Jazz Violin Masterclass: Exploring Caravan’s Rhythms, Harmonies, and Improvisation

This groove is kind of loosely based off of the tune called Caravan, which as far as I know was written by somebody in Duke Ellington’s band. Made popular by Duke Ellington and later on you can check out the version by Art Blakey and then many many other versions. So one of the things about it is it’s got this sort of Latin groove, Latin funky groove.

But then, it changes in the B section. It goes to this swing feel. So that’s… That’s one of the rhythmic components, but there’s also a harmonic component of the tune. So the A section, it starts out with a C7 with a flat nine that resolves to F minor, Dorian. But then the B section is all dominant sevenths.

That’s F7 and then it’s B flat 7 and does that the whole time. So that’s also interesting from a harmonic standpoint. So we’re going to be dealing with the nuts and bolts of all that. The rhythmic problems, the harmonic problems, the improvisation problems, and whether you’re beginning or whether you’re super advanced, it’s going to be perfect for you.

So, um, let’s start with this. Let’s just get this.

And if you just wanna be right here, if you can’t hang with that yet, that’s cool. And by the way, if that’s too easy for you, I got something harder. So don’t worry. But if that’s too hard, then let’s just go with this. How about this?

Down, down, down, down. One, two, three, four. That’s where it is. Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, right? And then you can try to get, you can just try to get that.

So you try to grab the rhythm of the bass line, or if you’re advanced, then you can grab the whole bass line, which will be like this.

And if you’re advanced and that’s easy for you, then just make it feel good. Let’s just see if we can get some rhythms with that. Can you do that? How about that?

Now, anytime the variations could be playing different notes. And if you don’t want to use the down up, down up, you don’t have to. I just like to do that to practice and get the groove. Eventually, I’m going to hook the bow.

So, you can stay with the rhythm if you want, and you can apply it to the scale, or you can just learn the scale with me. So the first scale I’m going to teach is going to be the F harmonic minor scale on C, right? So what we’ve got is an E natural. And an A flat, and a D flat. So, if you want to try to play it back to me.

And then A flat. Then B flat. C, Db, E natural, F, G. Let’s go back down from G. F, E, F, E, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, And dfl. C, if this is too easy for you, play it in thirds or sixth or sevenths up the oc.

So let’s try to put that, that scale, if you want, you can write out the scale, you know, and again, I would write it from, I would write it from there to there again. What is the scale? It’s the F harmonic minor scale, F harmonic minor, F harmonic minor scale. You can Google that if you’re not sure what it is.

But it’s over, it’s happening over a C in the bass. So we, we think of it as starting as starting from C and the notes that we emphasize are going to be the root, the third and the seventh of this chord. And this chord is a C7 chord, right? It’s vamping on the five chord. forever and ever. So those are the notes that, that, if anything, you’re gonna, you’re gonna, um,

You can hear it in the melody, right? It does this. It’s on the root. And then it lands on the seven. Seven. Seven. And then it goes down to the root. To the root. Let’s just play the melody. You can just try to hear it. That’s a C7.

Walk down from C. We’ll do it one more time. Let’s see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Walk down from C. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Everybody knows that tune, right? So let’s go back to this groove and let’s work on that scale. If you have the time or if you’re inclined to do it, you can write out the scale. Like I said, it’s got. It’s an F harmonic minor scale, it’s got an E natural in it, and it’s got a D, an A flat and a D flat.

So unless you’re able to hear it, or unless you already know it, then what I would do is I would write it out. And, um, Because then I think it’ll make it easier for you to learn it. Um, but if you do know it, then you can play these exercises with me and you can harmonize yourself on the exercises, or you can play them in octaves.

Um, and, and I’ll give, I’ll give you some other scales that are alternative scales on this for advanced players as well in a minute. But let’s focus on this first. So, what if we do a pattern? Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh. Let’s do that pattern. But I want to try to uh, I want to try since it’s this Latin groove, I want to try to play the anticipation.

Yeah. So, we’re playing one E and uh. We’re we’re starting each note on uh. Now you don’t have to do that with me, but that’s where I’m going to do it. So if you were playing it with your bow, it would be like this. Down from B flat. Uh, You can try to double that up, or you can stay where you’re at with it. But the double up would sound like this. Something like this.

