Or at the end of a song, to further express emotion. “Ad-libs” in modern genre songs are usually quite simple, using blues links and/or rhythmic patterns. “Improvising” is what jazz, rock, blues and, sometimes, folk musicians do when they, essentially, play around with the chords of the whole tune, making up new melody lines, riffs and rhythmic ideas using the harmony of the whole song. So it’s much more complex than ad-libbing, where one is usually only improvising over a few bars here and there. We’re going to be mainly looking at ad-libbing in this article, touching briefly on improvising at the end of the article.

“Why bother?” you might ask, and rightly so. The reason why it’s worth a little work is that having a basic knowledge of music and rhythm can free you up enormously and help you find your own voice. It can be done by ear, but if you want to get a sense of freedom into your performance then a certain amount of basic knowledge is paramount. You’re no longer rigidly sticking to the tune, you can hear what the other musicians are doing and are part of the whole picture, rather than the lone voice out at the front of the stage. This opens up enormous opportunities for you, the singer, and the choices you can make within the song. Even if you choose to simply stick to the tune, your phrasing will be more finely tuned and subtle. And even if an audience doesn’t know what you’re doing, they’ll feel and hear it.

You can learn to do it all by ear, but if you don’t know where to start and it’s all a complete mystery, you can train your ear by listening to the chords and practicing syncopation, i.e. rhythm. If the latter is the case, then I suggest you check out the articles “How Music Is Constructed“, “How To Read Music” and “How To Feel Rhythm” before reading this article.
If you do have a basic knowledge of music, then read on:

Starting To Ad-Lib
We’ve looked at chords, scales and rhythm, from bars to Breves to semi-quavers in the first two articles mentioned above. We looked at syncopation in the “How To Feel Rhythm” article. Now let’s look at using rhythm, using the chords of a song, to create a solo. I”m going to take the last few bars of the “Amazing Grace” verse used in the Chapter “How to Sing A Song, Putting It All Together” lesson of the online tutorials:
singingfromthecenter.com/fullprogram
The last few bars are a particularly dramatic part of the song, and so present a great opportunity to ad-lib:
end-of-amazing-grace

The grids above the sheet music are guitar tablature showing the chords and fingering for guitarists.
There’s now a Bb7 chord in the arrangement, which opens up new harmonic possibilities.
In fact, using these 4 bars and 2 chords, we can learn the basics of ad-libbing and improvising.
The first step is to recognize the chords and be able to sing them, scales and arpeggios, until you can do so from memory:
Key of Eb:

Hear Eb scale
And Bb7:

Hear Bb7 scale
And how they work in the song:
end-of-amazing-grace
The next step is to sing arpeggios (up and down an octave in intervals) to the scales:

Hear Eb arpeggio
The arpeggio is playing the 1st, 3rd, 5th, octave, 5th, 3rd and 1st (root).

Hear Bb7 arpeggio
The arpeggio is playing the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 5th, 3rd, root of the chord.
Here are a couple of examples of how arpeggios can be used:

