APPROACH PATTERNS: The Most Useful Tool in the Jazz Toolbox?

Let's play a little bit of approach patterns.

[music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

>> Heat. Heat.

[music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hi Welcome to my channel for one of my

favorite lessons because it's one of my favorite topics, approach patterns. These are these

approach patterns. These are these little things that you have heard a million times if you're a jazz listener, but might not have identified for what

they are. Um, there's four of them, and

they are. Um, there's four of them, and they're little three- note patterns that approach usually a chord tone. So, if

I'm playing an F7 [music] chord, and I'm approaching, let's say, the C. There's this one,

the C. There's this one, there's this one, which is the opposite, [music] and there's this one,

and it's opposite.

And you hear these things all the time.

[music] [music] Like that's a typical line that's made up of nothing but approach patterns. I

think I probably played all four in there. It's an incredibly useful part of

there. It's an incredibly useful part of the jazz vocabulary.

Um, you know, they're a perfect match for the Bbop scales because these things usually you want to approach a [music] chord tone on my F7

[music] >> [music] >> there. I kind of approached each chord

>> there. I kind of approached each chord tone as I went down. They're a great way to like turn your line around. They add

a little element of chromaticism into your line.

[music] You know, those are some kind of weird notes, but then they snap into place on a chord tone. And right then you've created this

tone. And right then you've created this great little moment of tension that releases on a chord tone. And if you're hip to the rest of my lessons, you know

that we talk about the eighth note Bbop scales. And the minute you drop yourself

scales. And the minute you drop yourself off on a chord tone, you're set to run a little bit of Bbop scale. Let's play

some of this. And I'm just going to kind of show you what's going on.

Before we do that, smash that like button. Isn't that what the kids say? Um

button. Isn't that what the kids say? Um

because there's a lot more of these lessons coming out. Uh, and there will be a sheet with all four of the approach patterns and a transcription of this

solo that I'm going to play here. Um,

all annotated so you can see where the chord where the approach patterns are.

I'm I'm going to try to play a solo that's almost entirely approach patterns except for a couple little idiomatic things. I'll start out playing sort of

things. I'll start out playing sort of single time, then I'll double up because, you know, if you listen to somebody like Sunny Stit play, I always hold him out as kind of the ultimate

example of this. Um, he could play, you know, super fast and create a lot of lines that have long strings of these

things in there. Let's play a little bit and we'll see what I'm talking about.

Heat. Heat.

[music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

>> Heat. Heat.

Heat. [music]

[music] Heat. [music]

Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Okay. So, there's a lot of information

>> Okay. So, there's a lot of information in there. It's a little weird to try to

in there. It's a little weird to try to constrain yourself to to like really committing to not playing much besides these approach patterns. The little solo

that I blew at the beginning has a lot more variety to it, but you get a sense for how much of the jazz vocabulary is

these little things. And as you start to integrate them into your lines, [music] [music] you you start to realize that it that's how you know maybe Cannonball Adderly,

who's another person who really wore these things out. The line seems like it's so kinetic and it's like, you know, the shapes are so angular. How does he

do it at that speed? And of course, the answer is he was a one-of-a-kind talent, but this stuff is in the mix. Um, in our tonal world, [music]

[music] um, it it's a really nice blast of chromaticism and it happens too fast for people to say, "Wow, he really took it

out." But it's part of the tension and

out." But it's part of the tension and release of our lines. For one thing, it tends to put a note that's not in the scale

[music] on the beat, and that accentuates the fact that we're we're outside for a second, and then we snap it back in. So,

I encourage you to work on these things.

The the sheet with the four of them and the transcription of the solo that I blew will be on my Patreon page. If you

just go to Patreon and type in George Woody, there will be a link at the end of this thing and also in the description and I'll make it a free

download on the Patreon page. Um, but

honestly I sometimes I wonder if between the pentatonic scales [music] [music] if I couldn't play a pretty lengthy solo, especially once we start

kind of superimposing different pentatonic scales onto our basic tonality. Um, and just with those two

tonality. Um, and just with those two tools, I could have a pretty pretty complete way to play inside and play

outside. Um, I discuss these things in

outside. Um, I discuss these things in much greater detail on my uh, artist works jazz piano series. There's a link for that down below. Um, I encourage you

to check that out. Uh, there's a lot of PDFs of this stuff. There's playalongs

to, you know, the one that I'm using here is an artist works playalong. So, I

encourage you to check all that stuff out. One of my very favorite tools, it

out. One of my very favorite tools, it was shown to me by Jared Bggonzi after I left Berkeley. And suddenly, a lot of the stuff that I had been transcribing, I was like, "What the hell

are those notes doing in there? They're

not in the scale." Suddenly, a lot of it made sense. And once I started getting

made sense. And once I started getting my head around it, I just love adding these things into my lines. So, that's

this lesson. There's going to be another one next week and another one the week after that. Please like and subscribe

after that. Please like and subscribe and I'll see you for the next lesson.

[music] >> Let's play another.

>> Yeah, >> that was a good one.