Improvisation Technique Dictionary

Playing music you have not written down. Scales and changes, motif development, rhythmic phrasing and the vocabulary improvisers use to talk about what they just played.

5 sections, 90 terms planned

• 🎼
  Scales and Changes
  22 terms

  Chord scale relationships, modes, blues form, altered tensions

• 🧩
  Motif and Development
  18 terms

  Motif, sequence, displacement, inversion, question and answer

• ⏱️
  Rhythm and Phrasing
  16 terms

  Phrase length, space, anticipation, rhythmic displacement

• 👂
  Ear and Vocabulary
  18 terms

  Licks, transcription, guide tones, target notes, hearing changes

• 🎭
  Styles
  16 terms

  Blues, bebop, modal, free, folk ornament traditions

This encyclopedia is being written. In the meantime, explore the violin technique dictionary, which is complete with 230 defined terms, browse the rest of the music dictionary, or use our free practice tools.