Arpeggio

Arpeggio 2
A simple arpeggio, combined with the from the chords of the song creates another little tune.
Once you feel you have the scales and arpeggios pretty much down, the next step is to start singing little tunes and riffs made up of scales and arpeggios, but combining them rhythmically to make it more interesting (there’s a quaver pick-up into the first beat of the bar to the lyric ‘was blind…’ in this version):
end-of-amazing-grace-2
If you’re finding the time difficult, then here’s the click track version:
end-of-amazing-grace
Try clapping a few rhythms, as in the ‘How To Feel Rhythm‘ article.
If you’ve a piano or guitar to practice with, then you can obviously also play the notes of the chords and sing them as in the examples above.
The ear is a muscle just as the voice is, so repetition in this way helps you recognize the shape of a chord and where the key notes are within that chord. You’re ear then hears the color of the chord.
The trick is to also use the feel of the song when ad-libbing. Amazing Grace is very much a Gospel tune, and so it lends itself to blues licks, and the blues scale.
Notice that a simple B7 chord is akin to the Mixolydian mode, and so works with the blues scale, since one is essentially flattening the seventh (as in the Bb7 scale MP3 above).
It’s the the 7th of the B7 chord gives these few chords their “blues-ey” flavor. So the chords” arpeggios need to reflect this, in other words, using the Ab, which is the 7th of the B7 chord:
Hear B7 arpeggio with 7th accented
Sing along with the instrumental track below and try to pick out the arpeggio, accenting the 7th:
B7-chord-repeated
Now try making up a tune using the track above, and see if you can pick out the 7th.
Then try doing the same thing with the root, 3rd and 5th (using the Bb7 arpeggio MP3 for reference).
Then, once again, try making up little tunes over the chord, and see if further recognizing the different notes of the chord has made a difference.
Now try doing the same thing with the chord of Eb, using the Eb arpeggio above for reference:
Eb-chord-repeated
The next step is to try doing the same thing with the actual tune:
end-of-amazing-grace
end-of-amazing-grace-2
Here are a couple of ad-libs using track 1 above, which is also from the full program lesson “How to Sing A Song, Putting It All Together”. The first two are Gospel’ey and the last one Folk-ey:
ad-libbing-amazing-grace-1
ad-libbing-amazing-grace-2
folk-ad-libbing-amazing-grace
So, lots of possibilities, using just two chords at the end of a verse. By making up little tunes, we’re essentially inventing/using “riffs” and “licks”, like putting together the parts of a puzzle. And, by now, you should be able to hear the chords that the ad-libs above are using: Eb, B7, Eb.
As I mentioned above, with modern genre music most improvised licks use the blues, the blues scale and mixolydian mode (as in the B7 chord), i.e. nothing too fancy. In fact, it often sounds unnecessary when you make the improvising too complicated, since most modern genre music is about telling the story in the clearest, most direct and emotional way.
However, by the same token there’s no point in just singing any old thing. Ad-libs need to fit the feel of the song and lyric, within the context of the whole song. Usually at a pertinent point in the performance, helping the song build in intensity. The licks above would have more impact at the end of the song, but since we’re only using the first verse in this instance, licks at the end of the first verse it is!
Rhythm
As I also mentioned earlier, the rhythm, of a song is just as important as the notes you’re singing. And the same holds true with improvising. Where you start in the bar changes the feel of the ad-lib, for example.
The first two ad-libs above start on the ‘and’ after the 2nd beat of the bar, the last example on the 1st beat of the bar. Notice that the last example sounds “straighter”. Generally, if you start an ad-libbed phrase on the second beat of the bar, or on the pickup (’1 and 2 and 3 and’ for example), it will have more weight and color.
Try singing a few phrases and clapping along at the same time to the track below, i.e. sing the phrases you’re clapping. There are a few examples in the ‘How To Feel Rhythm’ article if you’re stuck, and here are a couple of clapping examples from the same article (using the instrumental soul version below) that might be useful for reference:
Example-of-rhythm-improvisation
Example-of-rhythm-improvisation-harder
amazing-grace-soul-instrumental.mp3
Or clap the phrases that you’re singing to the Amazing Grace first verse instrumental tracks:
amazing-grace-Instrumental
end-of-amazing-grace-Instrumental
Putting It All Together
Learning to ad-lib is like learning a new language, or putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Mathematical, yet rooted in the emotion of the song.
You can obviously take this further, and approach any song, or part of a song, in the same way:
1. Learning to recognize and hear the chords by singing scales and arpeggios, then playing around with the rhythm making up little licks and riffs.
2. Then starting to recognize other chords until you feel just as comfortable with a sus 4 as with a major chord, for example (the next step from is to study scales and the chords relative to them, which takes you into the realm of the Jazz musician).
4. If you’re ad-libbing, try making up some phrases using the lyric, or just part of the melody, or a combination of the two.
And lastly but never leastly, trust your instinct and try not to judge your performance.
A Few Amazing Grace Versions
Ad-libbing and improvising can help tremendously when tackling different genres, all of which demand a different approach and technique, and often sense of time (are you behind, ahead or right on the beat?).
When a song is a classic, such as Amazing Grace, it can lend itself to changing the feel and often the chords to create completely different versions of the same tune.
So for these purposes, here’s a soul, jazz, folk and country version. I’ll also be using these versions to explain the sheet music, i.e. how the music is notated, and how the chords have often been changed to give a different color and/or feel to the tune.
(Many thanks to pianist/composer/arranger Terry Disley for arranging and playing these Amazing Grace versions: terrydisley.com).
Soul Version:
amazing-grace-soul-version

