LJS 108: Using Motivic Development to Create Musical Themes

Welcome to episode 108 of the LJS Podcast where today we are concluding "Jazz Standards Month" with the topic of motivic development and how we can utilize it to develop musical themes, and structure into our jazz solos. Brent tells you what motivic development is and gives some examples. Listen in!
Listen to episode 108







This week's episode concludes "Jazz Standards Month" where we've been digging into different strategies for approaching and understanding jazz standards.
I talk all about motific development, what it is, and how to use it over any kind of chord progression. Specifically, I hone in on the first 8 bars of On Green Dolphin Street, which can be a bit tricky to approach.
I draw this lesson from the upcoming April 2018 release of our brand new eBook and companion course, The Jazz Standards Playbook, which goes over in-depth studies of 10 important jazz standards and what we can learn from them.
Motivic development is when rhythmic or melodic ideas are repeated or evoked over different structures within a composition. This often manifests in applying the same or similar rhythmic ideas over different chords in a progression. It can also be the same or similar note choice formulas applied over the different chords.
Here is some of what I talk about in today's episode:

*
What a motif is and how it can help.

*
2 examples of motifs and how to understand them.

*
My challenge for you to compose your own motifs.


Remember this week to take action. Understanding and knowing this concept is a great thing, but until you take action on it, you won't have gained its benefits.
Musical Examples:

Important Links
The Jazz Standards Playbook







Read the Transcript
Brent: All right, podcast listeners, what's up? My name is Brent. I am the jazz musician behind the website LearnJazzStandards.com, which is a blog, a podcast, and videos all geared toward helping you become a better jazz musician. Welcome back to the regular listeners and those of you listening for the very first time. If you are a jazz geek or a musician or someone who wants to be a better player, you are in the right place, so stay around, stick around. Now we are closing up Jazz Standards Month, the month of March has been Jazz Standards Month. And we're closing that up today with a great episode, episode 108, which is all about using motivic development to help you develop themes in your jazz solos. And this episode, we're gonna be talking about what is motivic development, how can it help us, and I'm gonna be giving you some examples as well, so stick around, make sure you stay tuned.
Now, Jazz Standards Month, if you've been listening for a while, for the last several episodes, you know that this is leading up to a big book launch, ebook launch and companion course, the Jazz Standards Playbook. Which the official date now is April the eighth, Sunday, April the eighth, 2018, is when this book is coming out.
Super stoked about this, this is a book that goes into depth into 10 jazz standard studies where, of course, these jazz standards are important to know, but they also have tons of lessons to teach us about jazz, about harmony, about music theory, about improvisation, that if we can unlock these and get inside of these, we can really unlock hundreds of other standards.
So I'm really excited about this book, it's gonna be launching, now if you want to be the first to know about this book coming out, which I encourage you to do so,