Jazz & Improvising

A chart on getting started with improvising — the twelve-bar blues, common jazz chord symbols, scales that work over the blues, and a six-step path to a first solo.

What's inside

• The twelve-bar blues in C, with its chord pattern and turnaround explained
• A table of chord symbols — major, minor, dominant/major seventh, sixth and diminished — with where each turns up
• Your first solo in six steps, from playing the rhythm on one note to stealing and transposing a lick
• Scales that work over the blues — minor pentatonic, blues scale and Mixolydian
• Notes on swing rhythm, the ii–V–I progression, transcribing by ear, and playing with people