“Desert Island Exercise” Over Rhythm Changes

This post describes a helpful exercise over rhythm changes to discover chord harmonization options and soloing strategies.

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I started with a new teacher recently who told me about a practice routine which he considers a “desert island exercise.”  In other words, if you were stuck on a desert island, this exercise could yield a lifetime's worth of discovery, learning, and improvement.  The exercise, over rhythm changes, has you start on any note and ascend or descend chromatically, harmonizing chords as you go along.  In addition to discovering various options for chord harmonization, one can use the underlying chord architecture as a basis for improvising a line which has some net linear movement up or down.  

For my first try, I started harmonizing chords from C and ascending chromatically.  You can see the movement in the top note of each chord below.

You start off with a Bb major 9th chord.  Everything is pretty straightforward until you get to the second Cm7.  You have to deal with a b5, but it doesn't sound awful, given the ear anticipates a continuation of the chromatic ascending line pattern.  You then must deal with the major 7 in Bb7.  I took advantage of the fact that I could play identical quartal chords over the F minor7 and Eb major7 and just kept the same shape as a passing chord.  So although the harmonization isn't perfect over Bb7, it makes sense in context as a passing chord.  And then you can do the same quartal chord over Eb minor7 (dealing with the #5 in the ascending line), so you can actually play the same quartal voices used four times in a row, which sounds pretty cool and was my strategy to deal with the harmonization problem of the major 7 in Bb7.  

Here's a line ascending from C using the chord architecture from above.

I realized on my first try I never used any notes higher than the chromatic ascending line.  I decided to write another and weave the line below and above the chromatic ascending line.

My next attempt was an ascending line from Bb.  It’s a little more straightforward from Bb than from C.

And here's a line from the harmonization above.

F ascending is another starting note that works relatively well.  You get hung up with a major 7th in the first G which i dealt with by using an enclosure around the b7 starting with the Gb.  I also created a line which I liked over the Cm7 and decided to get more mileage out of it by repeating it over the BbM7 (Dm7).  I figure this strong repetition over different chords makes for a good line.  

Here's a line which ascends from D.  I decided to add augmented chords wherever I could and throw in several triplets as well.

Now for a descending line pattern.  This one starts at A and uses some cool, modern cluster chords towards the end.

Here's another descending harmonization from A that uses the same shape for the last 3 chords.

Here's a solo line descending from A.

In addition to jamming over any rhythm changes tune ("I Got Rhythm," "Oleo," "The Flintstones," etc) you can apply this concept to pretty much any jazz standard.  Why?  Because rhythm changes is just a series of turnarounds, and thousands of jazz standards have turnarounds.  So if you are getting bored of your usual turnarounds (comping or soloing), this is a great way to breathe new life into them.  It really is a desert island exercise because there are so many more notes I have not yet started from and directions (ascending or descending) I have not yet explored.

A few weeks later I stumbled upon a Barry Harris instructional video and sure enough he was demonstrating this exercise over rhythm changes.  And then he did the same thing over "Giant Steps," which really blew my mind.