Soul – a step away from Gospel, still rooted very much in the blues. Looking at the sheet music above, we can see that it’s in 4/4 rather than the traditional 3/4 time. The accent of the track is on the 2 and 4 (the tambourine and hand claps), and the vocal veers away from the traditional timing of the tune, making it a kind of ad-lib in itself.
You also might notice all of the music in these versions is written out in longhand. If you’re performing an arrangement of a song, then unless you have a music program that prints out the music (Sibelius, or one of the many music software programs will also often do this: Cubase, Sonar, Logic and Digital Performer being a few of the professional level programs), then an arrangement is often written out in this way – in this case by musician/composer/arranger Terry Disley.
This is a three stave arrangement, with the vocal being the top line, the piano the middle and the bass the bottom. Once again, the time signature and key (Eb, 3 flats) on the left hand side of the page. Notice that the piano and bass are grouped together, also on the left hand side of the page, to distinguish the difference between the lead line, i.e. the voice, and the instrumentation.?The opening motif is shown by way of the syncopated rhythm of the piano and bass working together. The bass is bringing in the feel of the tune as a pick-up into the first bar. The slur on this pick-up means “legato”, i.e. a “smooth” feel, as in the opposite of “staccato”.
This is a different kind of slur than the one on the 5th bar of the vocal stave (the bar at letter “A”). This slur joins three notes together as one, to make a triplet. I mentioned triplets in the “How to Read Music” article, and here is one, alive and kicking.
The Eb before the crotchet is a semi-breve with a dot. A dot meaning “half as much again”, and a semi-breve being two beats, this makes this note three beats long. The triplet after this is thus a beat long, i.e. a crotchet, to make up the 4/4 time. To count a crotchet triplet: hold your finger in the air and describe going down and back up. The first count at the top, the second the bottom, and back up to the top. One, two three.
You can also see accents (second bar), ties (second bar again, for example), rests (4 bar rest on the lead line at the beginning), crotchet rests starting on the second bar (the first bar being after the pickup. The crotchet rest is the squiggly line) and an example of a quaver rest on the 5th bar in the piano stave. This would be counted “one, two, and three four”, the “and” being the rest.
The forward looking slash in the piano part is not a rest, but means ” play the same chord for these amounts of beats”. So, for example, in bar 13, Bb-7 to A7b5, it means two beats of each chord.
We also get to change the note within the key. Right at the beginning of the tune, on the bass pickup are the notes: G, Ab and A. Ab is in the key of Eb, but not the A. So the “hash” looking sign means “raise the note a half tone and play an A, not an Ab”. The slate is wiped clean at the beginning of the next bar, which is why the same sign pops up again on the 6th bar, to once again un-flatten the A.
“Sim”, on bar 7, means “similar”.
The chords of the song have also been changed, lending a different color and flavor to the song and giving it a bit more depth. I’ll explain the harmonies in the next section of the article, the Jazz version.
As far as being a singer and working with a chart (sheet music), an accompanist and an arrangement, the first thing to notice is the feel of the song. This feel is very syncopated, with the accents on “1 and 3″, i.e. the first and third beats of the bar. This means that your phrasing needs to work with and reflect this. Once again, it can help to think ” one and two and three and four” etc. In other words, it”s in 4, but if you feel it in 8, then the rhythm will feel easier and your phrasing will have more subtlety.
Jazz
amazing-grace-jazz

This Jazz version is played in a classic ballad style, with both the bass and piano accenting the ¾ time. Yet again, think “one and two and three and” for the feel and time.
Since this is a Jazz version, and Jazz is music based on improvising, it’s now time to look at the chords in more detail, and also how one might improvise or ad-lib using the chord voicings above (a chord voicing meaning exactly that, like the different voices in a choir. Chords are traditionally “voiced” from the root up: root, 3rd, 5th and onwards depending on the chord).
The version above is in the original key of Eb, but I found that both the Jazz and Folk versions sounded better in a lower key, so I chose C for the Jazz version and Db for the Folk version. For simplicity’s sake we’ll be looking at both versions in C, the median key since Db, having 5 flats, makes things very complicated. The Jazz version in C is shown after this next section.
Transposing A Song
So let’s say you have the music for a song that works for you, and need to transpose it into a key that’s in your vocal range. Taking the example above, we need to transpose the song from the key of Eb to C. On a keyboard or guitar, simply count down (or up, whichever is simpler, i.e. nearer the key you’re transposing to) the number of semitones to your destination. Eb to C is 4 half-tones, or semitones, including Eb:

