Learn to Improvise - 12 Key Challenge - Tenor Sax - Ab Major

We start with the phrase played twice so you get to hear it.
Then I go over the major scale twice, and then I go over what is effectively an appeggio twice. ( a major appeggio uses the 1st, 3rd, 5th and in this case the octave 8th/1st notes of the major scale, I just humanized it a little :-)
Then you go back to the phrase and play it 8 times.
The phrase is contained within the first 5 notes of the major scale, starting and ending on the third degree of the scale.
After that there is a few minutes of backing track for your pleasure.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:12 Phrase x 2
00:39 Ab Major scale ascending
01:07 Ab Major arpeggio
01:40 Phrase x 8
03:13 Backing Track

When I was creating the backing track I found this cool banjo like sound which with the bass line gives forward motion. (definitely not jazz ) . (But sadly the banjo sound had pitching problems and it had to be replaced.)

As a side note, I studied at a Jazz school in New Zealand over 20 years ago to get the technical skills to understand different forms of music.
Being comfortable on your chosen instrument and being able to be free to play in all different keys is a lot of focus and work but it gives you a great foundation to create from. This also develops relative pitch as you get to hear/keep the same intervals between the notes in a phrase but move the phrase over different areas of your instrument.
This is the idea behind this series of exercises. Taking a short musical phrase and placing it in all 12 keys. I may modify it in specific cases as the most important aspect to me is that the phrase sounds good and works in that situation. If it needs to change to allow the specific instrument in that specific key to sound good, then I will modify it, as one of the purposes of music is to reach out and affect people rather than be too fixed in the formula.

Remember you can slow down or speed up the temp of the clips in the Youtube settings


If you have any questions or suggestions, please email or comment :-)