{"id":93,"date":"2018-06-15T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-12T15:44:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T23:44:36","slug":"gluing-together-your-piano-phrases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/gluing-together-your-piano-phrases\/","title":{"rendered":"Gluing Together Your Piano Phrases With Chromaticism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We had jazz pianist Jay Oliver in the studio to talk about his philosophies in jazz improv and one of his tips struck me as really versatile for players of ANY skill level. He talked about using the <\/span><strong>chromatic scale <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as a tool to glue together his piano phrases, creating jazz lines that are both cohesive and diverse. It sounds super cool and technical to listen to, but it\u2019s actually quite simple in its approach.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re confused by the term \u2018<\/span><strong>chromatic scale<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019, all it means is a scale or phrase moving up or down the keyboard that plays EVERY note. Played on its own it sounds super slinky and creepy-crawly, but played in the context of a blues or minor scale lick it sounds really cool, especially if you use it to swap what key or mode you\u2019re playing in. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All this is really a technical way to say that the <\/span><strong>chromatic scale <\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is really a way to FOOL your audience (and maybe even yourself) into hearing some seemingly complex jazz lines while actually playing some relatively simple scales. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once Jay explained this idea to me, it all became so clear and I began to hear this technique used everywhere! Try it in your own playing, even if you have to take it slow. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Try starting a little melody of your choosing in one key and, using the chromatic scale, transition into a melody using a completely different key. You\u2019ll surprise yourself in how cool this is going to sound! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Best of luck and happy playing!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jordan<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/weekly-email\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jazz piano guru Jay Oliver&#8217;s tips on chromatic scales<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1110,1108,509],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvisation-musicianship","category-musicianship","category-technique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10798,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/10798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}