Lesson 148: I Hear A Rhapsody Etude w Explanation

Etudes are a great way to work on new material, vocabulary, phrasing and a whole host of positive musical skills. Here's a one chorus etude I wrote for Bari player Andrea Edwards who is earning her Bachler's in jazz at KU. She can actually play the etude faster than I can but here's my version of the chorus at 220 bpm. There are several cliché ideas as well as scale concepts (diminished, harmonic minor, altered) and triad pairs, spread triads, pentatonics, sequences and some harmonic substitutions.
There is a pdf is below along with the video of me playing it and several play alongs you can use to sing the etude and get it into your ear. I spent many hours working on the etude but wrote it in real time during our lessons. Each week we added another 8 bars or so.
~ Enjoy!

[@andrewlong2272]

What does “the melody is the harmony” look like for you if you’re playing something a little out? Do you frame all notes in relation to the harmony even if you’re picking them for non-harmonic reasons?

[@MattOttoJazz]

Andrew, that's a great question... I can only speak to my experience and way of improvising... for me, it really does depends on the underlying concept of the melodic phrase that is "outside" the chord of the moment. If I'm playing a melody in another key, implying some sort of poly tonality (maybe a harmolodic approach) the melody is still the harmony in that the melodic phrase implies that specific outside harmony (but not necessarily the harmony of the song at that point in the harmonic rhythm). If I'm playing something from a chromatic triad concept (Garzone approach) the melody is still implying those triads although not a specific static harmony. If I play free shapes, rhythms and sounds in an atonal fashion then, in that case, the melody, if you can even call it melody, is closer to random sounds. I usually consider that last concept to be playing "free" meaning there is no intentional implied harmonic structure...hopefully this long winded response does not open a can or worms! :)

[@andrewlong2272]

@@MattOttoJazzI think your answer confirmed what I was thinking, no need for worms. Thanks.