Improvising and Ending Your Lines

Sometimes as improvisers we get stuck in a pattern of ending a lot of our lines similarly. Part of the problem there, is that no matter how cool the content of your line was and no matter how different it was from what came before, too much repetition at the end of the line becomes redundant and static-sounding.

One easy way to work on getting more variation in your phrase endings is to practice ending on different spots of the meter or measure. The fairly obvious options are 1, the & of 1, 2. the & of 2, etc. Given the pattern of alternating strong beats and weak beats in 4/4, ending on 1 and 3 will have a very similar feel, ending on the & of 1 or the & 3 will have a similar feel, etc. The basic exercise I'd suggest is to start out by working out some line endings, either on the horn or even on paper, that end in these different spots. Here is what I came up with:

PDF version
Recording on tenor