Teaching

This page currently only contains my guide to improvisation, but hopefully should expand to include guides to other aspects of playing the ukulele as well as potentially tabs of staff music for some of my compositions.

Improvisation:     [ Scales | Note patterns | Rhythm | Chords | Cross strings/tapping ]

      This guide presents ideas on some useful techniques for improvisation, that is, music that is "made up" as one is playing it. This does not mean, however, that improv's simply consist of random, impulsive notes, there are structure and guidelines for improvisation.  Generally one instrument improv's while other instruments maintain the beat and chord progressions. Playing solo, the chords progressions are incorporated into the playing, but the basics are still not lost.

First, one must ascertain the key (or keys) that the improv is going to be played on. There are several techniques to do this in tricky situations, such as in the case of numerous key changes in a song, that are not covered in this guide; however, it generally is relatively obvious. Once you knows the key you  are playing in, the next step is to determine the notes to be played. One method is to simply improvise on the notes of the key, for example if the song is in Dm  then one could simply play any of the notes in the Dm scale. However, it is important to make sure that one does not play a note in the improv that doesn't work with the corresponding chords. For example if one of the chords happened to have a C in it, then it could sound quite dissonant to play a B or C# at the same time, even if it is in the scale.

Scales: Often, different scales are used for improvs. For example the pentatonic scale: I,II,III,V,VI, I (such as in the key of Cma: C,D,E,G,A,C). This scale "works" with most chord progressions very nicely. For a different and effective sound, the blues scale is often used. The notes for this scale are: I, iii, IV, IV+, V, VI, iiv, I. (Lower case denotes minor, + denotes augmented) For example the blues scale in F is: F, Ab, Bb, B, C, Eb, F)  A scale I quite like, and the one I chose for Uke Funk is the Dorian mode which consists of I,II, iii IV V VI vii I. For example, in the key of C: C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C.

Once you  knows the notes that you can play, how should you go about playing them? The beauty of improvisation is that it is entirely up to you, you can play them however you want. To start off with, one can simply play notes very close to the melody of the actual tune such that there are little interesting changes. It is often nice even in complete improvs to return for a few notes to the melody of the tune but this is definitely not required and what you play can be completely and totally made up. However, there are some guidelines that one can employ to keep the improv' interesting and effective:

Repeated Notes: Playing the same note repeatedly with a funky rhythm can be very effective as they are usually very different from what the listener expects. Nothing wrong in repeatedly playing the same note for a whole bar or more.
Scale Runs:  Simply playing the scale or section of the scale  in order gives a very clear indication of the key and scale you are playing in, setting up the listeners expectations for what the solo ought to sound like. This also gives direction to a solo, as one can do a scale run to particular note, such as the tonic or dominant. (1st or 5th)
Chord Tones: Chord tones-merely playing only the notes of the chord-are also very effective at establishing firmly the key you are in. In a solo where the chord progressions are complicated such that the key changes frequently playing chord tones is very effective.
Motifs: A motif is simply a small harmonic, rhythmic or both pattern that is repeated several times. The motif can be modified to make it more interesting by playing the same rhythm with different notes or the same notes with different rhythm.
Triplets: I will talk more about rhythm in a moment, but adding a triplet into the improv is a definite break from the listeners rhythmic expectations and sounds very cool. Triplet scale runs, or triplet chord tone mini-arpeggios are also effective.
Hi & Lo: It is important to spread your solo between high and low tonalities so that the solo doesn't become monotonous as all notes are within one small range such as a single octave or less. Not only can one work their way relatively slowly up or down in terms of tonality, but it is often effective to incorporate a large leap into the improv, consisting of a large jump in tonalities between two notes. Large leaps, however, often sound better when played going from one chord tone to another chord tone. The melody you are creating is being broken up by the leap anyways, no need to further disrupt it by making the key unclear.
Double Notes: Playing just single notes can get boring and so one can play more then one note at a time in a solo. Playing two strings at once can result in double notes. It is often effective to either play a series of double notes such that their is a consistent interval between the notes such as a 3rdm4th,6th or octave. One can also leave a single note on one string (usually of higher tonality) and change the bottom notes such that the interval changes, but one of the notes remains constant.
Grace Notes: Usually more effective if you have a solo with an established and consistent rhythmic pattern, adding grace notes do not effect the tempo, but they do add variety to your solo.
Chromatics: Chromatics consist of playing every single half step note between two notes. Usually this is used to make a small chromatic run that ends up on a tonic note or other chord tone. You may notice that in this case, not all the notes will be in the scale you have chosen, but this is ok, because emphasis is not placed on chord tones, they are played relatively quickly and it is obvious, due to their nature, that they are going somewhere and thus the fact that they are a "wrong note" is okay.
Wrong Notes: Yes. It is OK to play wrong notes, and its OK to play them deliberately. Wrong notes are a break from the expectations of the listener and provide variety to the solo. Generally it is advisable to play the wrong note more then just once or to hold it for a small length of time so that it is clear that the note is a definite part of the solo. If I accidentally make a wrong note in the solo, I often return to it a beat or two later to make the mistake an exciting change, not just an error.

