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Here’s a quick tip for a chord to end a piece on which will give it a cool and ambiguous unresolved feeling that you’ve probably heard on recordings before.

Ok, here’s the rule. If the piece ends on a I chord, you can substitute it for a dominant 7#11 chord built on the same root. Now, don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense at the moment, I’ll explain in more detail shortly. First, here it is in notation in the key of C major.

This example just shows basic four note voicings for the Dm7 and G7 chords. However, look at the last chord. Instead of the expected I chord, here we have C and Bb in the left hand, implying some kind of C7 chord and the right hand is playing D, F# and A - the 9th, #11th and 13th of a C7 chord.

Note that there is no third in this voicing which is why it has an ambiguous sound. Also, having a dominant chord, rather than the normal C, Cmaj7 or C6 chord at the end of this progression makes it sound rather unresolved.

As this is a quick tip, I won’t go into the full theory behind the chord extensions but if you don’t really understand it theoretically, it doesn’t matter. There is an easy rule that will help you to play this sound in any key.

• Play root and seventh in your left hand.
• Play a major triad a tone (whole-step) above the root note in your right hand.

Check this against the example above. The root and 7th of a C7 chord are in the left hand and a D major triad is in the right.

If you wanted to play this in the key of Bb, you would play Bb and Ab (the root and seventh of a Bb7 chord) in your left hand, and a C major triad in your right. Here it is in notation:

If this sounds very strange to you at the moment, don’t be surprised. Part of learning jazz involves letting your ear become accustomed to new sounds so make sure you try it out a few times before passing judgement.

Finally, if you’re playing with a bass player, chances are he will hit a root note at the end of the piece so you are free to play the third in your left hand if you wish. This is shown below, again in Bb.

Similarly, if you do have a bass player, you could also leave the root out of the Cm7 and F7 chords and add some other notes to make a more interesting voicing. However, that's a lesson for another day and it's the sound of #11 chord I'd like you to take from this little tip.

Remember, this particular substitution only works for the last chord of a piece - use it anywhere else and you will get some funny looks from anybody listening!

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In my last post, I talked about the difficulty in knowing what to work on as an emerging jazz player. Sometimes, the sheer amount of things you need to master can seem overwhelming and it’s hard to know where to start.

However, in my experience there are several basic aspects of musicianship and jazz playing that are an absolute must for anyone hoping to get gigs with other musicians. Today, I’d like to carry on with that list of essentials but if you missed the first part of this article, or want to remind yourself what I’ve already covered, you can check it out here.

Right, on with the golden rules…!

Know your place!

Learn to keep the structure of the tune in your head so that you don’t get lost if you’re not playing during your bandmates’ solos. Learn to trade fours and eights and come back in at the right place.

When soloing, as long as you start and finish in the right place, most people don’t care as much as you may imagine about how you sound. However, it doesn’t matter if someone is blowing up a storm - if they always overrun and spoil the first five or six bars of the next solo or the singer’s entrance, they’ll drop down the pecking order.

Singers and horn players, don’t switch off during rhythm section solos. Always listen to what’s going on - even if you’re not playing or singing. Know where you are in the tune and make sure you come back in the right place.

Swing When You're Winning – and when you're not!

Learn to swing. As Duke said ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing’. If a jazz group isn’t swinging, it’s in trouble. This is particularly important for drummers as you’ll be responsible for much of the swing feel.

Remember that swing feel is really hard to define but it’s much more than the approximated tied-triplet figure that gets written in many tuition books. If you need any proof, punch that rhythm into a sequencer and see if it’ll swing like Elivin Jones. It won’t.

Authentic swing feel is probably one of the hardest things to develop and I’ll probably write an article on it in more detail in the future. For now, the best advice I can give you is play along with recordings of your favourite players. Don’t try and duplicate exactly what they’re doing, but rather try and play with the same rhythmic feel.

The biggest compliment one jazz musician can pay to another is ‘he really swings’.

Top and tail

Learn common intros and endings. The ends of tunes are probably the most perilous part of jam session or scratch band performances and things go wrong here more than anywhere else.

There are certain common ways to end a tune such as repeating the last four bars three times or using a ‘Basie' or 'A-train' ending. Learn what the most common conventions are and be able to execute them on the spot in any key.

Some tunes have intros from famous recordings that get played a lot (Charlie Parker’s intro to All The Things You Are or Red Garland’s intro to If I Were a Bell for example). If you know these, you’ll gain kudos.

Know any good tunes?

Learn the most popular tunes. In any city or area, there tend to be standards that get called all the time. Listen to other players’ gigs and jam sessions, make a note of the most commonly played tunes and make sure you learn them. This will often differ from city to city so make sure you do your homework locally.

Keep the Customer Satisfied

Learn tunes that are likely to get requested on gigs by non-jazz fans (things like Fly Me To The Moon, The Girl From Ipanema and Take Five get asked for regularly by punters). If you can handle common requests at the drop of a hat, your band mates will be glad they booked you.

Don't forget to make sure you can play 'Happy Birthday'.

If you don't know, ask

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’ve found that most musicians (good ones anyway) are only too happy to help out someone less experienced as they’ve been there themselves.

