Lesson Ten • Motivic Playing on Giant Steps
As discussed in the last lesson, a well-conceived solo usually consists of about 70% melodic ideas and 30% running eighth note lines. This means that to maintain interest, motivic development is important.
Playing motivically is more challenging on tunes with tons o’ changes flying by. Often it feels like it’s enough just to “survive” by outlining the changes coherently. Ideally, you want to be able to play motivically on any tune. It creates more interest for the listener, and gives your fellow players something to play off of. And if you can play motivically on Giant Steps, you can do it on just about any tune.
Here’s some practice playing over the first 8 bars. The rest will appear in the next lesson. Play it with a metronome at a tempo that is slow enough so that you can play through without stopping. If you miss some notes, don’t worry about it, just keep playing. That’s why it’s called practice.
Lesson 11