So that might feel really counterintuitive to a lot of folks that play classical music because it’s like you’re starting each note on the uh, but to me that feels like a really a good way to try to. Feel this this clave. It’s just a good way to practice it. You know what I mean? So and even if you listen to some lines I’ll just try to play some lines and see if you can play them back to me Briefly and I’ll let you go back and work on the scale a little bit However, you want and I’ll stay out of your way, but let’s just try to play some lines with me Okay, so I’m gonna start on B flat 2, 3, 4. On C

So I want to give you the chance to be able to explore the scale and explore the clave at your own level, wherever that is. I want to also check here on the chat and see if there’s any problems. Um, okay, good. F minor, F harmonic minor. That’s right. Thank you. So, um, now again, look, we can back up a little bit and what I did when I started a lot of times with it, I just ask you to just grab any note in the scale.

And I feel like it works here. So, you know, if it’s, um, just, just slow. Slow notes and not worrying about the clave, right? You could just play.

You can focus on your sound, your intonation. And just slowly hearing the sound of the scale. But you can also try landing on the anticipation. You can do any of those things if you want. Now, if you’re advanced, so I’m just going to take a second to explain some other sounds that you can use if you want.

First of all, that scale I just gave you, I stand by that, alright? But, for people who want other sounds to try, I would encourage you to try the diminished scale. And in this context, the diminished scale, there’s a couple ways for me to explain it to you. So I’m going to explain it to you, and if you’d…

Don’t feel like you have to take in any of this, but I’m just going to try to do it in one minute for people who are advanced and want me to give them advanced concepts. But again, just to say that all this is advanced enough, but having said that, I’m going to give you some advanced concepts. So this is the diminished scale and the way it works is it starts on C and you play a half step.

And then you play a whole step, and then you play a half step, and then you play a whole step, and then you play a half step and then you play a whole step. And then you play a half step, and then you play a whole step. That’s the diminished scale. Starting from see, you play a half step hold half whole half whole half whole.

And what you get is a symmetrical. Eight note diminished scale. Now there’s a few ways to imply this, but, but check this out. When you start on a C7 chord, which is one of the main places that you’re going to use the diminished chord. When you play over a C7 chord, the place you actually want to start to make it like a bebop scale is you want to start.

On the second degree, so for, on the C sharp. To the E, to the G. Because these are the most, these are the most, uh, defining notes of the chord.

We can all try that together if you want. So if I’m going to start on B flat, and I’m going to come down and it’s going to be half, whole. Half whole. Starting on B flat. Ready and

Half whole. Half whole. Half whole. Rinse and repeat. You can do it in thirds, sixths, sevenths, eighths, sevenths, eighths, sevenths, eighths,

So if you practice like that and you, and you start on the flat two or the third, fifth or seventh, then it becomes like a bebop scale. And that’s how you can organize the diminished scale is just like the bebop scale, the dominant seventh bebop scale, but wait, there’s more. There’s other ways that you can organize this diminished scale.

One is by noticing that there are basically two fully diminished scale, uh, uh, seventh chords within it. So we’ve got this.

So we have C and C sharp. So you can play all those.

You can do that. But we also have four triads built into the scale. So we have C, E flat, F sharp, A. But we also have C minor, E flat minor, F sharp minor, A minor. Now we also have C dominant 7 and C minor 7 and C minor 7 flat 5 and the same qualities for E flat F sharp and A. So you can play any of those triads or any of those Dominant 7th chords all and that’s a way to organize it.

So if I play like an A dominant 7. Or F sharp. or E flat. Or C.

So if you rotate between any of those, that’s how you can apply the diminished scale. Um, so having said that, I would like for most people to focus on just playing the F melodic minor, but if you want that more advanced thing, that’s a little, just a tutorial on the diminished scale and it helps if you, if you write out the diminished scale.

So, um, so go ahead and try some patterns over that F melodic minor scale, some rhythmic things. Take it slow. Warm up. I’m just going to let you roll on this groove. Two, three, and. Two, three, and. Two, three, and.

Here’s another advanced concept. So we’re sitting on C7, right? So you can just play C7 all day, but you can also think about playing C7 to its V, and back to C7 to its V, back to its, to C7 and its V. So let’s just say that the V of C7 is G7. So you could play C7, G7, C7, G7, right? But not only G7, you could use any alteration of G7.

So it could be G7 altered, it could be Db7. And the way that you structure that is it could be like C7, G7, it could be real long, or it could be like C7, G7, or it could be like C, G, C, G, C, G, C, G. So a lot of times when people play this, when they do the comping, instead of just playing the 3rd and 7th, Let’s, we could try to play the 3rd and 7th if we want, you could do it strumming, or you could do like. That’s just the third and seventh, and you can try to play along with different like rhythms.

But sometimes what people do, they’ll do So, so basically I’m going C to G, C to G Just go up a half step So if, if there’s hope So if you want an advanced concept, then you can go between C7 and G7. So I just wanted to give that to you. Um, uh, so I’m going to play some lines and, uh, you can play the lines back to me or you can play your own thing. Okay. Two, three, four.

