The next important thing to look at is right hand improvisation patterns.
These are derived from various sources.
1. The blues scale
This is made up of tonic, flat seventh, fifth, flat fifth, fourth , and flat
third of prevailing chord, or of
the prevailing key.
eg C blues scale = C Bb G Gb F Eb C , over a C7 chord or F7 or Cm7 or other
chords. Not over major 7th chords!
As with any of these scales you don’t have to use all of the scale all of the time. Start by using fewer notes but make a swinging rhythm in the right hand improvisations.
Try these activities
a) Play C7 in left hand and improvise above with
right hand using C Bb and G
b) Play F7 in left hand and improvise in right
hand using F Eb and C
c) Play G7 in left hand improvise in right hand with G
F and Bb
all the above tones are part of the C blues scale but fit well with the three
chords used,
now :-
d) improvise a simple12 bar blues using the note patterns for the chords mentioned above. This is the chord sequence.
/C7 /C7 /C7 /C7 /F7 /F7 /C7 /C7 /G7 /F7 /C7 /C7 /
2. Pentatonic scale
Major key= Tonic 2nd 3rd 5th 6th so C pentatonic = C D E G A, can be used over C6 C7 or Cma7.
Try these activities
a) Play LH chord C6 C7 or Cma7, improvise RH with C D E G.
b) Play LH chord C6 C7 or Cma7, improvise RH with E G A C taking the scale a bit higher.
c) Also the flat 3rd can be added to this
scale, it should move by step to
3rd or 2nd most of the time.
The flat 3rd in the C scale is Eb, very often
this leads on to the E making patterns such as -
C7
d) Another pattern using the flat 3rd is A C D Eb, try improvising on this
over a C7 chord.
Also over this sequence /F7
/F7 /C7 /C7 / repeat ad lib.
Minor key pentatonic = tonic, flat3rd, 4th, 5th, flat7th. So C minor pentatonic = C Eb F G Bb, can be used over Cm7 or C7 (bluesy).
Try these activities
a) Play LH chord Cm7, improvise RH with G Bb
C.
b) Play LH chord Cm7, improvise RH with Bb C Eb.
c) Play LH
chord Cm7, improvise RH with other combinations of C minor pentatonic.