All of the aforementioned techniques for soloing are merely guidelines to soloing, not all of them need to employed and they don't always sound good, not to mention the fact that many are not as useful for more melodic solo's.

Rhythm: Most of the above techniques deal with tonalities, which is a very important part of soloing and all music. However, rhythm is also very important. Your tempo depends on you accompaniment, however; if you do not have any, this two can be changed throughout the improv should you choose. Beyond tempo, rhythm is still very important as it can be used to give further variety to you improv'. If your solo consists entirely of continuous fast technical playing it will sound to cluttered, listeners will not be able to be brought into the solo and they won't be able to set up expectation because everything is happening and changing too fast. On the flip side, if the entire improv is slow and melodic, there isn't enough that is interesting to completely interest the listener. This does not mean to simply play at an average speed with average complexity and average musicality, it means to vary which side, and too what level, you use. A fast technical section for a few beats followed by a melodious exploration of chord tones creates variety and interest. As such, generally the entire solo isn't played with entirely  half, quarter or eighth notes, but a varied combination of the different note lengths. When working with a smaller combo, one can make a solo interesting by pausing on one note (usually a chord tone) for a bar or so, such that the drums or other instruments can come out with something slightly different and it doesn't interfere with your solo. A typical example is with a 12 bar blues, in the last beat, the soloist might pause for a bit and the drummer gives the emphasis that moves towards a repeat of the progression, not necessarily simply the soloist just plowing right through.

Chords: Generally, chords are played by the accompaniment and the soloist doesn't have to worry about them. This doesn't mean that you can't play them and if your improv is a complete solo then it is important to incorporate chords into the solo. However, it isn't usually very interesting to make a solo that fits into playing chords in the exact same way all the time and this can be varied in a few ways. Rhythmically, vary the timing and length of chords so that they don't always get played on the same beat for the same duration. Furthermore, the melody that is created in your improv shouldn't be bounded by trying to fit within a single position of the chord. Learning to proficiently play the chords in different ways (usually with different bar chords) as you move up the fret board allows you to simply fit a chord into where ever the melody that you make up takes you. If you have a chord which has fingers on all 4 strings (usually but not always achieved by a bar-that is placing the index finger across all strings on one fret) then you can slide the finger of the chord up into different positions as long as their is room on the fret board to make knew chords. For example consider the E ma chord (in a D tuned uke) which consists (in one variety) of a bar on the second fret and the pinky finger adopting the 5th  fret position on the top string. If you slide every finger or bar up one fret, then you have created an Fma chord. Up another and you have an F#ma chord. In D tuning, the "Ema" position, "Cma"  and "Cmi" position and "Ama" (as a bar) position" and there respective seventh chords are all quite easy to slide up and down the fret board and result in the fact that you can make any major chord pretty much as high or low as you need on the ukulele easily with just these three finger positions. There are numerous others of these easily slide-able chords such as minor 7 flat 5 chords (often used in jazz) and diminished chords. Jazz chords, incidentally, are  difficult to play on the ukulele and chord solo's with jazz are near impossible because with only 4 strings, and all the chords needing at least 4 notes...and with the fact that the melody in chord solo's is usually on the top string and jazz really likes having a bassline, this gives you very limited possibilities with chord position choices.

