Motivic Development - Fragmentation

This is another motivic development technique - FRAGMENTATION.
Before watching it please check out the previous videos in the motivic development series playlist. They all build one on top of each other:
• Master Motivic Develop...
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"Ruslan Sirota is a Grammy award winning pianist and composer residing in Los Angeles.
Ruslan was born un Ukraine and immigrated to Israel with his family in the early 90s. In 1999 he moved to the US to attend Berklee College of music on a full scholarship. Since Graduating, Ruslan has toured and recorded with Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Marcus Miller, Black Eyed Peas, Chick Corea, Josh Groban, George Duke, Stanley Clarke and countless others".

[@MyMusicEducation]

Your videos are easily some of the best on KZbin for improvisation. Thanks for the content.

[@thephunk1]

This is, perhaps, the most important music lesson of all time. Thank you.

[@kaiserchief9319]

After three years with the worst music teacher, I finally got a recent music graduate who introduced me to the idea of musical phrases and then I came across your channel. I've been pulled down by the current but I can see a glimmer of light so perhaps I may just understand how music actually works. Thanks for your explanation between music and English. I'm a language teacher and I've been desperately trying to learn music through language learning methods.

[@hernanmeza2355]

I admit that now I really improvise. Thank you.

[@philhargreaves5109]

Hello Ruslan, thank you for producing this series. Really excellent, I am just starting to implement these techniques but even with just basic lines and disciplined counting makes my improv sound much more meaningful. Like most good ideas, they are quite simple! Best wishes, Phil

[@antonellomascarello4698]

I'm speechless...this lesson is really a massive game changer to unlock improvisation and focus all the practice routine. This series about motif development is simply amazing 🙂 greetings from Italy 🇮🇹🙂

[@butterdrool991]

the fucking tastiest advanced lesson channel on youtube. Concise with a lovable host, your hair is fucking sick dude! Hopefully i can take a lesson with u one day! once im better of course!

[@edwardvivenzio5843]

Thanks Ruslan,btw,the background piano music is beautiful!

[@BlethyMusik]

This is Gold

[@rosalbapianista]

Thank U! Can you write the name of music in the end of vídeo approximately minut 4:45 ??

[@winstonmacmahon9735]

Hi Ruslan, your videos fantastic. Really really great and valuable. I've been following you for a while and just saw you on WeeklyPiano video doing a great exercise on Motivic Development Awesome lesson. And YES I want more especially that lesson #5. I've already watched the first 4 and they are terrific. Not only did it OPEN my practice and playing but how I listen to music as well. I literally understand more now why I love some of the players I love to listen to. Great lesson guys PLEASE DO MORE such great practical advice and teaching

[@ruslanpiano]

Winston MacMahon very cool!!! More shall be coming :)

[@pauloluisdemoraespereirape9484]

Sensacional!!!

[@nenga1bs]

Man please continue you are the best here i really struggle with these concepts but you made it easy digestable really , thanks for effort waiting your upcoming videos

[@ruslanpiano]

I'm very happy to hear that :) Motivic development is not a subject that very many people are interested in... it always warms my heart to see someone who care about this super-important part of improvising! I have a few more videos coming up on this subject!

[@robertphillips6605]

Awesome thanks Ruslan

[@jermaineholland7108]

Great stuff!

[@jasonsteves734]

Imma see if you have the rest! you're in god mode teaching

[@robertobraga1765]

Ruslan, thank you for another excellent video. Question: could you suggest a practice routine for motivic development techniques? For example, should I start by looping, let's say, eight bars of a tune I am familiar with, or should I use the entire chorus? Does it help to write down a motif first, in order to go back to the initial idea in case you loose focus? Cheers!

[@ruslanpiano]

Roberto Ruggiero Braga Great questions! It doesn’t matter if you loop 8 pars or a whole chorus. What matters is that you are SUPER FAMILIAR with the chord changes when you practice motivic development exercises, so that you can focus on the exercise 100%, without having to worrying about “what the next chord is” in your head. As long as you are super familiar with the chord changes you are improvising on - it doesn’t matter if you’re looping 8 bars or 32 or 64. And yes, I think it’s good to do this exercise in writing first. Like - Write down a longer motif, then create fragmentation for it and write that down too. Kind of like I had it written down during the musical examples in this video. And yes, you can practice it while having the motif written down ahead of time, in order to be able to return to it, if you lose focus. But.... Most importantly, practice the Motivic development stuff FROM THE BEGINNING. Don’t start with this video. Start with the technique called “Variation”. Then, after a while, continue to the technique called “Variation + Extension”, and only then continue to the technique I teach here - “Fragmentation”. In the description of this video you will find a link to a playlist with all of the videos that teach all these techniques I just mentioned. Go to that playlist and start from the beginning. Then gradually work your way up to the technique I teach in this video, and to the following techniques I will be teaching on this subject in the near future (there are at least 3 more motivic development techniques I’ll be teaching in this series).

