Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke Demonstrate How to Keep the Form of a Song While Improvising

As a soloist, have you ever lost your place in the form of the song — while the other instruments are playing across the bar lines also — and asked the proverbial question: "where's 'one'?" Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke make suggestions and demonstrate a method that could help you from losing your place in the form. Whether you're a pianist, a bassist or play another instrument, these tips can help improve your improvisations.

Chick and Stanley demonstrate this useful approach over the classic RTF song "After the Cosmic Rain."

Follow Chick Corea:

[bongosock]

This absolutely blows my mind to have Chick and Stanley talking about jazz together and showing us ideas! Amazing :)

[KeysMan]

Gist of the lesson: know the form before soloing. Chick has such great insight in all his lessons. Sometimes it's the simple and obvious things many musicians need to learn.

[educapro]

Love the essence of Chick's thinking and sharing.  This is what makes a master of his craft such an exceptional mentor, leader and innovator of the dynamic genre that makes you a legend.  Listen up young cats and kittens, this is the stuff legends do best!  Much respect, Chick.    -educapro

[cuzned]

I just realized... We so seldom got to see that overhead of Chick’s hands and the keyboard. What a ride, watching his fingers dance!

[raphaelhudson]

His answers are whole hilariously more a description of the problem than a real answer. He basically said learn the basic form, and then now i'll play around with the chord changes and because the bass player is great and i hit two the major changes in the form he will catch me.

[AfrikkanithaAfri]

This is great! You are helping us a lot. Thanks for your humble way of being and colaborate. That's why your are giants!

[Zen.N]

Learning hear so much mr Corea thank you very much 👋🏻☺️

[mychromebook]

"Just play the form and go from there. Easy." Ok i was lost after the first bar and have no idea what you were even doing. The bass was all over the place. Chick was all over the place. Yet you all wind up on the same beats magically as if it's easy thing in world.

[paulrevelli]

One of the more challenging examples of what I believe Chick is talking about is Charles Lloyd's version of "Autumn Leaves". If you don't try to keep the form going on in your mind during the solos, God help you.
I couldn't figure out how to share just the head and solo sections when I shared the link, but you can scroll to about one minute twenty seconds if you want to skip the impressions in the beginning. But the whole thing is pretty astounding.

[wrAIth-AI]

1:05 who starts whispering here? It's like an evp.

[jazzey]

Very Nice :-) I like the way they tell a story with notes  :-) Thankyou gentlemen...:-)

[dadduorp]

Someone is whispering something about "the spirit" @1:08.

[rillloudmother]

I can feel 8 bars at 90 bpm, Stanley and Chick probably feel 64 bars at 50 bpm.

[JungleYT]

And professor Stanley... Forgot they played together on Return to Forever

[spb]

So Chick: how much of the form following in this or any case relies on an understanding of rhythmic motion, and how much of it relies on harmonic motion? Or are they one in the same? Is ask because it seems at any given time you are manipulating either and/or both.

[Jiv_Ing]

Rip chick, n I still cannot believe it, :-0

[gupta__g]

18 people can't keep form ..

RIP Maestro.

[funmakers]

What gets me off as a bass player is when another member of the rhythm section like the drummer is not playing straight at all. This lesson of being aware of the form is more useful when the song is familiar. When it’s new then I suppose the being familiar with various forms, harmony and just listening to the other players and how they punctuate the top, changes and end of the sections.

[doordashh]

1:46 everyone is trying to cue him to stop. mann I just wanna hear him talk about this.

[TheWaveFiles]

There's no answer... as it's often the case with over the top musicians.The question required a very practical answer and the answer given was : " the form is important, if you get that right, you('re free". Yes it's damn obvious that it's answer could have been to exercise with the cycle of 8 bars first for example then 16 bars then a whole AABA, a blues form, being able to "feel" the bars passing by, targeting the "one" of each cycle for example.This is truly disapointing when the level of musicality doesn't match the pedagogy .Damn, it's two of the most important musicians in modern jazz history. Why being so elusive ?