Triad Couplets for Jazz Improv: Two Written Exercises

In a previous blog, I wrote about practicing scales with a jazz purpose in mind, and I offered a few suggestions. In keeping with that post, here are a couple fun little exercises that involve juxtaposing two triads a major second apart from each other and running them through their various inversions. Take them through the full range of your instrument, and work out other variations on them to develop complete facility with them.

Please bear with the small size of the staff and notation. This is the first time I’ve attempted uploading a written exercise on this blog.

Always keep application in mind. Play these exercises against a C major chord, for instance, and the raised fourth–F# of the D major triad–gives you a Lydian quality. Play the exercises against a D major and you get a dominant sound, with the C functioning as the flat seventh.

Work with the Aebersold Gettin” It Together CD, or Band in a Box, or simply with a piano, holding down a chord, so you can hear how this exercise sounds against actual harmony.