5.Ted Pease, Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice (Berklee Press, 2003), 26.
6. Ted Pease, Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice (Berklee Press, 2003), 48.
When I practiced doing a retrograde of a motive, I mainly played the notes backwards keeping the rhythm from the original motive. There is a possibility to do the opposite, keep the same notes and play the rhythmic pattern backwards. The third option would be playing both the rhythm and the notes backwards.
To develop a motive using an inversion is to invert the intervals in the original motive and so a major third down becomes a major third up, a perfect forth up becomes a perfect forth down and so on. You can choose to do the inversion following the diatonic material that you are in, or you can play it as a real inversion, an exact mirror of the intervals from the original motive.
I used retrograded and inverted motives together with transposed repetitions to make a change in the structure. If I am repeating a motive, with notes going down, transposing it up I can do a retrograde on the last repetition to change the direction. To me it felt like I was creating a surprise for the listener. The difference of using a retrograde or inversion together with for example transposed repetition depends on where in the pattern they start. The inversion of a repeated transposition still starts on the next step in the transposed pattern. The transposed retrograde starts on the last note of the motive going against the pattern.
I can think of the curvature of the original motive rather than its actual notes. This is giving me more freedom to develop it by using the direction of the original motive. The direction can still be inverted or retrograded but the idea in that case is that the intervals and notes is more based on the gesture, motion or curvature, which allows me to be more intuitive.
This technique is allowing me to move the motive in relation to where it occurs in a measure. I can displace it using groupings as a pattern to follow. The motive can also be presented without a pattern. If the original motive starts on the first beat, the displaced motive start on the second beat. If I then want to repeat once more it can start on the fourth beat.
I used it as a technique to practice different groupings with a defined pattern to challenge myself to start the motive on places in the measure where I normally wouldn’t begin. This technique can be combined with every other technique and it is interesting to see how the rhythmic feel of the motive change when I move it. If I move the motive so it starts with a syncopation the center of gravity becomes completely different.
Repetition was the first one of the techniques I worked with. It has a lot of variations and is easy to recognize when it´s being used. Repetition is the development technique which all other techniques could fit under.
Exact
I found myself using exact repetition while improvising when I wanted to stay in one place, feeling comfortable with the same motive being repeated and maybe the surroundings changing. I practiced using one motive for a longer time in a way of building tension. The intension was to repeat one small motive that doesn’t change and build up the expectation for the listener. After that letting it go and present a contrast with longer phrases for example.
Variation
To use variation is a way to alternate part of the rhythm or melody of the original motive.
I can also alternate both at the same time. I can add ornaments, a passing tone or do a small rhythmic change. I practiced small variations where I specified which variation I was developing the motive. When improvising at rehearsals or concerts I could hear a lot of motives repeating with different variations. The variation allows me to be more intuitive with which notes I choose for embellishing the motive.
Transposed
I can move the motive, so it starts on another scale degree. It can also be changed and moved to new diatonic material. It could be a stepwise sequence going up the scale with the same pattern or it could be moved without a pattern it follows. When I have practiced to transpose, I have used different pattern moving the motive up or down stepwise, in thirds or fourths and so on.
This technique can be used in different ways. The main idea of the technique would be to change the intervallic relations between the pitches of the motive to either larger or smaller. But if I expand on that Idea, I could have a motive with three notes where the last one might expand or contract.
One method of arriving at intriguing melodic shapes is to work with interval patterns.5 Examples of compositions that builds on intervallic patterns are two songs by Thelonious Monk. His blues Misterioso is based on Sixths, and the song In Walked Bud is based on an interval expansion.6 I used this idea to dig deeper into just playing around with different intervallic patterns. Just using thirds, having one note as a pedal point in the motive and having different combinations maybe one perfect forth followed by a perfect fifth. To exercise using one intervallic pattern brings awareness of the shape of the motive. That could facilitate playing other techniques like retrograde or inversion.
Even if the notes don’t have to be related in rhythmic imitation, I rarely find myself using it without the direction or the shape of the original motive still present. The technique is to me a good way of letting a motive finding you. When I practiced this technique, I often felt that I automatically fell into doing repetitions transposed or with melodic variation. The practice sessions were about keeping focus on the task of keeping the rhythm strictly the same. I was not allowed to change the rhythm and get drawn into using other techniques. Because of the way I easily got on to another way of development, I thought it´s a good technique to finding new motives. The freedom of choosing notes lets me find the notes that I want. Then I could let that motive get developed further.
The rhythmic augmentation and diminution felt harder to approach. I felt stuck in developing the whole motive either faster or slower. I believe it got complicated for me. The relation in pitch together with this specifical rhythmic augmentation or diminution. To me this technique had its natural habitat rubato. It appeared in a natural way for me to be in a sonic landscape where stretching time was open and free. Rubato gave me the freedom I needed to be creative, I think. When I improvised with a steady pulse, subdivisions were the key for me. It gave the motive a slowed down or sped up effect when I switched between eight notes or sixteenth notes to the closest triplets.
Fragmentation is one of the techniques that occurs a lot in my playing. I use it as a bridge that connects one motive into another or as an ending to a phrase. If I want to play longer phrases, I can use a part of the phrase and develop it as a motive on its own, using fragmentation. I can use the fragment to glue phrases together without any development in between. I am in the climax of the improvisation, and I want to have longer phrases playing rather than short motives, then I can take the notes from the end of one phrase and use them as the starting point for the next. That gives a relation between the phrases. I can apply any of the techniques to develop the fragment itself. This was a huge part of the practice routine. Like I worked with on technique at the time. I did the same thing in combination with fragmentation. The important thing here is deciding what part of the motive that should be the fragment. Just like I focused on interval patterns before, when I was working with interval expansion and contraction, I investigated how I wanted to end or start my motives or phrases. The middle part of the motive can be fragmented, but I found it easier to connect to the original motive by using the start or the end. Maybe because those parts of the motive is easy to recognize, both for the listener and the improviser.