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Instruments

Felt piano hammers

Improvisation

The performer creates music during the actual performance. Improvisation is an important part of jazz and popular music. Listen to an example in this performance of 'C Jam Blues' played on piano. The melody, based on only two notes, is introduced and then followed by a series of improvisations while the original shape can often be sensed in the background. Also listen to particular sections, one near the beginning where the melody is replaced by chords (see below) while the double bass plays a walking bass, and another section, towards the end, in the style of boogie woogie, a style of music which is important for Intermediate 2, and just at the end, the use of descending blues scales.

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Syncopation

When a weak part of the bar is accented by placing a rest on the strong beat or by tying a note to obscure the strong beat. The best examples of this are from ragtime. Listen to another excerpt in that style. 

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   Listen carefully to the clear syncopation in the melody, the arpeggios in the melody, the repeated chords which alternate with a vamp in the accompaniment and the elasticity in the speed of the music, which is called rubato - a concept for Intermediate 2.

Scat singing

A type of singing in which nonsense syllables are used instead of words, eg ‘Shoo wah doobie doo wah’. A technique usually used by jazz singers to imitate instruments. Listen to this example. 

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   The excerpt begins with scat singing followed later by all the voices singing in harmony against a walking bass in the accompaniment.

Chord

Two or more notes sounding together. Most jazz is made up from chord progressions, a series of chords, one after another, which sound 'good' together. 

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   In this excerpt from 'St James Infirmary', a blues-sounding jazz standard, the melody is played by a tenor saxophone over a very simple chord progression. After hearing the melody the saxophone then proceeds to improvise over the chord structure.

Scott Joplin

Arpeggio

The notes of the chord played one after the other in either ascending or descending order. Listen to this excerpt from a Scott Joplin rag. 

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   In this excerpt, the 'Maple Leaf Rag', you can clearly hear that the melody is built on arpeggios, both ascending and descending. There are also phrases in which the left and right hands play in octaves or unison and when the melody is played by the right hand it is often accompanied by a vamp in the left-hand part.

Walking bass

A continuously moving bass line improvised on the notes of the chord with other notes added, creating an independent musical line. Listen to the bass part of this excerpt after the introduction. 

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