If you want to know what tunes always get requested, ask. If you want to know what the most common tunes called at the local jam session are, ask. If you want to know what the ending for the tune you made a hash of should have been, ask.

If more experienced players can see you are working hard to improve, they’ll often cut you some slack or give you more leeway than someone who pretends they know it all.

Don’t worry about appearing foolish – just remember that every great musician has been at your stage of development at some point in their musical career.

And don’t forget what it’s like when the time comes when you are the experienced player and the new guys could use your help. What goes around, comes around.

It's (not) All About You Baby

Play for the group, not for yourself. Remember that the audience is there to hear the band play, not just you. Listen to the other players and look for ways to improve the group sound. Don’t just be thinking how you can show off all your best tricks or how you can stand out individually.

Too many players are playing to the imaginary listener who plays their instrument and are constantly trying to prove how good they are. Remember that you are one part of an ensemble and the ensemble sound is more important that your part in it. Play for the group and serve the music and you’ll go far.

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I hope that you’ve found these tips useful. All the things mentioned here and in my previous post have something in common – they make the group sound better and make it easier for the other musicians to play. If you can do that consistently, your name will be at the top of the list because people will want to play with you.

Make sure you can do the things I’ve talked about and do them consistently well. If you focus on these things as a priority, not only will you develop a rock-solid foundation for all your playing, but you’ll start to get a reputation as a ‘safe pair of hands’. Always remember that if you’re making life easier for the bandleader and the other musicians, you will get hired time and again.

One of the most intimidating aspects of learning to play jazz is that there seems to be so much to learn. What’s worse, as you improve you continually uncover more things to work on.

Sometimes it feels like you reach the top of a mountain, only to find there’s another higher mountain in front of you that demands to be climbed.

The sheer amount of material to study and assimilate can lead to players becoming confused about what they should be practicing from one moment to the next. Often this means that they flit from one topic to the next without mastering any. Sometimes it leads to an uneven balance of skills in their playing.

Everybody ends up in a situation like this sooner or later. The good news is that with perseverance and by being aware of your weaknesses, your playing will eventually even out.

However, if you want to improve quickly and become an in-demand player, there are some basic aspects of musicianship that you need to get down at the earliest opportunity. Many jazz musicians spend most of their practice time working on improvising solos when soloing is probably the least important consideration when deciding who you want on a scratch gig.

So what are the important things to work on? Here, and in my next post, I’ll list some of the most common skills that people look for in instrumentalists. If you make sure you master these and do them consistently well at jam sessions and gigs, I guarantee you that the phone will start to ring. The tips are not in any particular order of priority but they’re all essential!

Get good time

Good time is probably the most important skill you can develop in playing jazz and yet it’s something that so many beginners neglect. If you don’t have good time nothing else that you can do really matters. Good time is the foundation of everything that happens in a jazz performance.

Learn to feel the pulse of a piece and internalise it so you don’t need anyone to tell you where the downbeat is. Good time will mean you won't get thrown if the drummer plays some cross rhythms or a melody is phrased it in an unusual way. Buy a metronome and make it your best friend. This will help with the next essential, which is also part of good time...

Don’t speed up or slow down

There’s nothing more uncomfortable than playing with someone who is continuously dragging you back or straining at the leash to speed up. The foundation of most mainstream jazz is a solid tempo that doesn’t fluctuate for the duration of the piece. Learn to be solidly ‘in the pocket’ and you’ll get the call over supposedly better players who don’t have such a solid sense of time.

For drummers and bass players, this is even more important because if you get it wrong, the whole performance will fall to bits (no pressure then!). A player with good time will always be in demand because he makes it easier for the other musicians to play.

Voicings

If you play a chordal instrument, learn basic voicings for every chord in every key and be able to execute them instantaneously.

Don’t worry about learning lots of different voicings to start with, just make sure you can hit any chord at any given moment: it’s no use knowing 20 voicings and substitutions for G7 if you trip up on B7#9.

Your main job when playing with other people is to provide the harmonic platform for the music. Lots of voicing options are icing; being able to hit at least one correct voicing for every chord in every key is cake.

Learn commonly played styles

Learn to play idiomatically. For most mainstream jazz gigs you’ll need to be able to play 4/4 swing at fast and slow tempos, jazz waltzes, ballads, bossa novas and possibly sambas. Learn stylistically appropriate rhythms and techniques for these different disciplines and your playing will sound authentic.

For example, if you’re a pianist playing bossa nova, make sure you understand clave and learn some idiomatic comping rhythms. If you get these basic styles down, you’ll be ok on 95% of tunes that get called in mainstream gigs.

Learn to read lead sheets and chord charts

It’s essential that if somebody hands you a chart and counts to four, you can play through that chart without getting lost or hitting a million wrong notes. Soloing over unfamiliar changes should be less of a priority to start with than getting the head right. Learn to sight-read melodies. Chordal players, make sure you can hit all those chords at the right time.

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If you can’t do any of the above things and you want to play live, forget whatever you’re working on and get them down. I promise you that not only will you get more gigs, you will be building an invaluable and rock solid foundation to your playing that will always serve you well.

Next time I’ll continue my list of things that will get you hired but until then, remember that getting hired is not about being the best player ever; it’s about doing basic things, and doing them well.