Hearing what you play

[BillyC]

Well I've found that my improvisation is at a bit of a standstill lately. I know all my chord-scale function, basic arpeggios and substitutions and what not, but when I'm on the bandstand I can never float through the changes and feel satisfied after a chorus or two without stumbling over and repeating my ideas. I've come to think that that this is because I could probably sing only a miniscule percentage of my solo as I'm playing it/before I actually play it; I think I rely too much on muscle memory and where each scale/chord tone is on the fretboard for each change in a tune, which is why my solos are repetitive and don't feel coherent. And while muscle memory does help, the more I talk to better jazz musicians than myself about this, the more I find out that they all are hearing what they play before/as (whichever it is) they're playing it. So my questions are, do you all hear what you play? If so, could you sing a line from your head and instantaneously play it? Is this something you memorized the fingering to first, or did it come from your head first? Do you still think in terms of scales at all? Is this what I need to be able to do? If so, what are some good ways to go about practicing it?

[jayx123]

Yes, this is exactly what I do! I sing when I'm playing and get it correctly about 95% of the notes. I occasionally even record myself scatting in order to check how well the scat and the playing are synced. Singing will improve your melodic sense and phrasing and the more you sing while improvising the more you will get better at it.

[jayx123]

I love this:

Andreas is so cool

[voelker]

This question has been asked and answered many ways on this site, its hard to tell exactly what level player u are, but this is something that happens to every guitar player if they are not trained right from the begining. It happened to me.

Think about how other instrumentalists started learning (piano, horns, strings without frets) they had to think about every note and interval before they could play those scales quickly in any key. They learned notes, then patterns. Once most guitarists figure out how to find the root note; they start learning patterns right off the bat. It's fun, but you don't process and internalize the musical purpose of every note. If this sounds like you, go back to triads in harmonized scales.

ex. Triads for key of C = C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C.

Sing the notes up the first triad down the second, up the third, down the fourth...etc. switch directions at the octave and sing back down the fretboard. so first few triads sould be CEG, AFD, EGB, CAF...etc. Do this for all three inversions, all four stringsets, and at least 6 keys (F, G, Bb, D, Eb, A)this order is adding one flat and one sharp at a time.

After i did this i noticed a huge difference in my ability to hear things before i played them, which was a huge bonus, because i was mainly doing it to really master the fretboard. Right now im singing up and down 4 note arpeggios moving through a 6251 progression.

[BillyC]

I love this:

Andreas is so cool

Yeah, I've studied this, he's one of my favorite guitarists if not my favorite. But this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about!


And voelker,

I do fall into patterns, but they're made up on the fly, and after a while of improvising over the same tunes, I suppose I start to repeat patterns. But sometimes just letting my fingers explore like this, I do stumble across a nice sounding motive, and really enjoy it, but it's brief. I also have figured out very small chunks of other players' solos and could therefore sing them in the middle of a solo if I wanted to, but before and after these bits, my fingers are kind of on their own.

As for triads, I feel confident about my ability to sing triads and intervals; I would say I have a decent ear. If I wanted to play a straight triad or even seventh arpeggio in a solo, I know exactly what it would sound like, and I could sing it. I know this ability lends itself to further melodic ideas, but I feel like I've got this step under my belt. It's just that I need to be able to hear longer, more interesting melodies, and if I haven't just listened to a great recording or solo, I usually lack ideas. Firstly I need to understand where the improvised melodies start: fresh from the mind, or from the pre-determined melodies worked out on the fretboard? From there, I need practicing ideas.

[philipmgibson]

These are just some of my thoughts on the subject, for what they're worth, probably not much. I don't want to come across as trying to set myself up as an expert.
Music is about communicating an emotion, not a mathmatical formula. I'm always singing what I play in my head, I rarely sing out loud as my voice tends to put other instruments out of tune. Singing along, even silently, will help your phrasing.
One of the best quotes on improvisation I ever read came from Eddie Van Halen, I'll probably be banned from this forum for mentioning his name, "There are only twelve notes, and I don't need anybody to tell me how to mix them up!"
When you practice all those scales and arpeggios, sing along, this will help a lot. Practicing scales while watching TV will not. Play the stupid melody game, think of any stupid melody you can, nursery rhyme, TV theme, hymn, Brittney Spears song and try to play it.
I'm not a huge fan of excessive theory. If I'm going to play a flat 9th over the V7 chord in a song I want to play it because I hear that cheeky dissonance and how it longs for resolution as part of the melody in my head, not because it happens to be the root of the jazz minor scale that starts a semi-tone above the fifth and that's what it says to use in the book. This type of technique helps you to get these sounds into your head, but I don't think that you should be conciously thinking about these things when you're playing.
Avoid tablature. Tab is like paint by numbers, you get the picture but completely miss out on the art.

[docbop]

You don't have to sing the exact lines you're going to play. Many sing/grunt/moan the shape of their solo not so much exact.

