Chords for HOW TO PLAY MELODIES LIKE A PRO / Ad lib on the sax

Have you ever wondered how professional musicians can so easily personalize pretty much any melody
that they play?
If so, then you are definitely going to want to check out this video.
What's
up everybody?
My name is Scott Paddock and today we're going to talk about how to ad-lib on any
[A#] melody. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ _ If you are a regular viewer of my YouTube channel, then you can see that I am in a different
place today.
I am in my practice studio in Playa del Carmen.
Now this practice studio is in a music
store, so there's a very good chance that you're going to hear some music store sounds going on
in the background, but the show must go on.
So let's get started today and talk about how to
personalize a melody.
Now in the music world, we call this ad-libbing on a melody.
So when you
ad-lib on a melody, you're taking the bare bones version and adding your own personal touches to
it.
So for the demonstration today, I'm going to use the jazz standard Autumn Leaves.
Autumn Leaves
is in C sharp minor on the alto saxophone, and for C sharp minor that would give us an F sharp,
C sharp, G sharp, and D sharp in the key signature.
There are tons and tons and tons of versions of
this song, so I would suggest checking them out on Spotify or YouTube and listening to the different
ad-lib versions of this song.
So to start off, I'm going to play the bare bones version of this song,
and you're going to hear the bare bones version is very boring and there's not a lot going on.
It's basically three quarter notes and a long note.
So take a listen to the bare bones version
of Autumn Leaves. _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ [E] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ [D#] _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [E] When I play it like that, it is not interesting at all.
It's just three quarter
notes and a long note that all just kind of sit there.
So let's talk about the first step to
personalizing this melody, and it's actually really easy.
All you're going to do is add in some dynamics
and articulations.
So with dynamics, you're going to bring out some of the more important notes.
You're going to do a little swell or pull back on the long notes, and for the quarter notes, you're
going to dop some, which means make them fat and short.
You're going to accent some.
You're going to
slur some.
You're just going to add some articulation to it to make them sound a whole lot interesting.
Take a listen to this version where I add in some dynamics and articulations. _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ [F#] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ [D#] _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Now that version doesn't
sound amazing, but it sounds a whole lot better than the bare bones version, and all I have done
is added in some dynamics and articulations.
[E] So when it comes to your dynamics and articulations,
you can get really creative with it, but you want to make sure that you're bringing out the correct
notes.
So I'm going to play this first phrase a couple different ways just by changing up my
articulation and dynamics so you can hear what I'm talking about.
_ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ So just by using my dynamics and
articulation, I can really change up the way this tune sounds.
So the next step, the second step, is
changing the rhythm.
So as I said before, this song is made up of three quarter notes and a long note.
So if I change the rhythm up a little bit, I can make it sound a lot more interesting.
Take a listen to me adding in dynamics and articulations and changing the rhythm.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ [D#] _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Again,
just by changing the rhythm, I can do a whole lot with this melody.
If you're watching this video,
then I'm guessing that you'd like to dive way deeper into personalizing the melodies that you
play.
If that's the case, I'd like to invite you to check out the Scott Paddock Sax School.
Inside
the sax school, I have an entire course dedicated to teaching ad-libbing.
So in that course, we go
over several songs, and in every song, I break it down phrase by phrase.
I show you exactly what I
would play.
I give you written out versions, and then I tell you how to come up with your own stuff
with each phrase of every song that I teach you.
So by the end of that course, you will completely
understand how to ad-lib, and you'll be able to do it on any song that you play.
So if you're
interested in learning a whole lot more about how to ad-lib, I'll put a link in the video description.
Now the next step is going to add a whole bunch of forward motion to this melody, and this step
is actually pretty easy.
All it is is repeat a note.
So for any of these quarter notes or any of
these long notes, you can repeat them, and you're going to add some forward motion, and the song is
going to have a lot more of a swing feel and more of a bounce to it.
Take a listen to this version
where I add in some repeated [F#] notes. _
[Cm] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _
[F#] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
That adds in a whole [C#] bunch of motion.
So repeating notes is a
really important part of making your melodies bounce and have a lot more life.
Take a listen
to me playing another version where I repeat some notes, change the rhythms, and add in some dynamics
and articulations.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [E] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ [D#] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ This last rule is the most intimidating, but I'm going to show you some ways
to make it a whole lot easier.
So this last rule is to add in some notes.
So you might be asking,
what note should I add in?
I'm going to show you that in just a second, but first I'm going to show
you how I can personalize this melody by [E] adding in some extra notes.
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _
_ [G] _ _ [F#] _ [E] _ _ _
Now let's talk about which
notes to add in.
So there are a lot of different levels for this, and it depends on your playing
level and how well you know chords and how well you improvise, but for this video, this [D] tutorial,
I'm going to show you the starting point.
So for the starting point, you need to know your tonal
center, and for this song, the tonal center is C sharp minor.
So we have four sharps.
F sharp,
C sharp, G sharp, and D sharp.
Of course, that is on the alto sax.
So we're going to be choosing
from some of those notes when we add in a note.
So the first thing we're going to do is add a
neighbor tone to a long note.
So we have this A, which is our first long note, and the neighbor
tone is just the note above or the note below.
So for that A, the note above it would be a B.
So we would play an A, go up to a B, and then come back down to an A. _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ So I just played A, B, A. _ _ _ _ _
_ That's your neighbor tone.
Take a listen to it [E] in context.
_ [G] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ So I'm just playing A, B, A.
So that's me
adding in the neighbor tone above.
Now I can add the neighbor tone below, which would be a G sharp
because we have a G sharp in this key signature.
So I play from A [F#] down to a G sharp and back up to
an A. _ _
_ [C] _ _ [A#] _ _ _ _
So that [Em] gives you two notes that you can add to pretty much any of your long notes.
You can
play the neighbor tone above or the neighbor tone below.
Now this isn't going to work 100% of the
time because you will have different chords over some of these long notes.
So you're just going to
have to play around with it and see which ones fit better.
Sometimes the upper neighbor tone is
going to sound better.
Sometimes the lower one will, and sometimes they both will.
Take a listen
to this melody with some neighbor tones.
_ [F#] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ [D#] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ Now another really easy way to add in some notes is
if you have a large interval jump like between the D sharp and the G sharp, you can add in those
scale degrees and that's going to fill it in and add some more motion into your melody.
[F#] Take a listen.
_ [G] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ Did you hear that? _
[F#] _ _ _ [A] _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ [E] That just adds in a whole lot more motion.
Now you don't want to do that for
every large interval, but if every now and then you put a scale run in instead of a large interval
jump, it's going to sound really good and it's going to help you personalize your melodies.
And we
can do the same concept on the last note, the E where it ends.
I'm going to walk down, in other words,
I'm going to play the notes below and I'm going to play at E, a D sharp and land on a C sharp because
this tune is in C sharp minor.
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ _ [D] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ So I walk down from that E.
[G] _ _ [F#m] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ [C#] _
So when you understand these four simple
steps for ad-libbing on any melody, it makes it a whole lot easier.
All you need to do is add in some
dynamics and articulations, change your rhythm, repeat some notes, and add some notes.
You can use
those four simple steps to personalize any melody that you want to play.
Thanks for taking the time
to check this video out.
If you want to dive deeper into my saxophone world, I'd like to invite you to
check out the Scott Paddock Sax School.
[D#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _