Seventh Chord Exercises for Musical Improvisation

Before we can improvise using the chord tones of various seventh, we must know those chord tones.  My previously posted video entitled Learning Music With Ray: Seventh Chords, helps to explain the various types (qualities) of seventh chords, how they are formed and how to derive their pitches.  To improvise using these pitches, we must obtain the ability to rapidly recall and perform these pitches at will.  The following exercises are designed to help achieve that ability.

In this first exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated up and back down by starting on the root.  Every key is covered by ascending through the keys in half-step increments.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated down and back up by starting on the root.  Every key is covered by descending through the keys in half-step increments.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated down and back up by starting on the root.  Every key is covered by descending through the circle of fifths.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated up and back down by starting on the root.  Every key is covered by ascending through the circle of fifths.  The exercise is illustrated with seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated up and back down by starting on the third.  Every key is covered by descending through the keys in half-step increments.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated up and back down by starting on whichever pitch exist in the lowest part of the instrument’s range (demonstration written for saxophone).  The point is to challenge the player with random seventh chord inversions.  Every key is covered by descending through the circle of fifths.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated down and back up by starting on whichever pitch exist in the highest part of the instrument’s range (demonstration written for saxophone).  The point is to challenge the player with random triad inversions.  Every key is covered by descending through the circle of fifths.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, the pitches of each seventh chord are arpeggiated up and down in straight paths that extend through the full range of the instrument (demonstration written for saxophone).  The direction of the arpeggio remains constant (through multiple chords) until the end of the instrument’s range is reached.  The point is to create fluid lines across multiple triads, using the full range of the instrument.  Every key is covered by descending through the circle of fifths.  The exercise is illustrated with major seventh chords, but it can be applied to any type of seventh chord.

In this exercise, a simple pattern is created by arpeggiating through the 2-5-1 progression.  The exercise arpeggiates up the ii7 chord, starting on the root.  It then arpegiates down the V7 chord starting on the 3^rd (the closest pitch coming down from the last pitch of the ii7 chord).  Finally, it arpeggiates back up the Imaj7 chord starting on the root.  This exercises cycles through all the keys by converting the root of the I chord at the end of the progression into a ii7 chord for the next progression.  This pattern will cycle through 6 of the 12 possible keys.  

The cycle can be repeated with a starting key that is half a step higher in order to cover the other 6 possible keys. 

The musician should start with a simple applications like this, and then create more complex arpeggiated patterns.  The ultimate application is to create a free form musical improvisation that only utilizes the pitches of each seventh chord, and outlines the chord changes of the progression.

  

The final way to practice chord tone based musical improvisation with the use of seventh chords is to apply the above exercises to the chord structure of an actual song that contains seventh chords.  For example, we could arpeggiate each seventh chord of the song up and then down starting on the root.  Instead of applying a half step or circle of 5ths progression to change chords, we merely apply the exercise to the chord changes of the song.  When the beat duration of a given chord limits the amount of material that can be played, we modify the arpeggio pattern (example: only go up the arpeggio instead of going up and down). 

          In this Learning Music With Ray video I demonstrate various seventh chord exercises that can be used to develop the rapid recall of the pitches of any seventh chord for use in musical improvisation. Each exercise is demonstrated with major seventh chords, but can be applied to any type of seventh chord. Then I apply the same exercises to a simple three chord progression to add musicality to the practice routine. Finally, I apply the same exercises to the chords of a song.