[@zacharygabriel5221]

@@ruslanpiano Hi Ruslan. You mentioned there would be at least 3 more motivic development technique videos to follow Fragmentation but I can only find one of them (Displacement). Where can I find the rest? Btw these videos are excellent - so so helpful!

[@ytav_boy2820]

Beautiful!!! Well done again. Where do you get the backing tracks from ? Any suggestions on how to practice with them?

[@ruslanpiano]

Y Tavera_ I create/sequence them myself on my laptop, using midi plug-ins. They sound like crap, because it’s not real instruments but they’re good enough to use while demonstrating the exercises in my videos, and frankly, good enough to practice those exercises with, as well. There are plenty of backing tracks on KZbin, I think. How to practice with them? Well, use them to provide accompaniment for you to practice the different things you practice. If you go through my videos and see me demonstrating different exercises like play/rest, Motivic development, phrase length variation, and other exercises - I’d say take whatever exercise you see me demonstrate and repeat what I’m demonstrating. Use a backing track just the way I’m using it in the videos as a context/accompaniment in which to run the exercises. If you want to practice some other things, things I don’t teach on the channel - then pretty much do the same. As long as your exercise is supposed to be practiced “in time” and “in form”, have the backing track provide that time and form, and practice whatever exercise or thing you were going to practice while the backing track is accompanying you and providing you with time, form, chord changes etc.

[@mariomarinho6480]

Instigante! Despertou-me I AM from brasil

[@hehe-cw2sl]

Hello Ruslan . As you said we can practice fragmentation before or after the main motif . I understand everything here but where i confused is how we are devloping a motif ? Is it just a new motif that we are adding with the first motif or we are just playing with those notes which exist in the first motif ?? What are the rules basically . How we are devloping . Pls help

[@ruslanpiano]

We play the initial motif. Then we play the first fragment of that motif and add new material immediately after it. Or We play an initial motif. Then we play new material immediately leading into the first fragment of the initial motif. Same can be done with the second fragment of the initial motif.

[@edgardodedios5693]

Hi Ruslan. I thank you so much for this very enlightening discussion about motivic develpment. It sure took away some grey areas in my mind regarding jazz improv. I have a question if its ok with you. As a beginning jazz player, i always find my fingers landing on the wrong notes (or shall I say not so good notes) when I improvise. For example if Im playing over F7 (blues in F), I tend to play E natural rather than Eb. I can actually sing the line that I want to play but I cannot instantly play that same line on my guitar. (I dont have perfect pitch too). What do you think is my problem and what is needed? (Sorry, I feel like a helpless patient consulting a doctor, haha) But, I am already grateful for all the wonderful videos you have done. More power to you.

[@ruslanpiano]

Edgardo de Dios There is no problem my friend. It’s lack of experience and lack of mastery. Only practicing and playing will fix this. When you are a beginner driver and you make bad u-turns - it doesn’t mean you have a problem. You are just a BEGINNER DRIVER :) continue driving your car everyday and make 2 u-turns everyday. And in 9 months it will get a little better. And in 2 years it will get much much better. And in 4 years you will be able to drive a car, eat a hamburger and talk on the phone all at the same time :)

[@edgardodedios5693]

@@ruslanpiano Thank you so much. It is clear to me now. I like the analogy very much. And I appreciate your swift reply. All the best to you :D

[@l.a.s8274]

I have a question How to develop this "bar consciousness" ? More precisaly: how to develop the ability to know exactly my position in the bar without getting lost with in my improvisation ? Maybe there is no contradiction, because doing the process I can learn how to do it. Anyway, i will try this. Love this exercises ! Thank you for share you knoledge.

[@ruslanpiano]

Luiz Heringer well, if you get lost in here you are in time, you should address that before you address the content of what you improvise in time. It’s an entirely separate issue, but a much more important thing to master than ‘Motivic development’ is. Motivic development is an advanced concept. Knowing where you are in time is a fundamental that you absolutely need to address before you address anything else. It’s hard to I improvise anything good when you regularly get lost in form. Improvise on loops of 4 bars, loops of 8 bars. In time. With a play-along. Until you get comfortable knowing where you are in the form. After that you can start addressing the quality of what you are improvising in that form, and that’s where Motivic development comes in.. but that’s later. First become able to not get lost on the bars and form.

