Help and feedback with jazz piece

[worldlove123 (Kiryu)]

Hello musicians and robloxians. I need help making my jazz piece…more jazzy.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a bit and messing around with the melody, but I can’t seem to get it.

My jazz attempt piece:

(I purposefully repeated the pattern so you can listen it a second time without interruption.)

I think it may be the piano melody or it’s missing a key part of jazz.

So please, if you have any recommendations or criticism, don’t be afraid to tell me.

Thanks.

-Green Machine

[Negativize]

It sounds like your piece is in D major. I can pinpoint a couple of surface-level issues:

• the melody is kind of all over the place - it’s hard to grasp where the phrase starts and ends, and this makes it hard for the listener to establish that “jazz” feel. There are a lot of jumps/leaps in the melody and this is disorienting (not to say jumps/leaps are bad but too many can blur the melodic structure of the piece)
• there is no syncopation or rhythmic interest - each note of the melody falls on either the beat or the following eighth note, which is not conducive of that “jazz” feel
• the harmonies are quite bland - by bland, I mean there are very little color notes (sevenths, ninths, alteration/extensions, etc.), also important to the “jazzy” feel. I also hear very little to none of actual chords (multiple notes at once) being played, all are just implied from the melody and bass, consider having the piano play full chords in the left hand perhaps?

For the melody you may considering using notes from a typical jazz scale, something like

• the Dorian mode (minor with a raised 6, or 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7)
• the minor pentatonic scale (five note scale with degrees 1 b3 4 5 and b7)
• the minor blues scale (six note scale with degrees 1 b3 4 #4 5 b7)

I think a good frame of reference for you here would be the Pizza Parlor theme from Club Penguin. This piece is in C major and mainly contains notes from only that scale but borrows notes from the minor pentatonic scale (namely, the Eb and the Bb) in the melody. It also contains harmonies with stepwise motion and syncopations, all of which contribute to the “jazz” feel you’re looking for. Here is a transcription of the piece so you can analyze further - notice the color notes and how a lot of the harmonic changes fall right before the next measure.

P.S. I play in a jazz band, so if you have any other questions feel free to ask. The music we play varies widely and no one interpretation is the correct one in jazz!

[worldlove123 (Kiryu)]

Thank you thank you thank you!

This is the information I was looking for. I don’t have much musical knowledge because I am heavily self taught and didn’t know what to search for. This information is definitely gonna help me grow my knowledge on the workings of jazz. Again, thank you.