today I want to show you one of my favorite exercises to practice comping words in jazz
you can go ahead and practice this exercise every day to improve your beat awareness
and to learn rhythmic vocabulary. I promise this will change the way you comp in no time
This is going to be a 7-step exercise, but you don't have to do all of them every day. You can just practice step one
if you want. Comping is not just about voicings, it's also about rhythm. In fact, I would argue that
it's predominantly about rhythm. One thing that you should always be aware of about comping, is that it
must be organic. When you comp at the piano you must interact with the other members of the band.
You must engage in a conversation with them. You can't just play whatever, or whenever you want.
Just like in a normal conversation, you must understand what's being said, and know how
to make your point, and express your ideas in the language that the band is speaking. So, with that in
mind, let me show you a systematic way to practice comping rhythms. Today's comprehensive method is
merely based on taking simple rhythmic ideas and then shifting them over an eighth-note grid. This
system ensures that you'll expose yourself to an entire vocabulary of options, that you might never
consider otherwise. So, we're going to work with a 3-note Rhythm. As we do these, actively listen
to what each of these words has in common with the previous. Remember, this entire method is based on
developing an evolving similar sounding words over the eighth-note grid. So try and listen to this
evolution as it happens in real time. Step 1: 1-word practice. Choose a jazz standard like "Autumn Leaves"
Choose any 3-note rhythm, using an eighth-note grid that fits inside of one measure.
There are exactly 56 different rhythms that you can choose from. Let's use number 2.
And we're going to comp using only that rhythm throughout the entire song. I like to do just
a few measures with (with) just a single chord first, to get used to playing the word.
You can just play rootless voicings on the left hand, or use big chords - like the
ones we showed you in our last video. Don't forget to anticipate the next chord in the
progression, if you're playing on the last eighth-note upbeat before it. For example:
in this measure here there are two chords per measure. So I'll play an A7 (here.) If, let's say,
I was playing rhythm number 35, then I would anticipate the chord on the next measure (here)
This is a step that you can practice every day. Just remember, there are 56 possible rhythms that
you can use. So, if you practice one of these every day, it'll take you two months to go through all
of them. And these are just 3-note rhythms that fit one measure. If you want to practice
2-note rhythms (or four,) or use 2-measure boxes, or hemiolas, and so on. This is an exercise that you
could practice for your entire life and barely scratch the surface of what's possible to play.
Step 2: "Word group practice over one chord." If you look at all of the rhythms in letter [A], every
rhythm is the previous rhythm with the last note shifted in eighth-note later. For example: in A1,
the last note is on the downbeat of the second beat, while in A2, the last note's been shifted to
the end of 2. And we keep shifting the last note until it's on the last eighth-note of the measure.
Now is probably a good time to address why these simple evolutions look so different
from one another on the page. If all we're doing is slight shifts here and there, then why do these
words have such different visual appearances? Well, in order to make it more musical, we took
the liberty of altering the durations of some of our hits. And while this might, at first, make
it harder to visually relate one word to its variation, it's way more consistent with the
tropes of our musical language. Things like the third hit of A2 being lengthened in order to
exaggerate the anticipation that's likely to land on such a beat, or the idea of preserving
eighth-rests for downbeats only, allowing us to easily see syncopation while we're reading.
So, we're going to play all of the words in the group in order. Choose any chord you want.
If you want you can even vary the voicings...
Step 3: Word group over a jazz standard. Now we can use words from the same group, to comp over a jazz
standard. I would advise against doing the entire group in order, because you're adding chord changes
and the form on top of the word-group, which doesn't necessarily match well. Instead just
improvise choosing the words from the group at random. Don't worry if you play a few words that
aren't in the group. Don't fight your need to be musical. Just make sure that you try to use words
from the group as much as possible. Remember, if you're too structured when you practice, you'll
be too structured when you improvise, and you won't be able to react to what's happening in real time.
Step 4: Word-group by second note shift over one chord. If you look at A1 and B7, you can see
that the first note has been made longer from an eighth-note to a quarter note by shifting
the second note later. And then, C12 starts with a dotted-quarter, and so on. So that's going to
be your next group: A1, B7, C12, D16, and E19, and the final bar line (here,) is where the group
ends. See? In F22 we're no longer shifting the second note. Now we're shifting the first one.
Please notice how some groups are going to be shorter than others - exactly as in step 2. For
example: A6 doesn't have a counterpart in B or C or D (or E.) OK, so now practice this group over one chord
Step 5: Word-group by second note shift over a jazz standard.
This is basically step 4, but playing over a jazz standard, exactly as we did
before on step 3. Again, don't worry about adding a few rhythms outside of the group.
Step 6: Word-shift-group over one chord. Now we're going to work
with the exact same word, but shifted. You can find this group by looking at
the final bar lines. A1 to F22, is the same word shifted by an eighth-note.
And then, K37 is basically A1 shifted a quarter note. Then O47, R53, and T56
Step 7: Word-shift-group over a jazz standard. You know exactly what to do...
Like we always say with our exercises, now is the most crucial part where we practice "free play"
or comp, and take all the things that we talked about, that you practice, that's
in your muscle memory, and just let it happen organically while you free play. The techniques
that we spoke about, will inevitably show up in your playing without you even having to try.
So the method we talked about today - this method of evolving and iterating simple
ideas, while simultaneously relating these ideas to one another - is a crucial part of
developing your comping and your musical vocabulary. Do a little bit of this every
day, and watch what happens to your playing after just a relatively short amount of time.
Check out our next video, where we take our system to the next level - where we
use 2-bar words and hemiolas. All of our members will have access to a PDF
of today's videos. If you're not a member yet, go ahead and click on the join button,
or the link down below. YouTube seems to think you're going to like one of these
two videos here, so stick around and check those out as well. Thanks for watching.