Transposing Eb to C becomes:
Eb – C?D – B?Db – Bb?C – A?B – Ab?Bb – G?A – F#?Ab – F?G – E?F# – Eb?F – D?E – Db?And back to Eb.
And so we get the new key.
The Chord Voicings

The sheet music above, in the key of C, is in ¾ time and has a four bar intro, the basic notes of the motif written out for piano and bass. The letter “A” in this case, is the where the voice comes in. In this instance, having a letter A is useful during rehearsal or performance. Saying “Ok, let’s pick it up at letter “A”, for example, saves a lot of time and explanation.
We’ve already looked at the major and minor chords, the 7th’s and a few other chord possibilities in the articles ‘How Music Is Constructed‘ and ‘How To Read Music‘. There are a few chord possibilities in the Jazz version that were only mentioned in passing in those articles, however:
The first chord is C over G, which is the second inversion of a C major chord. A chords inversion relates first of all to its bass note. C major triad contains the tones C, E and G; its inversion is determined by which of these tones is used as the bottom note in the chord. And so each bass note used indicates the identity of the chord:

Root Position: When the root’s in the bass.
After this, the different positions of the bass are called inversions.
The first inversion of the C major triad is E – the third of the triad – with the fifth and the root, C, stacked above it:
In the second inversion, i.e. the first chord in the Jazz version, the bass is G, the 5th of the triad, with the root and the 3rd above it. Thus forming a 4th and a 6th above the (inverted) bass of G. A second-inversion triad is also known as a ’6 4′ chord and would be written as C/G:

Third inversions exist only for chords of four or more tones, such as 7th chords. In a third-inversion chord, the 7th of the chord is in the bass position. For example, a C7 chord in third inversion consists of Bb in the bass position (the 7th), with C, E and G above it, and would be written as C/Bb:

And on to the next chord, G13. Simply put, this means “use the 13th in the chord”. If you count “G” as 8 (i.e. you’ve already counted up a major octave), then continue till you get to the 13th note, which in this case is an E:

In effect this is the 6th note of a G scale. So the:
9th is the same as the 2nd, the
11th the same as the 4th and the
13th equivalent to the 6th.
By using what’s commonly called the “upper part of the chord”, this then gives the color of the chord dimension and subtlety, and is known as an extended chord. It’s also useful to remember that if you have a musician who knows his or her stuff playing with you, they might well do this automatically, and hopefully with a certain amount of taste (less always being more). When the sheet music states something as specific as a G13 chord however, they’ll know that this actual voicing is paramount.
And on to F minor, the 4th note in the key of C, and also part of the cycle of 5ths (one, four, five as it’s most commonly notated, C to F to Bb). A simple F minor isn’t indicating a 7th but is just flattening the 3rd, a nice contrast to the subtlety of the 13th chord before it.
C to G7. The line in between the two chords meaning: 2 beats of C, 2 beats of G7. The G7 meaning “a G major chord with a minor 7th”, and F. A major 7 being the F#.
To C. Enough said.
Then C to F7b5. The F chord is like a half-diminished chord, but has a major rather than a minor 3rd:

To F major 7. This uses the major rather than the minor 7th, E rather than Eb.
C over E, the first inversion of a C major chord:

Hear the bars above
We now get into modes. By using E as the bass note, it’s suggesting the scale of E. But by using C, E and G, the upper part of this voicing, we’re essentially flattening the 3rd, 6th and 7th of the chord. This is the same as the Aeolian Mode (once again, modes are briefly mentioned in the article “How To Read Music”).
A minor. Nuff said.
D9, another extended chord. A 9th chord typically includes the 7th and a major triad structure:

Hear the D9 chord above
F over G:

Hear F over G
Since G isn’t in the triad of F, this isn’t a chord inversion. The 7th of a straight F chord is played by the G in the bass, the 7th, 9th and 4th voiced by the F triad in the treble clef, making this a specific way to voice an F7 chord.
G7. A major chord that includes the minor 7th.
A-7. A minor chord that includes the minor 7.
G minor 7 to F#7b5. Same as the F7b5 but a semitone down.
Country Version
amazing-grace-country

Above is the Country version in Eb. As I mentioned earlier this version worked better in a lower key, so here it is in C for easy reference:

