Jazz Features

Question 1

What kind of techniques are typically used in jazz?

Answer 1

Shakes, wha-wha and ya ya mutes, vibrato, trills, glissandos/pitch bending, du wah chords, walking bass, brushes, flutter/slap tonguing, trading twos and fours.

Question 2

What are the typical rhythmic and metric features of jazz pieces?

Answer 2

Additive rhythms, hemiolas, triplets/quintuplets/sextuplets, syncopation, swing, foxtrot, charleston, stop time, walking bass.

Question 3

What structures and forms would you expect to see in the jazz era?

Answer 3

12 bar blues.
16 bar blues.
32 bar blues.
Tag, intro, outro, trading 2s and 4s.

Question 4

What are typical melodic features found in the jazz era?

Answer 4

Melodies built on motifs and sequences.
Ornamentation. Auxiliary notes, anticipations, appoggiaturas, conjunct scalic melodies with disjunct leaps. Riffs, antecedent consequent.

Question 5

What typical instrumentation would be seen in the jazz era?

Answer 5

Scat singing, swing, New Orleans, Traditional, Chicago, New York, Cool, Ragtime, Fusion, rhythm sections, horns, saxes, drum kit, double bass, cadenzas.

Question 6

What other features of the jazz era are common?

Answer 6

Flat keys, blues scales, modes, bebop scales.

Imitation, pedals, parallel, counterpoint, polyphony, monophony, stretto, canon, heterophony.

Question 7

What are the modes?

Answer 7

Ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, myxolydian, aeolian, locrian.

Question 8

What are the harmonic features of jazz?

Answer 8

Primary chords, tritone subs, dominant 7ths, chromatic chords.