[@CristianPerezGuitar]

Thanks, Ruslan. This is really great. Question: How do you balance motivic development with vocabulary and longer lines? I can tell you have a great vocabulary, and I'm wondering how you go/went about developing it without sacrificing musical syntax.

[@ruslanpiano]

Cristian Perez Guitar Well, there are a few separate things to point out here. First - Vocabulary and syntax are two parallel elements, like technique and dynamics, for example. You don’t need to balance technique at the expense of dynamics or vice versa, because the two aren’t mutually exclusive in any way. So too with syntax and vocabulary. Think how the words “syntax” and “vocabulary” operate in the English language. Does your rich English vocabulary ever put limitations on your use of syntax in English?... or vice versa? No. So too in music. You need not balance Motivic development with vocabulary or vice versa because they never clash. As far as longer lines go, two things: 1 - continuity and Motivic development can and should be built into long lines. Keith Jarrett is a master of that. I didn’t do it here in my examples in the video, because I was trying to illustrate the ‘bare bones’ principles of the development technique. But this can most definitely be built into a long line. A long “8th notes” line that stretches over, say, 8 bars straight can start with a theme and then veer away from the theme and come back to the theme it began with, 6 bars later, without having taken a single break from continuous 8th notes. 2 - Like everything else in music, for “motivic development” to be effective, it is best to be balanced with its opposite - “through composed playing”. “Through composed” is when you just play ideas without worrying about developing them. Through composed playing is very important when juxtaposed to Motivic development. The two need to be balanced to compliment each other. And if you watch the very first video, I demonstrate it and talk about this exact point. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJDagY1opa-SpMk The reason i don’t focus a lot on “through composed” playing is because that’s how most people ALREADY PLAY ALL THE TIME, and they don’t need to be reminded of doing it. I count on that even when someone attempts to play with Motivic development, they will still have plenty of “through composed” playing in their solo, as they should, and whether they intend to or not, because it’s just the EASIER way to play. Watch the video I linked here in the comment to see what I mean about balancing the two, I do a demonstration of it in that video. All this to say that you can also use your long lines when you play “through composed”, before or after you play your “Motivic development” stuff in the solo. Since both “Motivic development” and “through composed” are needed in a solo, for the solo to feel interesting and balanced you can explore much of the long line stuff while playing through composed, if you wish. Or you can build the Motivic development stuff into the long lines. Or BOTH!

[@CristianPerezGuitar]

Thank you, Ruslan! That makes a lot of sense now. Sometimes when I play long lines (especially fast) I tend to play them too much the same way every time and it bothers me. I will try applying the exercises in the series to continuous lines and gradually go up in tempo, just to get out of some molds I create semi-unintentionally. Thank so much, again!

[@ruslanpiano]

Cristian Perez Guitar well, this gets us into a whole other territory too... “playing the same stuff every time” is a problem we all suffer from. I’m not happy with my long, fast lines either. I’m currently writing a little book with line-etudes, and assembling cool lines that I would love to feed my brain, so that my brain will use some of them later in my solos, of just to untie the muscle memory knots in my brain in general.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you :)

[@ruslanpiano]

André Pires Costa check out the other videos in the motivic development playlist, if you dig this one. I have 2-3 coming on this topic. And then - “advanced motivic development” series at some point

@@ruslanpiano ive Watch them all already, need to study more the last two. I'm just waiting for more on this serie it's the best concept i've learn for improvisation and it changes my life, thank you Ruslan you are amazing.

[@DojoOfCool]

Hope I can word this right.... Is motivic development something you're consciously thinking about doing when improvising, or is motivic development something you've worked on enough it's just part of how your improv.

[@ruslanpiano]

Toortog Pown Ideally, when you play, there shouldn’t be ANYTHING you’re consciously thinking about. Not Motivic development, not chord changes, not form, not technique. Nothing. There should just be listening and your “inner music fan” giving you the next decision and the next note and the next chord.

[@RyanSavage_Banjo]

Ruslan Sirota this is interesting, my culture ( irish trad) is completely different. A good player is constantly thinking of new and unique ornaments and variations to play every time the tune is repeated, if this isn’t done the music would sound too repetitive