Jazz Writing

12.2.Jazz

Jazz can be fairly difficult to write for, especially if you want to go into experimental jazz which I’m not because in there lies madness. Jazz is usually built on instruments playing a simple phrase and then having another instrument. However it is recommended you not play the same idea more than once, depending on the type of Jazz you are aiming to play

For Jazz I would recommend using woodwind instruments and instead of a bass guitar have a double bass because tone is just so much nicer than a bass guitar.

Your best bet with writing a jazz piece is to have accompaniment playing something in the background (be it funky or a depressing parts) and have everyone play that idea, once you have played it then have solo instruments on top. The solo instruments usually are trombone, guitar, saxophone or drums

For chord ideas you can used diminished chords on a regular basis, 7th’s, 9th’s, 6th’s, 6 & 9th’s, 11th’s, 7th’s with flatten 5th’s and finally 9th’s with flattened 5ths. However with Jazz guitar chords there is so much flexibility that the choices are endless

For jazz drumming is a bit more difficult as it depends on the mood you are trying to set. For a funkier piece consider reading up on this but I warn you Jazz drumming is probably the hardest drumming type and I would not recommend a beginner starting there. However if you are going for something maybe moodier or classier then learn to love the high hat pedal and double tapping the high hat and playing quietly. These are very common features of basic jazz drumming but I strongly advise new writers to not write for jazz drumming at all as it’s the hardest type as most Jazz drumming is not written out

Advance features worth reading up about are modes which are very useful for improvising which is a heavy impact on most Jazz especially for advance levels of playing where the drummer becomes the leading instrument

Artists include; Turnabout Jazz Soul, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Wes Montgomery, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and John Coltrane.

Jazz has a very wide range of topics and singers however you should take note of skat soloing where the singer usually sings off beat just skating is very common with Jazz singers. It’s very hard to explain without seeing it but just look up skat solo on youtube and you’ll see

Jazz bass is hard to write for usually because it is all improvised but arpeggios and scales are usually the key to a good bass line. Bassist usually get a solo in jazz songs so I suggest using the jazz pentatonic minor scale for this but go with the flow is the main point of jazz and improvising so try looking at other artists for this such as Scott LaFaro

Chord Writing

5.0.Chord Writing

Once you have selected the key you are going to be in you having to think about the chords you use. Chords in a key can be broken up into numbers between 1 and 8; I am going to use an example of C major. C in the key of C major is the 1st chord, D minor is the 2nd, E minor is the 3rd, F is the 4th, G is the 5th, A is the 6th and B is the 7th. It then comes back to C as the 8th which is an octave higher than the 1st C major. This same pattern of major and minor chords is the same with all major keys

For Major keys the pattern is Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished

Now the use of chords depends on what sort of mood you want to make. If you want to make the piece sound a bit more depressing but remain in the major key then consider using minor chords while if you want to have a more perky piece consider using major chords.

There are loads of different chords as a chord is two or more notes put together and there so many endless combinations of chords, what is played in the bass and what key the section is in. However I will give you some suggestions that I use in my music writing style however you are free to research your own chords but you have to remember what key you’re in otherwise it will sound incorrect, playing a G major when it should be a G minor can make a section have an overall incorrect feel and will also sound out of place. SO without further ado, here is the list of chords that I use

5.1.Majors and Minors (As standard chords)

7th’s, usually I do it when I am ending a section but you are free to use it at your own risk. A 7th is getting the chord, finding the 7th and adding it to the chord. For example I will sue a C major chord which has C, E and G in it, now if I were to add a 7th this would be adding a B to the chord. This method can be used on both major and minor chords

You can find a seventh by getting the bass note in the chord and by finding either the major or minor 7th. For this I would recommend using this chart which shows note intervals going up in half tones. So to find the 7th you should get your bass note, see which place it is in the key determining if it is major or minor then adding either the 10th or 11th half tone depending on if it is major or minor

0(same note)-unison

1-minor second

2-Major second

3-minor third

4-Major third

5-Perfect fourth

6-Augmented fourth/diminished fifth/"tritone"

7-Perfect fifth

8-minor sixth

9-Major sixth

10-minor seventh

11-Major seventh

12-Octave

So your chords should look like this using a C major and C minor as a diagram

5.2.Major key seventh chord chart

1 (C) Major 7

2 (D) minor 7

3 (E) minor 7

4 (F) Major 7

5 (G) Dominant 7 (aka Major minor 7)

