How to Get Better at Voice Leading in Jazz Improvisation

[00:00] I still remember when I didn't know what voice leading was or why it mattered.

[00:29] Here's what improvising sounds like when you're hitting all the right notes but you're not voice leading.

[00:50] Now here's an example of improvisation using voice leading.

[01:13] Pretty significant difference. The verse one sounded sort of haphazard like a robot plucking at whatever cortones come to mind. So what is voice leading and how do we practice it into our jazz improvisation?

[01:27] That's what we're going to talk about in today's video. Everything we're about to go through can be found in our PDF resource here at Jazz Lesson Videos entitled The Voice Leading Workbook written by Channel B. In it you'll find voice leading strengthening workouts through 20 different jazz standards.

[01:42] In it comes with backing tracks for all of the teamers. I find this workbook to be a great method to bridge the gap of getting fundamentally melodic lines into your jazz improvisation. I'm going to walk you through how to make the most of it.

[01:54] If you'd like to download the voice leading workbook you can find the link in the description below and use code lead5 for $5 on it. Alright so let's get into it first. What is voice leading?

[02:06] Fundamentally it's when you go from one cortone of a harmony and travel to a cortone of the next harmony with a small interval. Everything directly on the strong beat of the new harmony. Most of the time this small interval is going to be a whole step interval or less.

[02:30] The smaller the interval that connects our cortones the better. Oftentimes two chords will even share the same pitch as one of their cortones. In these cases you don't even need to travel an interval to connect these chords.

[02:48] This can be a great anchor to form melodies around. In fact any instance of good voice leading can serve as the basis of your melodies.

[03:01] As you can hear having good voice leading as the framework

[03:31] of your lines gives your phrases a stronger sense of direction and it allows you to play linear horizontal lines while convincingly nailing the chord changes. Great so let's take all this a step further.

[03:45] No matter what note you're on at any given moment even if it's a non-cortone. You are always a small interval away from a cortone. As long as you're targeting a cortone on a strong beat it's the small interval that got

[03:59] you there that considers this good voice leading. We can take advantage of this to create even better melodies. I'll show you how. Let's take a look at page three of the voice leading workbook showing us a voice leading framework over the tune all the things you are.

[04:12] If you take a look at every note on beat one we are purposely landing on a cortone every single time.

[04:30] Then if you take a look at one eighth note before each of these strong beats then observe the interval in between you'll see that there is nothing more than a minor third. These are all instances of great voice leading and to observe an even deeper layer take a

[04:44] look at both of the eighth notes on each measure's beat for. All of them are either two note enclosures or they are two approach notes.

[05:14] Let's take a look at all of the eighth notes on beat one we are purposely landing on a cortone every single one we are purposely landing on a cortone every single time.

[05:44] Now the fun part and also the part that gets you better is creating a convincing melody in between these notes of the framework.

[06:03] Let's just go one measure at a time starting from this F minor 7 to B flat dominant 7. We need to fill up these notes. Cool so one of the things you might notice as you improvise melodies to fill in the middle of each measure is that not everything is going to sound good.

[06:21] I'll show you some examples. Not my cup of tea.

[06:36] Not my cup of tea either. You'll have to really keep engaging your brain till you discover something that sounds great. Ah, there's a good example.

[06:48] Something nice to keep in mind is that there is always another great melody just waiting to be discovered. Here's another I found. Nice. How about one more?

[07:04] Awesome. To make the most of what this workbook was intended for once you find a melody that you're satisfied with go ahead and write it in.

[07:16] Then work on the next measure. Here's the next framework we'll need to fill in. Okay, let's explore.

[07:28] Before moving on, let's make sure it actually sounds good in context with everything we wrote before it. Oh, that actually sounds pretty bad in context.

[07:42] This interval leap had nothing to do with anything. Let's keep shedding till we find something satisfying. Oh, I like this one so far. How does it sound in context?

[08:00] Ah, yes. Much better. We're ready to move on. Let's hear this E-flat 7 measure. Okay, what can we find here?

[08:15] Nice. Let's play it in context. Amazing. So I went ahead and continued this process myself to I generated an entire A2 using this framework in mind.

[08:30] Something that's pretty important to keep in mind is that practicing is the same thing as problem solving. If you're sounding great on something all the time, it's fun to play but you're not getting better at anything. You're not solving any problems. But with the workbook like this, it's going to force you to figure out solutions to making nice sounding lines within these parameters.

[08:51] It's not going to be easy, especially at first, but the more you do it, the faster and easier it becomes. And after a while, you won't even need to write things out. And you'll know how to voiceless your own phrases. Imagine if you solved one A2 today from this voiceless workbook, how much will your brain have changed by day 20?

[09:09] How much improvement would you see in your improvisation then? Questions to really consider. Anyway, to end this video off, let's see what this A2 and I came up with ended up sounding like.

[10:09] Awesome. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot making that. It was a lot of stimulation for my brain.

[10:24] In my experience, every time I go through some brain intensive jazz improvisation based workout like this, I really notice the results the next day. The best way to tell is to improvise over a tune you already feel sort of familiar with.

[10:36] And just see, does it feel more free? Does it feel like some reason you're able to just reach more things? If so, this process is working. Well, everyone, that concludes today's video. I hope this video helped. And again, if you're interested in the voice-leading workbook, don't forget you can use the code lead5 for $5 off.

[10:53] Thank you all so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a like and subscribe as it really helps this channel grow. I'll see you all next time.

[11:06] You