So how do you start playing killer bebop solos like charlie parker in dizzy gillespie
well today i'm going to show you a simple improv hack that can help you start playing
amazing bebop solos instantly let's do this thing
what's up brent here from learn jazz standards where we help musicians just like you learn how
to play jazz all while shortening the learning curve no matter what instrument you play
on this channel we do a lot of jazz theory and jazz practicing and deep dives and jazz
standards as well as jazz improv tips like in today's video so make sure you subscribe to
the channel click that bell notification so that you never miss out on anything
we all love listening to recordings of charlie parker dizzy gillespie sonny stitt
all these amazing jazz bebop players and their amazing jazz solos and lines but let's be honest
playing bebop is not so easy it's actually quite complicated and virtuosic but i'm gonna show you
a quick improv hack that's gonna really just make you start playing instant bebop lines and
it's fairly simple now make sure you stick around to the very end of the video because i'm going
to give you the number one tip i can give you for improving your bebop playing so stick around until
then so the bebop improv hack that i'm going to share with you has to do with what's called target
notes and approach notes and the easiest way to demonstrate this is for example over top of a
c major seventh chord if we want to find a target node a target note being any note that we want to
resolve to in our jazz line then we can pick a chord tone such as the third and the third
would be an e natural for example so the third so let's just say that e natural is our target note
and we want to use approach tones to resolve to those notes now there's two different kinds of
approach tones there are diatonic approach tones which means they are in the scale or in the key or
there's also chromatic approach tones that means that they are outside of the key example we have
a first note here that'd be a g okay a g natural that is a diatonic approach note and then we can
play a d natural that's also in the c major scale so that's working out as a diatonic approach note
then we're going to play a d sharp and a d sharp is a chromatic approach note not in the scale
and resolving to that third our target note so okay that is the basic concept of what target
notes are and approach notes are and in jazz and especially in the style of bebop we're using a lot
of those chromatic approach tones and diatonic approaches and we're also using this framework
that we just showed you just now and we call that enclosure enclosure just means that we are
approaching a target note from above in pitch like we played the g note and then we go below in pitch
in this case another approach note below in pitch and then arriving at our target note so enclosing
it with a note above and below in pitch to get to that target note now what i want to show you
is this chromatic approach tone exercise this is just the first four bars we're going to work on
this is a chromatic approach to an exercise in our bebop 101 course in our inner circle
membership but we'll look at that first line just to start understanding how this works and
how we can use target notes and approach tones to really start creating instant bebop but first
let me go ahead and play this for you so you know what it sounds like
and for good measure let's play it one more time
now it's important to note that this is just an exercise it's actually not
music or a jazz solo yet however when you're listening to this i imagine you
started to think hey this actually does sound a lot like bebop i mean
right all of that just already sounds like i can hear the chord changes popping out but
there's this chromaticism involved these are all characteristics of bebop so let's take a quick
look at this chromatic approach tone exercise and discover why exactly it does sound like instant
bebop so the first thing i want to do is show you where all of the approach tones actually are so
we're actually doing the chord progression of confirmation here f major seven to e minor seven
five five to an a seven to a d minor seven and then a c minor seven f seven to a b flat seven
that's the first four to five bars of confirmation the bebop head so the first target note which is
over f7 fmaj7 or f6 is a natural now a natural is the third so the third of the chord is our target
note the third is a great target note by the way really helps make that chord change pop out okay
then over at our e minor seven flat five we're targeting a g natural okay now that g natural is
also the third it's the flat three so we're using the third again to target then over the a7 chord
we have a c sharp now again a c sharp is the third of the a7 so another great target note
and then we're landing here in the d minor seven
to an a note now that's the fifth the fifth is another good note to land on especially when we're
kind of resolving a line like we are here we're kind of resolving it and having a quarter note
rest and an eighth note rest so it kind of makes a lot of sense then over at the c minor seven chord
we have an e flat now e flat is the third the flat three of the c minor seventh chord
so another great target note and then for the f7 we have an a natural that again is the third and
then finally we're resolving the line here on this d natural and again what is the d natural to the b
flat seven that's the third so you'll notice that most of our target notes in this particular case
are the thirds with the exception of the fifth over the d minor seventh now let's take a look
at how we resolve to those target notes with chromatic and diatonic approach notes so we
start over here with our f six chord or f major seventh and we start with the b flat a g natural
an a flat our chromatic note arriving at our target note so
and again we're using that enclosure pattern to
target this target node so all just combination of diatonic and chromatic approaches then we have
to target our e minor seven flat five target note and again using diatonic that's a chromatic
to approach that third of the e minor seven flat five right then over the a7
right that note right there is our target note chromatic and diatonic approaches and then
over top of our d minor seven
and then over top of our c minor seven
right getting to that third of the c minor seven and then we're going to the f7 again
targeting that third note right resolving to it
and then finally we do a slightly different pattern than before
resolving to the b flat seven to that d natural the third so as you can see
just by starting out with target notes and using approach tones to resolve to them it's already
going to sound like bebop so again this is just an exercise but if you have this particular concept
down and can apply this over top of a bunch of different jazz standards the more you do
this the more natural it's going to feel the more bee boppy your solos are going to sound and it's
just really going to start taking things to the next level now as far as that number one tip for
playing bebop and getting better at bebop if there's only one thing that you could do
outside of this particular theoretical exercise it would be learn bebop heads i mean just take
a look at the head for confirmation here this is a treasure trove of different musical information
and essentially bebop heads are a lot like bebop solos really you know charlie parker and dizzy
gusby and all these people they just started improvising and then just made sure there was
some theme and variation in there and that's what a bebop head is so if you want to get
really good at soloing bebop solos just learn you know 10 bebop heads and you'll be good to go it's
also great just to learn more musical ideas that are bee boppy and i'll leave on the screen here
a video that we did recently called tasty minor bebop altered lick that's another great lick you
can learn so click on that on the screen if you want to learn a really cool bebop lick and hey
by the way in our inner circle membership we do a lot of these approach tone exercises in our jazz
standards club studies as well as in our bebop 101 course where we really deep dive into bebop
and how to become a great bebop soloist uh and a bunch of different concepts and things
for you to actually work on in that course so check that out at ljs innercircle.com if you
want to check out what inner circle membership is like we'd love to have you join us make sure you
like this video if you found it valuable and look forward to seeing you in the next video