Today we are talking about a really simple concept that will allow you to maintain interest and create depth in your solo.

It’s a very commonly stated belief that music is about tension and release. You’ll hear this in countless interview with many famous musicians talking about their approaches to harmony, melody and soloing. Then they will follow up with examples of harmonic tension and release eg a G7 resolving to a Cmaj. They always imply that this tension and release could be melodic, rhythmic or harmonic even though it’s not very intuitive to thing or rhythmic dissonance. I think the term “Tension and Release’ falls short because of our preconceptions towards it.

So I like to simplify it further…

Music is about Contrast!

This means the ebb and flow between any two opposing components. So this includes Tension and Release, High and Low, Dense and Sparse, Diatonic and Chormatic. etc etc.

It is contrast that creates interest, and is the logic behind why tension and release works. Imagine you’re improvising on a blues and you play outside for a bar and resolve back in to the key. It works right? Now imagine you play outside for 20 bars and then resolve back in… didn’t sound quite so good, did it?

This example highlights the importance of contrast and the importance of the balance. The outside ones only work because of the inside lines, starve the listener of the contrast and it won’t sound pleasing.

So let’s start restoring balance to the force and work on our “Contrast Control” by practicing improvisation whilst swapping between contrasting ideas. In reality multiple elements are creating contrast at a time, but for the sake of the exercises, focus on one at a time before you start combining elements.

Here is a Table to that has paired contrasting elements for you to practice going between. Items on the left may be perceived as Active and items in the right may be seen as more Passive. This is a generalisation but may help you with discerning when to use each one. Other than that, these are not in any particular order, feel free to pick the ones that make the most sense to you at first.

Some of these are intentionally vague/mysterious and open to interpretation, remember to add in all the creativity and rule-breaking that you want!!

NOTE: Contrast isn’t JUST about going between extremes, you can blend contrast in slowly and subtly.

Important things to think about-

• How long can you maintain an element before feeling the need to swap to the contrasting side for balance? Experiment with different lengths, try and drag it out or try to really limit it. Start to develop your ability to feel when to add contrast. I call this experimenting with balance. Sometimes balance is good, sometimes imbalance is good.
• Listen to the harmony and/or the band,; are the chords outlining a scheme of contrast that you can follow? eg Dominant to Tonic Movement might support going from high activity to low activity or tension to release.

Additional Exercises:

• Listen for and identify when contrast in being employed by composers and improvisers in the music you like. Then try and emulate it in you own improvisation. For example; David Gilmour is a great place to go looking for contrast.
• Come up with your own Ideas you can create contrast with, feel free to share them in the group!