Jojo argues every musician should study improvisation by mastering the diatonic major scale and its seven chords. He walks through a concrete exercise: pick a key, set pitch limits using scale degrees, then sing melodic sequences using numbers to explore harmonic color. Spend a month deeply studying one chord to internalize its sound and accelerate your growth.
Chapters
Yo, Jojo here. Driving home from work, I had a long night last night. I was falling the hell asleep, so I was hoping that maybe talking to the camera would wake me up a little bit. Today I want to talk to you guys about why you should consider yourself an improviser and study improvisation. A lot of people on this channel, I'm sure your approach to music is something like, oh, yeah, I kind of picked up guitar, or maybe you play a couple of instruments, guitar, piano, and then just, like, wanted to play some of your favorite songs just to have something to do, some skill to have, I guess. And, you know, if you're happy with just, you know, playing a couple of other people's songs here and there, then, you know what, that's great, and feel free to click off. Some of you, however, found that through the learning of other people's songs, that this music thing is actually pretty awesome and have a hunger to learn more about it. And I would really like to invite those people to consider yourself an improviser, even if you don't think that you are. By definition, we kind of all are, because anytime you have a conversation with somebody, you're improvising. You have this language that you speak. In this case, it's English. And I'm not reading off a sheet of paper. I'm just. I'm just spitting. And when you start really getting into this music thing, that's kind of what it is. You know, all of your favorite musicians, when they wrote their songs, they're doing a similar thing to, you know, what happens when you have a conversation or when an author sits down to write a book? They have this commanded, this language, and they just spit. And another thing, and this is something that I touched on in my last video, we got a long life ahead of us. So when you think about your journey with music, where do you want to take this thing? If you're content with just regurgitating other people's songs and, you know, playing on a couple of bonfires here and there. And believe me, I love playing a good somebody else's song in a bonfire. It's amazing, especially when people know it. But if you want to take this thing deeper, you need to be an improviser, you know, especially if you consider yourself a songwriter, a producer, a beat maker, or just a creative person. And in the realm of music, improvisation and composition are really the exact same thing. They're two sides of the same coin. And this is also something I touched on in my last video. So to really. Improvisation can basically be broken down as your ability to translate what is in your head out into the world, into this space, excuse me, that we occupy, so that other people can actually hear it. And so I'm sure a lot of you have tried to, or maybe successfully written songs where you're just kind of like, sitting down, maybe like, plunking a couple of chords down, and then just kind of like, you know, riffing some melodies. And that's. That's truly a great start. However, I think that most of you guys could go a lot deeper when it comes to studying the sounds of our musical system, Specifically, like studying the. The diatonic chords of the major scale. Diatonic just means in the key. So in this numerical approach that I advocate for on this channel, studying, you know, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 chords, and the seventh chord, too, if you want, although it's a lot more rarely used, and developing your own personal relationship with the sounds of that, you could call it a mode, you could call it a chord, you could call it a harmonic environment, whatever you're going to call it. As an improviser and a composer, it's up to us to develop a relationship with these worlds of sounds and to discover what are the sounds that we love in these sounds, what are the sounds that catch our ear. And so to give you guys an example, and if you want to try this on your own, all you have to do is pick a key on your instrument and pick. And whatever key you choose, choose a major key and then designate that note as one. So if you chose C major, C would be one. And then choose a tone other than one or one if you haven't really explored it. But I'm gonna try two for now and set that as your floor and your ceiling. Basically, the highest note and the lowest note you can go in your improvisation and with an awareness of the tonal numbers, see what type of melodies catch your ear. I'll give you an example. So if you want to try this at home, I don't actually know what key I'm in. I don't have perfect pitch, but I would. Basically, you could play along with your instrument, starting on two or whatever number you choose as your floor and ceiling. So in this case, it'd be something like this.
2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2.
Just go all the way up, and then you can go down again.
2, 1, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
So just by doing that, I've set up my ear to this tonality to be here. And then from that, just explore all the combinations that you can. For example, I think the thing that gives this harmonic environment, this chord, its personality is the relationship between like the Note 4 and the Note 7. Those two notes color a lot of the harmonic environments. But let's just listen to what I'm talking about. So it'd be like 2, 3, 4.
7, 6, 4, 7, 1, 7, 6 and 4, 4, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, four, three, four, seven, six, one, seven, four, three, four, three, three, two, two.
So something that I'd encourage you guys to do is sing these melodies throughout your day. Just, you know, pick a chord and expl. Making a maneuver right now and discover the sounds that are, that are there right, right in front of you. In addition, when you, when you approach it like this, I want you guys to realize that like the long way is the short way. It seems tedious to like go through all of these cores one by one and go through all the possibilities and in a. But you could look at it that way as being tedious. But guys, it's only seven notes in the diatonic major scale. Okay? There's seven chords and really we only use six of them. So to develop an intimate relationship with each of these chords is like unspeakably invaluable to your development as a musician going forward. You talk about getting bang for your buck. Like, take a month and just study one of these chords. It could be the, you know, the, the two chord, the four chord, the five. Literally any of them. I would recommend the six that you know within those six. But you know, if the seven chord just speaks to you, like, go for it. Maybe you'll break some new ground or something like that. Basically. TL Dr. Spend time studying these chords with an awareness of the tonal octave. Excuse me. And when you find a melody that catches your ear, stay with that and really get into it, explore it and make sure you know exactly what the notes that you're singing are within the tonal octave. There's really a lot of beauty to be found out there. Alright, to end out, I think I'll just. I'm just gonna do an improvisation in that second harmonic environment again. And by the way, when you practice this by yourself, you could sing these numbers along with your instrument. Just to keep yourself honest, if you're, if you're not super, super confident with it. But if you can do it with your voice by itself, you're on a.
4. 3, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 6, 1, 7, 7. 1, 2, 7, 6, 7. 1, 2, seven, six, five, six, four, seven. 5, 564-717-6745 Love that 7, 457-457-1745, 434-3434 or 5, 454-54-3432?
Find what you love. See you next time. Let me know if you guys have any questions or thoughts.