So I just want you to notice that those lines that I was playing right there. They’re pretty, they’re not fast moving, right? But it can still be powerful. It can still be energetic, I believe. I believe it can still be compelling. You don’t have to have tons of chops and play eighth notes. But if you, if you’ve got those chops, or if you can find that harmony, then by all the means, by all means, then do that, you know?

And it might be that you just do shorter strings of fast notes, right? So like, You can do shorter strings of fast notes, but leave spaces about focus on making it in time. I don’t care how fancy you play. If you don’t play in time, it doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned. So really, it’s not about playing fast. It’s not about playing fancy. It’s about phrase, playing phrases and having some intention and make, and making it happen.

So I really think it’s more important. And as far as an advanced concept, this is the advanced concept I have for you. Play within your means, make it happen. That’s, that’s, that’s the self talk I give myself. You know what I mean? I can play all kinds of advanced stuff and, and have it mean nothing and feel completely like I said nothing at the end of the day.

So, so I’m, that’s why everything I say here is just, that’s the value I bring to what I’m. Trying to tell myself about my playing is I want it to mean something. I want it to have integrity, the rhythm to have integrity, the sound to have integrity, the phrase to have integrity, the clave to have integrity, the harmony to have integrity.

To me, that’s what’s most important. So, um, anyway, uh, Let’s go back to, uh, let’s go to this next sound here, which is F minor. We’ve only played one chord of the entire song of Caravan so far, and that’s enough to work on for hours. But let’s go to the second chord. There’s only two chords in the first part.

So this is F minor. F minor dorian, if you will. Um, So it’s just, it’s E flat major over F. We can try that, that bass line that you feel the Dorian if we want. And you can also, um, just grab single notes or dyads from E flat major. You can do patterns. You can play over, over that. It should be easier than the first one. A flat, D flat, C, D, E flat.

So let’s try to put the whole A section together. Um, we’ll play the melody once, and then we’re going to do blowing over the changes, and it’s going to be up to you to kind of, to learn the form of the song, um, which is. You’ve got the C7 that happens for a long time and then the F minor happens for a minute So if we play the melody, hopefully you’re going to be able to internalize the the length of each chord So here we go two three, and repeat.

That’s it. So I think of it as being six. On the C and two on the F minor. So let’s see if you can make that switch and like actually play over the form. Now that you know that those are the two chords that you’re playing over. Okay, one, two, you got it. C.

3, 4, 5, 6. And here comes the F one, two. We’re back to the top C one. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and then one, two. Do that a couple more times. C. 3, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 1, 2, 1 more time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Nice. So just remember that the bass player. They might be playing that groove the like just like for 12 minutes and if you’ve ever been to a jam session and you know like and or like a open mic and then like there’s people um that are coming up and taking solos and then somebody else takes a solo another person takes a solo can you imagine how aggravated you would be if you had to play that bass line Or that, or that like, like just the line on the piano.

And so let’s do that. All right, shall we? Because, you know, they say you have to walk a mile in somebody’s shoes to actually empathize with them. So let’s just play the bass line.

So we do the whole progression four times, but I’m guessing that a bass player or a drummer might have to do it like 50 or a hundred times as long as we just did it. Right. So just to inspire a little bit of that empathy, but also I think because by playing a baseline or by playing the groove or just playing the comping part, that’s what’s going to actually give you the time that you need to settle in and actually immerse yourself in the groove and understand the groove.

Um, And somebody said this in the feedback survey form. They said, what does it mean to be a beginning improviser or an advanced improviser? Like, what does that look like? But I feel like, it’s like you just have, it’s just about putting in the time in. Putting the time in with something as simple as this, just playing the groove.

And that that’s what it takes. Um, yeah. So, uh. How do you guys feel about this? Are you ready to move on to the next section of the song? Are there any questions about the first half of Caravan?

Did you get enough time to, to, to, to, to ingrain some of that? Or do you just want to blow over it some more? Yeah? Okay, good. Alright. So, let’s go over the second half of the tune. So I’m gonna call out the chords to you, F seven, B flat seven, four bars E flat seven. A flat seven for two G, seven for two. Let’s do it again. F seven. For four bars. B flat seven for four bars. E flat seven. A flat seven for two bars. The G. I’ll give it to you one more time. F seven. B flat seven. E flat seven. A flat seven, then G seven. So the easy version of the baseline is gonna be, well, actually, it’s just gonna be this, just playing like the, the quarter note at the beginning of every bar. So we can try that. F, just doing that, and then B flat. And this is how you’re internalizing the form. Then E flat. 

