Creating Jazz Music

All over the world people have invented their own interpretation of Jazz by creating new music from their soul, yet branching out to expand the capabilities of the music of their culture. Jazz around the world must always begin with examples of various music. The main traits of the styles of music that stands out consistently should be reviewed.

One must think about the aesthetic nature of the songs, and the general sound of that style. The next action to make is to add a trait or two to the traditional music of your culture. In all music there are notes that sound horrible when played together or just plain uninteresting.

With research and experimentation one can find traits from many styles of music that could fit together perfectly. There you will have invented a new style of music by expanding your cultural music, or adding the ethnic trait to another style of music. One can always balance each trait evenly to make it difficult for anyone to point out anyone style to create a new style of mongrel music. Nevertheless, creating Jazz music is taking what is known and expanding it without abandoning the main core of the style.

It has already been determined that the creation of basic Jazz music must include syncopation, speech rhythms, chromatic juxtaposition of 7th to 9th to 13th chordal harmony using accidentals, improvisation and a walking bass line. The usual instruments used in the creation of Jazz music are percussion, brass and string bass. Nowadays, strings and woodwinds can be added to the creation of Jazz music to add to the tonal quality of the sound. The upper stringed instruments as well as the lowest double bass stringed instruments can expand the sound of jazz music in the vertical matter of height, and depth while the brass sounds stronger as the center of Jazz music.

The addition of the breathy sound of the woodwinds tends to soften the sound. Therefore, having instruments from all the musical families balances the music to a fuller colorful atmosphere of sound. To diversify creation of Jazz music one should determine the elements to add or expand on.

The elements to look for would be tone color, rhythm, and resonance. Furthermore, take time to research the instruments for woodwinds, percussion, brass, and strings from other countries to see what can fit in the creation of Jazz music. You can also visit www.asza.com/ihm.shtml for a collection of world instruments.