Reddit reviews The Right Hand According to Tatum: A Guide to Tatum's Improvisational Techniques Plus 10 Transcribed Piano Solos

One thing to really understand is guide tones. I was in a mindset like you and I changed my perspective of guide tones the more I played. Let's just say guide tones is a basic building block for your melody, and think about how you want to "travel" there.

Travel by half steps? Diatonically? Combination of upper/lower neighbor tones? Arpeggios?


The list goes on! When you get used to the basic block, you start making your own rules (knowing where to add chromaticism) which brings us to the fact that you need to spend so many hours making it "right" in your perspective. That's where transcribing helps but you also being analytical (I am the same way), you should establish which notes of the chord are being "decorated."


@Muchesslin - definitely what was stated here is great advice!

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What helps is doing patterns, sequences, scales combined w/ arps, inversions (a tip for inversion practice stuff like 1-3-5-7, 3-5-7-1, etc, up and down your instrument) and such. This develops direction because the first part you need to really master is being fluid around the instrument and doing such exercises helps you decide how to use chromatic notes.

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https://www.amazon.com/Right-Hand-According-Tatum-Improvisational/dp/0943748852


Really great book here, as you go on you start getting into the more complex ideas then you learn some important classical devices. Also, you should study some classical while you are at it.


Good luck with your studies, hopefully, this gives you more paths!