My intention for these ‘essays’ is to present certain insights and methods that I have developed over 45 years of teaching. These ideas are not unique to me. Teaching Jazz improvisation has been evolving through the efforts of so many talented musicians and much of the information has become fairly standardized. But some of my approach to the material is different enough from the standard that I don’t see it reproduced in books by such as Mark Levine, Jack Coker, or Jamie Abersol. Often my students have been advanced musicians with professional experience and yet they usually have not encountered the information presented in the same way. So I hope that publishing these Theory essays and exercises will be of some additional value to musicians of many levels of experience and training.

ESSAY # 1 -- THE SCALE GAME
(Note: This is a Piano game. It is simple enough that you do not have to be a pianist to experiment with it. It can be adapted to other tonal instruments, but it is easiest to play it on a keyboard.)
Imagine that you go to visit a friend and notice that they have a new piano. You sit down to try it out and, to your amazement, see that it only has the white notes -- no black notes at all! You could still make music on that strange instrument. It would be severely limited compared to the tonal possibilities of a complete keyboard but it could still express a huge range of emotion and beauty with the seven notes per octave available. If you were to devote some time to exploring that seven note ‘palette’ you could gain a great deal of understanding of the fundamentals of musical structure.
That exploration is the essence of an exercise that I call "the scale game". I call it a ‘game’ because it has rules that can be very helpful in achieving the ‘goal’ or ‘payoff’ -- i.e. the understanding of the fundamentals to which I just referred. The first rule of the game is just that you restrict yourself to the seven notes of any Major Scale and experiment with making music within that limitation.
If that were the only rule governing your exploration you would be playing the least structured, freest form of the game. Anything goes, except notes outside that scale.
However, by further channeling your possibilities within tighter boundaries, you are more likely to perceive the musical situations and effects that raise important questions.
The four rules of the more tightly structured game are:
1. Use only the seven notes of any Major scale.
2. Play with a definite pulse (beat, tempo).
3. With the right hand, play only one note at a time.
4. With the left hand, play the diatonic scale chords, in root position, with all four notes
(root, 3rd,5th, 7th) sounded.

Here are some clarifying comments on these rules.
Regarding #1: Use only the seven notes of any Major scale. Play the game in all
twelve Major scales.
Regarding #2: Play with a definite pulse (beat, tempo). Beginning musicians need only have a pulse. If any of the scales are difficult for you to improvise with while keeping a beat, use only one chord in the left hand, improvising with the right hand, - then add another chord - then another. That way you can have the music in tempo before you have thoroughly mastered the unfamiliar scale.
Experienced musicians will have much better results if they play in meter. Varying the meter (4/4, 3/4, 5/4, etc.), the tempo and the ‘dance feeling’ (Swing, Latin, Ballad) helps to keep the game interesting as well as allowing study of the effect of different timing on the same tonal materials.
Regarding #3: With the right hand, play only one note at a time. Play your melodies as musically as possible. Try out close intervals and skips. Vary your phrasings, especially the beginnings of your phrases. Start phrases before and after the beat, not just on the beat.
Regarding #4: With the left hand, play the diatonic scale chords. In this game there is no rule about chord progressions. The idea is to experiment with various chord relationships. The most common mistake I’ve observed is to always begin on the Imaj7 chord. The next most common error is the play every chord only once before changing to another chord. Repeating chords lets the harmony remain until you’re ready to move on.
Future articles will go into the implications of this musical game. For now, I hope some of you will explore the scales in this way. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me by e-mail.