Chapter: Composition

A jazz composition usually consists of a theme and an arrangement that suggests when to play the theme and when to improvise. Other aspects of the performance, such as introductions, endings, and background parts, are sometimes specified as part of the arrangement, but they are often left to the discretion of the performers.

A Jazz Improvisation Almanac
Unit: Elements Of Jazz

Sections:

Theme - Blues form, songs form, and characteristics of jazz themes
Arrangement - Components of jazz arrangements
Performance - Musical decisions made during jazz performance

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

Jazz is characterized by an emphasis on improvisation. This means that much of what a jazz musician plays is not precisely notated or specified as part of the composition. But although there are freely improvised performances in which there is no composition at all to guide the performance, most jazz performances are based on composed material to some extent.

Rather than specify every note of the performance, a jazz composition typically provides an outline that contains one or more notated passages and some areas left open for improvisation, as well as guidelines for the improvisation itself. The notated passages are called themes, and the outline that specifies when to play a given theme and when to improvise is called an arrangement. A written or learned arrangement may also specify things like an introduction, the order of the soloists, an ending, or other compositional details, but these matters are just as likely to be decided upon during the performance.

This chapter describes these aspects of the composition in jazz.