Traditional American Country music’s roots go back all the way to the early settlers. To the Folk, Celtic and “old time” music of the Irish, British, Scottish and Dutch peoples, originally centered in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. From there it was influenced by Gospel music and the blues, and because it was the main form of music played at dances and the like (think of Irish jigs and Scottish reels), the rhythm is highly accented (a one and a two and a three and a four and a etc). The same applies with this recorded version, i.e. once again it can help to think “One and a two and a three and a four” to get the feel of the rhythm. You can see this reflected in the bass line, which is notated as a simple two notes to a bar rhythm, i.e. 2 minims to a bar. You can hear that the guitar in the recording is further helping the groove by marking straight 4/4 time. With the feel clearly stated by the guitar and bass, the piano is free to be more expressive and help the track breathe. The chords are a bit straighter than the soul version, the only out of the ordinary chord being Eb/Bb, the second inversion of Eb (as in the inversions of the Jazz version above).
Nothing new the rest of the chart except the ‘repeat’ sign at letter A and the end of the piece.
Folk Version
amazing-grace-folk

For folk, in this instance, think “old school and straight forward”. The only difference in this sheet music is the tie on the lead line (i.e. vocal) in the last two bars. A dotted minim makes the count 3 (a minim being two counts, the dots half as much again), so with the tie the total count is 6.
In Conclusion
So we’ve looked a the basics of ad-libbing and improvising: what it is and some simple ideas on how to develop these skills.
And we’ve seen how, by changing the chords and the feel, we get very different interpretations of the same song in a completely different genre.
And from practicing the exercises above and the information from the articles: ‘How Music Is Constructed’, ‘How To Feel Rhythm’ and ‘How To Read Music’, you hopefully now have a deeper understanding of:
1. What the other musicians are playing: how the music is constructed – the chords etc.
2. The rhythm. And as we saw earlier, when you have good rhythm you’re then free to play with phrasing and timing, and you always know your place in the music (how the tune fits in with the chords, where you are in the arrangement at any given time).
3. How to approach improvising, and so free up your performance, so you’re not ‘stuck’ always singing the same thing in exactly the same way.
And as I mentioned earlier, how we sing the song also depends on many things: the genre, the tempo, the feel etc. We saw how, in the Soul version of Amazing Grace, the chords leant themselves to a more Gospel, blues-y interpretation, using chest and diaphragm together, with the resonance opened up to the chest. The folk version was very ‘straight’ and the country version accenting the 2 and 4 of the bar to give the vocal swing, the tone a purer one than the Jazz and soul versions.
All of the chords in these versions were subtly changed, but the most radical differences were in the Jazz version. You can hear the difference in the harmony and chord voicings, and the wealth of possibilities this opens up for all concerned. The singer can potentially make more elegant choices, although in this instance I mostly stuck to the tune but changed the phrasing – once again, I felt, less being more. With subtler chords, when it’s time for a musician’s solo, there’s a suggestion of harmonic content much richer than the other, simpler versions. Once again, appropriate to the genre. The tone was a mixture of breathy and clear note, with a lot of communication between with the larynx and diaphragm.
Improvising
A quick re-cap:
1. Get to recognize the chords, so you can hear them coming up and recognize the difference between them.
2. Sing scales and arpeggios around the chords, to get them fixed in your head.
3. Learn some licks and riffs that fit over the chords.
4. If there’s an unusual chord that your ear is finding it difficult to hear, for example the F7b5 in the Jazz version, make up some little tunes over the chord to help you recognize it.
This may seem like gruntwork, but your ear is a muscle just as your voice is, and the subconscious a powerful tool. Once the ear has recognized the chords and has some ideas how to use them with rhythm and pitch, hey ho you’re improvising.
A good jazz musician, or a musician that’s interested in improvising, learns the intricacies of scales, and how they relate to various chords. So in effect they understand not only all of the different chords and chords voicings, but also modes, and have an extensive knowledge of how to use different scales over various chords and their voicings. Because as a tune progresses, there’s usually a harmonic flow and structure. For example chords resolving, as we saw earlier with the II V I progression. There’s a natural logic to the whole process. And in this way, as mentioned earlier, learning to improvise is akin to learning another language: everyone in the band playing with rhythm and harmony using the song as a vehicle to do so. And hopefully all at the same time or at least in the same room.