Have you ever been asking yourself: “How can I improve my solos building up ideas in a more, thematic way?”

Some people like to talk the “call and response” technique but, in my experience, little or no time is spent on how to practically teach your brain to do that step by step.

So here there are 3 main techniques you can use to develop your solos thematically:

1) Imitation
2) Extension
3) Fragmentation

In this short article, I’ll introduce the concept of imitation.

Step 1: Choosea very simple rhythmic and harmonic setting (e.g., 4/4 , G7)

Step 2: Choose a very short melody (3-4 notes) and play it over and over.

Step 3: Create a variation of the original melody using the same rhythm and melodic curve (if you don’t know what a melodic curve is, just write the notes of your melody down and then join them. You’ll immediately see what your curve is).

Step 4: Play the new melody 4 times, then play a new set of notes (still same melodic curve)

Step 5: Now choose a chord progression (e.g., II V I or an easy standard) and practice imitation throughout the harmonic progression. You can play the same set of notes thoughout or decide to change notes in different areas of the tune (e.g., AABA)

There you have 5 easy steps to start working on your thematic soloing. In my next post I’ll introduce the concept of “Extension”.