If you could only thing about one thing when you improvise, what would it be? Scales? Harmony? Licks?

If we were to cut out all the fluff in our thinking and boil it down to just one thing, what should that thing be?

My mind was blown about 7 years ago when I studied with the incredible saxophonist Joel Purnell who demonstrated the importance of just thinking in rhythm. Our first phrasing/exercise is just “Thinking in Rhythms”

We can simplify music into three aspects; Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm.

This is why i strongly believe:

“The secret to success as a soloist is to fill your mind with as many melodies and rhythms as possible, for as many different situations as neccessary”

But more on that later… back to talking about thinking of Melody, Harmony and rhythm when improvising…

In any key there are typically 7 notes we could chose from. Our Melodic and Harmonic options are limited to just 7 options. However, there’s an infinite possibilty of rhythms to play in any given situation. Up until now you’ve probably obsessed over making the right choice from 7 options and leaving the variable with infinite options up to chance. Also, you’ve probably spent hundreds of hours practicing scales, runs and licks; those notes are strongly in your subconscious. We can leave those to “experience” and focus on rhythm.

Rhythm is arguably one of the most important aspects of music. Rhythm has a band-aid like quality in that it can make wrong notes sound right because theyve been played in time and it can make the right notes sound awful if they’re played out of time. Poor rhythm and time feel can instantly tell you how advanced (or not) a player is.

Rhythm is also one of the most important aspects of phrasing. Playing strong, musical, memorable statements can only happen if you play in good time. This is why the legendary British Jazz Guitarist Mike Outram has the mantra:

“Play in time, All the TIme”

So instead of leaving rhythm up to chance, lets make it the focus!

BTW: This doesn’t mean don’t learn scales, in fact in means the opposite. Learn scales and technique so well that you can focus on rhythm and trust that everything else will fall into place.

Thinking only rhythmically is an incredible approach that can carry you through a lot of situations and get you playing some great solos. Try the following exercises to strengthen your rhtyhmic conception. All of these exercises can be done unnacompanied, with a metronome, or over a backing track. I suggest recording yourself so you can check how accurate your timing is and so you can go back and record intereseting rhythms that you create.

1. Improvise with claps or muted strums. Try and hear other musicians in your head accompanying you as you improvise interesting rhythms to clap.
2. Pick a note and improvise thinking only of the rhythm and rhythmic patterns that you’re creating. How interesting can you make one note?
3. Pick a scale shape that you’re comfortable with and improvise thinking only of the rhythm and rhythmic patterns that you’re creating. Let the melody do what it wants. Again,
4. Clap a rhythmic pattern, then play it on your instrument. Try and clap longer and longer phrases as you get better at this. Also, you can come up with multiple melodies for each rhythm before moving on to a new one.
5. Scat/sing/beatbox a rhyhmic pattern, then play it on your instrument. Apply the same ideas as before; Work up to longer rhythms and create multiple lines for each rhythm.

This is an organic approach to creating rhythm, youre essentially trying to invent interesting rhythms on the spot. How well you can do those exercises tells us your baseline ability, there are 2 ways to develop your baseline ability. 1) Keep practicing these exercises. 2) Study and Internalise more rhythms.

Every time you listen to music, you should be cataloging the rhythms that you hear so you can call upon them when you improvise. You should also listen to your favourite solos and pick out the rhythms to use in your own playing. I would put on a Stevie Ray Vaughan Tune, listen to the solo and take a bar or two of rhythms and practice that pattern for an hour.

I’ve also created a small encyclopedia of some essential rhythms that you can use as a way to expand your rhythmic repetoire.

So your homework this week is to spend time improvising thinking rhythm first and spending time onlearning new rhythms and putting them into practice. This can be from reading them, extracting them from msuic you listen to, or just inventing them and writing them down so you’ll retain them.

Have fun exploring the musical potential of the one-track mind.