Then, A flat for two bars. Then G, right? Next version would be root fifth. Root fifth root fifth F, fifth B flat fifth, B flat fifth, B flat fifth root E, flat fifth, root fifth, fifth, a, flat fifth, G. Do it again. F, B flat. E flat. A flat and G. So now here’s a couple other things you can do to try to internalize the stability of the bass line is you can play root fifth root fifth. Let’s try that. B flat. E flat. A flat G Let’s do that one more time. F If you’re too advanced for this, just be walking bass lines. Cause I have walked at least a thousand bass lines on this tune. And it’s a great way to improvise. Is to be walking bass lines on the tune. Never gets old. One more time. B flat. E flat. 

Now here’s another, we could do, we could do this one. If you caught that, I don’t know. I’m gonna make sure everybody caught that. So it’s. Can you play that? And then you just go back. The reason I like that is because we’re finding root, third, fifth, seven. So, we can do that from basically from every chord. One, two, three, four. E Flat. E flat. A flat, G. Again, B flat. AFL G. So then I guess after that I would say just try to walk. You know, and so when I think about walking, I just think about basically playing the root on the downbeat of every chord. And these aren’t rules, but I think these are like good general rules that you can follow if you’re trying to learn to be a good, like walk, good baselines, try to play the root on the downbeat.

And then your most stable notes are going to be roots and fifths, and then after that you’ve got, you know, chord tones, and after that you’ve got scale tones, and after that you’ve got chromatic tones. But also there’s other things you can do with them. I mean, you can write a novel about how to walk bass lines, and I can’t even scratch the surface of it.

But, you want to keep that rhythmic stability and that harmonic stability. So, I’m going to take a second, and we can all take a second and just do wherever you’re at with the bass line, just focus on it a little bit. 1, 2, 3, 4.

So now let’s do the third and seventh of every chord. Sorry, F seven, third and seventh B, flat third and seventh, E, flat third and seventh. They’re all tritones, they’re all down a step A flat seven G, so A or F seven. B Flat seven.

E flat seven. Third and seventh

G. Let’s do that one more time.

You could also just do like a strumming pattern like this if you wanted to, if it was the right context for that.

Now, if you wanna make it more sophisticated, then for every five chord that you have, you could play a two in front of it, and that would look like instead of playing. F B flat. E, flat A, flat G. It would be like C, F, F, B flat, B flat, E flat, E flat, A flat. B G. So I’m changing the, the third and seventh to match that up.

So if you want something more advanced, that’s what you do. You can also look at as in suspension. So F.

So you can just think of it as a suspension or you can think of it as a 2 5. So that’s it. Now, if you want to, um, learn all these, um, these scales that go with these dominant seventh chords, then remember that each chord is a five. So you just go down a five from there and that’s your scale. So F seven.

That’s the B flat major scale. Flat B flat seven. It’s the five of what scale? E flat, right? EFL seven is the five of a flat, so that’s your scale. A flat seven’s a five of D. Dfl and G is a five of C. So you can play those can be your key signatures. The key signature of B flat, the key signature of E flat, A flat, and G I guess unless I missed one.

I missed D flat. Um, so they could be properly known as the Mixolydian Scale. So maybe you can try to play after me. F Mix, B, flat mix. So, if we try just to play Mixolydian.

Ah, I can’t even do it. Because I’m so used to using, uh, uh, I use the bebop scales for it, which was going to be my point. So if you’re playing bebop scales, then you can use the dominant seven bebop scale for each chord, which would be like this. And I want to just go over that again, briefly, how the bebop scale works.

So basically that was it. It’s got the flat seven and the major seven, and that makes it a symmetrical. eight note scale, which gives you the advantage of being able to fall on the root, third, fifth, or seventh on every strong beat, as long as you start on one of them. And as long as you move stepwise, for example. 

Like that so you could do And you always get. And that’s why it works so well So what I’ve shown to some people and this is in the Facebook group is this exercise basically what I just showed you Which is um, and so we’ll just you can play after me if you want. So we’ll start. Um, On F. Yeah, again.

So if you hear like the way I’ll probably play over it, I’ll use a lot of those bebop scales. So I’ll just. Just let you hear it for a second.

So if you want, you can try to play over all these dominant seventh chords. And you can just try to play any of the chord tones or do any of that stuff that we just went over. I’m just gonna let it loop for you and see how it goes. And we’ll see how it goes. You can let me know. I mean, it’s not supposed to be easy.