Cross strings: Playing a scale such as the G blues scale is cumbersome as a large amount of notes are spread over a long horizontal distance on the top string. Employing cross strings allows the entire scale to be played quickly and easily. By this I mean playing the notes at various places along the fret board so that all the notes of the scale are within only a few frets horizontally, resulting in small finger movements between notes and this allows for quick notes and changes. Another large advantage of cross strings is that the pattern is very easy to transpose into any key. Thus if you know the cross string pattern for G blues (and there is more then one, at different locations on the fret board) then you merely slide everything down one fret for F# blues and down another fret fir F blues. Furthermore, some patterns work very well with certain chord combinations. For example an F chord can be played as a bar on the 3rd fret with your pinky playing the 7th fret on the top string (in D tuning) From here, all the notes of the F blues scale can be played to the right of the bar and thus this makes adding the chord or double notes very easy pretty much whenever you want. A very interesting side effect of cross strings is that it makes the technique of "tapping" become very easy. Tapping, or "hammering", is when one plays notes entirely with their left hand, and thus the sound does not come with the right hand "plucking" the string but by the left hand hammering or tapping down on the string. With cross strings it is very easy to pluck with the right hand the highest tonality note on a string, then tap a couple lower tonality notes on the same string before moving down to the string below to do the same thing. The result is that you can do a very quick scale run that covers several strings of the ukulele because, since your tapping two out of three notes or their about, you can play much faster then one normally could with plucking every note with your thumb in the right hand, as this is usually the limiting factor in speed, not the movements of fingers in the left hand.

Movement: Doing all the above is good but there is one more thing that is need to really make the solo as interesting as possible and that is that the solo need to feel like its going somewhere. Several tricks can be used to give such a sense of movement in a solo such as  increasing the technical difficulty as the solo starts. As in, begin with longer notes that are very melodious and move to quick technical passages nearer the end. It is generally a good idea to end the solo on the tonic (or first note) of the key-but don't just pluck that note on your last beat. Move towards that note through scale runs, chromatics or chord tones so it is obvious the solo is going to that note. This technique of moving towards a single note should be incorporated earlier in the solo as well. Instead of completely ignoring the fact that the chord progression that the accompaniment is playing has finished and is about to repeat, make the solo move towards the first note. One note in particular which has particular pull is the leading tone, or the note one half step below the tonic. If you in the key of D then C# is the leading tone. The note strongly pulls towards the tonic and so although it is generally a "wrong" note in a scale, it is ok to use it -perhaps as a grace notehen you want a strong movement back to the tonic, such as, at the very end of a chord progression.

Expectations: Music in general is a combination of expectations and surprises. A solo  where every note is expected is boring and a solo where every note is a complete surprise is difficult to follow and ineffective and maintaining listeners attention. Striking a balance between these makes for effective music. Because the listener has heard these things repeatedly, chord progressions, repeated rhythms, motifs and the notes of the scales are expected to be heard. Tension in music is created by the tendency for the listener to expect that the music is going somewhere...such as to a specific note or chord or beat. However, doing things outside the listeners expectations is surprising and interesting.

Uke Funk is largely an improv solo and as such incorporates some of the ideas mentioned above.

Hopefully this has been helpful in improving your solo skills. Please inform me of any questions, comments or criticisms at tbazett@shaw.ca