rhythm changes.
Now instead of just thinking about blowing over E7 for two bars, we can imply the sound of Bm first. And that gives us more colors to work with, and lets us feel less restricted.
So here's the bridge of Rhythm changes without any substitutions.
Here's the bridge of Rhythm changes with those diatonic substitutions, kind of creating a little ii-V in there.
Even though it's all within the same key center, it just gives it a slightly different color.
Another kind of substitution that's non-diatonic that you can use is something called a tritone substitution. This really helps create tension in our solos as well.
A tritone substitution is when you have a dominant chord and you imply the sound of another dominant chord that's either three whole steps above or below the original dominant chord.
Here's what the last four bars of a Rhythm changes bridge would sound like without a tritone substitution.
Here's the last four bars of the bridge of Rhythm changes from the resource that includes that tritone substitution sound.
If you've ever heard the term “playing out” this is a great way to start. Even though the notes are a little bit out of the key center, it doesn't matter, because it all ends up resolving to that third in that C7 chord.
Passing tones and enclosures
The final concept we’ll look at today are passing tones and enclosures. You can think about passing tones as a bridge of notes that helps you get from one chord tone to the next.
Without passing tones, our solos would kind of sound boring. We'd be using a lot of chord tones, and there wouldn't be a lot of chromaticism. There wouldn't be a lot of different colors within the solo. Here's a ii-V-I in concert Bb without using passing tones.
So now let’s play that same ii-V-I, but this time using passing tones. Look at the transcription of what we’re playing and see if you can spot which notes are the passing tones.
When they say that there are no wrong notes in jazz, it's kind of true. It just depends on what context you use those notes in and how you get yourself to the next chord tone.
Enclosures are a great way to approach a target note, which is usually a chord tone, either from above or below. So for example, here's our target note: G.
Here's an enclosure on it.
We played the Ab right above it, went down to the F# right below it and then landed on the target note.
You can also play it backwards.
You can also extend that enclosure.
There are many different ways that you can do enclosures. Here's an example of an enclosure on a ii-V-I lick.
Here's another example from the resource 25 Jazz Standard Etudes that includes a lot of different passing tones and enclosures.
That’s all for today, hope that you were able to get some great tips! If you want to dive even deeper in these concepts, be sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video How to Build Better Solos on Jazz Standards ft. Kellin Hanas, along with our resource 25 Jazz Standard Etudes.
See you next time!
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