6 (A) minor 7

7 (B) half diminished 7, aka minor 7 flat 5

5.3.Minor Key Chart

1 (C) minor 7

2 (D) half diminished 7 aka minor 7 flat 5

3 (Eb) Major 7

4 (F) minor 7

5 (G) minor 7. This chord is also commonly Dominant 7 (aka Major minor 7), especially when the next chord is 1 (c minor)

6 (Eb) Major 7

7 (Bb) Dominant 7 (aka Major minor 7)

Sus 2’s and sus 4’s. These chords instead of playing the 3rd you will play a second or fourth in the chord. I will show you an example; in D major you play a D, F# and A note, now in a D sus 2 you will play a; D, E, A note. While a D sus 4 you will play a D, G, A notes. As you can see the F# is the removed from both chords and the F# is the 3rd and has been replaced with a major 2nd or a perfect 4th. A useful technique I have discovered is to play a sus chord then resolve it to the regular chord especially when ending a phrase as it sounds really nice. Please do note that sus 2nds won’t be completely tonal when used as a three chord but they can still make your composition sound more interesting

The final chord I use quite regularly is the minor 6ths. A minor sixth is done on a minor chord I find best in a major key. A 6th is a chord that instead of having a 5th has a 6th instead. For example I will use a C major chord; a usual C major chord is C, E and G note in the chord while a 6th has C, E and A note in the chord. Now this same logic applies to a minor chord but I just used a C major chord for easy of example sake

I do encourage you to experiment with the chords though, these are not all the chords I use and they should not be the same chords that you use

Reading Music

2.0.Reading Sheet Music

Music is played via notes, common western music has is diatonic and thus uses set notes, this stops the piece sounding atonal and really from sounding terrible.

An example of these diatonic notes is the C note. A C note is largely considered the starting note on most musical instruments and throughout this post I will use the C note in examples. A C note is a C because when you say the note at the correct pitch it sounds like a C due to the mouth position you have to make. It is a set a frequency’s which indicate a pitch of a note and this is the same for all notes

Now western notes are broken up by half tones and whole tones. A whole tone is the difference between one named note (bar the E to F note) and another while a half tone is the difference between the note being sharpened or flattened. For example a C major scale starts of on C because that is the scale now a diatonic scale in C major goes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C which is a full octave. This logic applies to all scales such as G major which goes G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. 

Notice that the F is now sharpened, in every key apart from A minor, C Major and atonal keys a key has sharps and flats, your best bet is to research how many sharps and flats a key has because it can change the entire sound of the chord with different sharps and flats. However between the F# and a G is a half tone difference which if the F was double sharpened it would become a G note.

These are the list of notes ascending in half notes and these will be used throughout so make sure you remember these:

•          C (or B#)

•          C# or Db

•          D

•          D# or Eb

•          E (or Fb)

•          F (or E#)

•          F# or Gb

•          G

•          G# or Ab

•          A

•          A# or Bb

•          B (or Cb)

•          C (or B#)

I have write out the entire scale for each key. If you look at the scales I have written out you can see that a scale gains more sharps and flats as you modulate further. This can be shown on a piano via the piano notes, see the picture below

2.1.On a Piano

This looks like this on sheet music in treble clef

2.2.Piano Notes to Sheet Music

For your right hand read the top line, for your left hand read the bottom line. However female singers can use the top line and male singers can use the bottom line

You’ll find that most instruments that are not guitar, bass or drums can and will use these charts because it’s the concert pitch

Which, translates to this on a guitar

2.3.Note Reading on a Guitar

With guitar players I suggest learning how to read tablature as it is easier and most music with guitars have got tablature notation for it.

For bass parts reading is the same as reading guitar parts except lower and with only 4 strings. This can be seen as in this diagram

2.4.Reading Bass Sheet Music

Drum reading is a bit different though. Since drums do not play the melody and add backing to the rhythm, melody and singer they have no true pitch. Reading for conventional western music is different as each notation displays a part of the drum kit itself instead of a pitched note. His looks a little something like this

2.5.Drum music reading

Some other musicians write in different ways and for speciality parts of a kit (such as a percussion) but this is usually stated within the bars, phrase or section

However understand why and working out keys is not necessary to making songs so for the time being I will not write up about this