Archive for Improvisation
Learning Hip Licks
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve always loved the sound of saxophone solos since I was turned onto jazz. I think it’s because they are so melodic, between the note choices and the phrasing. To be a little more technical, the phrases have a variety of intervals whereas a lot of guitar solos involve similar intervals (half/whole steps or pentatonic patterns). The guitar has so much more potential than that.
I just picked up Greg Fishman’s Hip Licks for Saxophone and highly recommend it not just for jazz but also jazz fusion (eg Greg Howe). Not because you will learn melodic and tasty licks over all chord types but from the work you will do to get them into your playing. This involves playing the phrases in all 12 keys, recalling the phrases from your mind/ear, trying to connect and develop the phrases in a logical manner.
Having technique helps you get these licks up to speed but it still takes practice as many ‘moves’ are unfamiliar so you wouldn’t be able to play them if you haven’t practiced them beforehand, especially at faster tempos. Drilling down even further, many of the licks are made up of smaller, repeatable cells that are combined in different ways, so these cells could be extracted and practiced as well.
Making Ineffective Practice More Effective
Posted by: | CommentsThe beauty of learning something new is it puts you back into the mindset of a student or ‘newbie’. I’ve spent the last few years learning jazz after (now) 30 years of playing so I got to see what worked and what didn’t. Many professionals and teachers are not actually good at teaching beginners (for say jazz) because they can’t remember or relate to the issues of beginners. Another problem is that teachers tend to teach the same thing that everyone else does, which may not be that effective. One of the interesting thoughts I have is that most teachers don’t actually think about how effective a particular method is. To be fair it is pretty difficult to measure in many cases, but we can use logic to figure some things out.
My passion over the past few years has been improvisation, specifically in jazz and jazz fusion. Due to the tendency for songs to have many chord and key changes, many of us have gotten stuck as to what to do. I’ve practiced a ton of things over the last few years, so I’d like to mention a few things that haven’t worked for me, why I think they haven’t, and how to tweak them to be more effective.
1. Scales, Modes and Arpeggios
Some teachers say scales are great for technique, which is true but we should dig a bit deeper. You need to be able to have the technique to play melodic content over chord changes. So since you won’t be playing scales in your solos, you won’t be automatically able to play fast lines unless you’ve practiced them beforehand (take it from me).
When I say scales and arpeggios I mean practicing them up and down as exercises rather than applying to tunes.
Solution – use 1-3 note scale fragments and arpeggios to approach a target chord tone on beats 1 and 3 (for 4/4 time). Alternatively, practice melodic phrases that contain these things.
2. Learning solos and etudes
Again, this is great for technique and the solos are actual melodic content so we’re getting much closer to our goal. But when we play a rehearsed solo we’re not really thinking of the chords
Solution – take phrases or small melodic cells (3-4 notes) and use them over different chord types (major, minor, dominant, etc). Use them in different tunes, learn them in all 12 keys. Be able to connect them.
3. Transcribing tunes
When I say transcribing tunes, I mean the act of transcribing a solo and writing it down. While that has many benefits, such as ear training, if not done methodically it will not have as beneficial effect as it could have.
Solution – transcribe a small phrase and use these such as in item 2.
Let’s say the ideal scenario is that you hear melodic ideas in your head over various tunes and are able to play them on your instrument. How does this occur? I believe it is by working out ideas that sound good to you beforehand, ie during practice and remembering those things. It doesn’t come from strictly listening to existing tunes. Most of my discussion of improvisation is around fairly challenging styles such as bebop. Some famous musicians have said that ‘improvisation is the combining of things previously practiced’. I think this comes closest to what I am trying to say.
It’s the ability to recall this information during improvisation that is most important, and must be the main emphasis of one’s practice.
Improvisation is Largely a Recall Activity
Posted by: | CommentsThere is a lot of mystery around the concept of improvisation. For some it’s a magical, creative experience that can’t be explained. For others it is thought that it comes after practicing all the fundamentals (arpeggios, scales, modes, theory). A more balanced approach would be to say that a variety of things need to be worked on from ear training, scales, transcribing, learning licks, etc. I am generally referring to improvising over relatively challenging chord progressions, common to the jazz idiom.
I’m going to make a rather bold statement that some will disagree with. I would venture to say that the vast majority of people haven’t thought about improvisation as I have over the past few years. Here goes: “Improvisation is largely a recall activity in the brain“. So we are mostly recalling things we’ve practiced/played before and choosing what to play.
Some will say ‘But Will I just play what I hear in my head’. Well yes, but why are you hearing what you hear in your head? It’s because you’ve practiced it before.
Let’s look at some specific examples. Say you take an accomplished musician new to jazz. You take him to a bunch of jazz gigs and you listen to all the solos. Will he be able to go home and improvise jazz because he is now hearing these sounds? I would say it’s pretty likely he won’t.
Let’s say all you practice are scales and argeggios for a few years. Will you be able to improvise over rhythm changes? Probably not.
Let’s say you practice playing voice leading lines (whole/half notes) through various jazz chord progressions. Will you be able to improvise with this on stage? Nope.
In art you could randomly through paint at a canvas and say you improvised. On the guitar you could randomly hit notes on the guitar in some sort of weird artistic fashion and act all mysterious. But by improvisation in jazz and blues I am referring to playing somewhat cohesive solos in the style of the masters. This takes a lot of work.
A lot of what we practice is what can be called ‘preparatory work’ or what I call ‘busy work’. In other words it is not directly usable in real performances. You would never play arpeggios, scales or basic voice leading (guide tone) lines during a real improvisation. A huge amount of what most of us practice is actually the building blocks of a good solo. It is an intermediate step that doesn’t usually need to be practiced. Many of us have difficulty creating melodic phrases from these fundamentals, especially if we’re new to the style, such as jazz. That’s because we don’t know the language. We must learn to imitate at first, like we did as children learning our native language.
So if you want to make the most use of your time I would suggest you learn to play full jazz solos up to speed. Then mix and match the phrases from different solos. Each phrase usually fits around a chord or arpeggio shape and works over a specific chord type (dom.7, maj7, min7, etc). Learn how to repeat a phrase over the next chord and tie the phrases together so they are not disjointed. To me this is the most valuable area to work on. You will start to hear these phrases in your head. Understand the phrase and how the voice leading works. Often chord tones are used on strong beats (beats 1 and 3). Most often these strong beats are approached by 3 eighth notes, which is commonly known as forward motion (Hal Galper).
What does improvisation mean to you?
Blues Guitar Solo – Blue Noize Contest Entry
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