1, 2, ready, go. F7 This is the same as Sweet Georgia Brown. Uh, Graham, same exact progression. E flat seven A flat seven, G F, B flat seven. And if you’re just here, if that’s all you’re doing, that’s great. If you’re just playing the chord tones. That’s great. F seven. B flat seven. One more time. E flat seven. E flat. 

Chase. I answer Victoria’s question, Victoria. Victoria asked about the baseline, like I basically think of a swing baseline as just being. P p p, you know, just this tinging, tinging, tinging, tinging ting, tinging ting. You know, this kind of, um, but occasionally you can play a little pickup, you know?

And I don’t really know the rule, Victoria. I mean, I just try to mix it up and I just listen to good bass lines and try to, I don’t consider myself a good bass player, so I don’t really want to muddy the waters. If somebody has an idea about it, I’m welcome to let me know what they think. Is there a certain note you’re aiming for?

Like, the third below or something? Like, what are you picking? Oh, I just use the open string. So I don’t care what the chord is.

You know, or sometimes I’ll double, I’ll do two fingers, but usually I’ll do a hammer on. So I don’t even really care what the bottom note is, I just, uh, use the hammer on. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thanks. Cool. Hey Chris, I have a question. Yeah. And this may seem like a really dumb question. No dumb questions here. I’m just learning these scales and things. So, you know, I’m just trying to get acclimated to what they are and playing them and being able to go up and down on them.

So how do you get to that point where you bridge over into actually making combinations and playing like anything similar to what you were playing? Yeah, well like you know like that bebop scale thing that I was talking about that that exercise You know, that probably took me like three months just to kind of get the hang of.

That doesn’t mean I was fluid with it. I mean, I, you know, and I think you want to really focus on just a small amount of material and being thorough with it. So whether you’re approaching like the melodic minor scale that we used, or whether you’re using the diminished, I mean, I’m still working, I’ve been working on the diminished scale for 25 years and I do not even feel nearly like I’ve really touched, scratched the surface of it yet.

Um, you know, but like I took a couple years when I worked on melodic minor, I feel really strong melodic minor on most of my keys, but there’s a couple keys that like are still weak. We all have weak keys and strong keys. And, um, and then, but the bebop scale, I feel pretty fluent on the, you know, the pentatonics, you know, the major scale.

I see each of these kind of scales as like a, a color world. scale world. And so I, I feel like it, it When I say world, I mean, that’s how much it respect it deserves from us. So I get the sense that people get really impatient and it’s like, how long is it going to take me? Yeah, a few years. It’s going to take you a few years and you want to focus.

One of the biggest things that I recommend not to do is to be like, I’m working on pentatonix and bebop scale and diminished and melodic minor and major scale and this other crazy scale I found over here. I don’t find that I make progress when I work on too many. of the different scales at once. So I really recommend you just really dive in deep.

Um, And just have respect for it. And just, that’s why I do all the patterns the way I do. That’s why I say, write it out so that you’re not BSing. And I think that a lot of us, we feel this temptation that like, or this expectation that we should be able to hear it and do it by our ears. And I just have not found that to be true for me.

I have found it to be true for me that. I know how to read and so it helps me to read with the intention of, of memorizing something faster. So I will read it off the page and then I will turn the page over. And again, I know that there’s a lot of people who will, who swear by the importance of learning things by ear.

I’m not saying don’t learn anything by ear, but I’m also saying there are some people that are stronger in the ear. Some people are stronger, um, reading. For me, I find that reading helps me build my ear. So, like, if I hear something, but then I write it out, like, what’s transcription? Well, you’re, you’re learning it, and then you’re reading it, and, you know, so, um, I just think, I think a lot of patience is important.

Did I answer your question, Cher? Yes, basically. It’s just going to take some time. Yeah. It’s not going to come overnight, like anything else. Yeah, yeah.

I think the beautiful thing about it though is that, you know, the thing is that like, you can say a lot on this tune, Caravan, without playing fast, without doing things that are fancy. I really believe that. Yeah, and even the, uh, the melody is so lyrical and sparse, you know, so I think, I think the, uh, I never get the, the bridge right, but I think the melody on the bridge is like this.

It’s something like that. So I just feel like there’s so much that you can say, even if you’re not playing a bunch of fancy stuff, and there’s a lot of people that are playing a lot of fancy stuff, but they’re not saying anything, including me many times. Still today often So and that’s what’s to me. That’s really what’s important. 

That’s caravan. Do you want to try the whole tune? Alright, let’s play the whole tune. So I’m going to roll it for you, and uh, I’ll play the melody along, but I’ll just play it really quietly along. So you can, you can follow the melody with me if you want, or you can just, um, Blow over the whole tune.