But exact line or shape start singing as much of your practice as you can. When you listen to music and hear a simple line. Stop the music sing the line then grab your guitar and figure it out. After good with a few notes then start doing longer lines. Trying to figure out in your head first the line before picking up your guitar. It's a slow process at first, but gets faster in no time. Another good exercise is get with another guitarist and play simple short line, tell them the starting note and have them play it back to you. Go back and forth that way. After awhile stop saying the starting note and figure that out by ear too.

[BillyC]

So at first my lines don't have to come purely from my head? As long as I sing part of a solo that I like before I actually go to figure it out on the guitar, it will set me up to create my own original ones eventually?

[bass2man]

or growl you way through..I was listening to some Oscar Peterson Trio on teh way home and thought..What the hell is that rumble in the background?...until I realized its Herb Ellis "growling" his way through his solo... : )

[Shadow of the Sun]

Avoid tablature. Tab is like paint by numbers, you get the picture but completely miss out on the art.

I'm gonna disagree with this- but only slightly. I dislike using tab to learn songs, but using tab to get the basic scales (as long as you KNOW WHAT NOTES YOU'RE PLAYING AT EACH FRET) is fine.

Just a small digression.

[fumblefingers]

So at first my lines don't have to come purely from my head? As long as I sing part of a solo that I like before I actually go to figure it out on the guitar, it will set me up to create my own original ones eventually?

it wouldn't hurt to transcribe and play along with, then try to imitate the great lyrical players.

Dextor Gordon, Lester Young, Chet Baker, Miles Davis to name a few.

its not all about busy, fast, chops playing. learn to make motives, phrases, and antecedent/consequent (question/answer, complaint/ response) phrases, etc.

devote some time to this. i say, go for Dex!

[Claudi]

One of the best quotes on improvisation I ever read came from Eddie Van Halen, I'll probably be banned from this forum for mentioning his name, "There are only twelve notes, and I don't need anybody to tell me how to mix them up!"

No worries. There are many cats in the forum that come from a rock background. Sometimes I had big surprises.

Play the stupid melody game, think of any stupid melody you can, Brittney Spears song and try to play it.

You're playing with fire. It's now that I think you're gonna be banned from here.

Avoid tablature.

Agreed. If one can get used to tabs s/he can get used to scores or lead sheets too. Just fancy what string you have to play on each note.

[Vihar]

I think this what is a information that most peoples know but never can explain and I think that in this information it is just to make explain about hearing what you play.

Reflective Essay

Is there any chance that this text has been generated by a bot?

[Vihar]

If one can get used to tabs s/he can get used to scores or lead sheets too. Just fancy what string you have to play on each note.

I like the combined version, one line sheet with one line tab. It just makes the whole thing unambigous, at least when it's important to define what exact notes are meant to be played on the guitar.

[Dad3353]

Is there any chance that this text has been generated by a bot?

I'm sorry, DavidWhite, but you have just failed the Turing Test. Your licence will be revoked.
Can these 'spam' ID's be filtered out, Derek?
(It's a shame, really; some of those posts seem more pertinent than mine...)

[Claudi]

I like the combined version, one line sheet with one line tab. It just makes the whole thing unambigous, at least when it's important to define what exact notes are meant to be played on the guitar.

Yes, true. But my point is that most guitarists, and I'm not refering to the ones in this forum, only have a look at the tabs. Both are good. Tabs are good if you wanna play the exact note on the exact frets, as you said, but this shouldn't stop guitarists from learning to read and fancy what strings the might pluck.

[BillyC]

Yeah I really never read tabs unless they are used to show specific chord fingerings for chords in a chord melody arrangement.

But I have one other question regarding playing what you hear and vice versa: Can anyone who does this explain the relationship between what they hear in their head and the scale fingerings they know?

[Vihar]

But I have one other question regarding playing what you hear and vice versa: Can anyone who does this explain the relationship between what they hear in their head and the scale fingerings they know?

To me, the things I know and the things I hear in my head meet in the middle somewhere when I improvise. I mean, I keep trying to get better and better at having a direct connection between my playing hands and my imagination. I know that I'm more fluent when I can sing those lines and phrases I hear in my head, but my voice doesn't have the range or tone of the guitar, and it's not as accurate either.

The relationship is just that the things I have already learned allow me to not have to think about finding all of those notes one by one. It's like being able to walk without thinking about how to put my feet in front of each other.

[Claudi]

Can anyone who does this explain the relationship between what they hear in their head and the scale fingerings they know?

I'm on the way.

[BillyC]

To me, the things I know and the things I hear in my head meet in the middle somewhere when I improvise. I mean, I keep trying to get better and better at having a direct connection between my playing hands and my imagination. I know that I'm more fluent when I can sing those lines and phrases I hear in my head, but my voice doesn't have the range or tone of the guitar, and it's not as accurate either.

The relationship is just that the things I have already learned allow me to not have to think about finding all of those notes one by one. It's like being able to walk without thinking about how to put my feet in front of each other.

Thanks, that makes perfect sense to me. I guess I just need to start being more creative so I have ideas in my head, and then slowly sing figure them out.

[C.A.JO.]

Hey,

I believe the ability to hear what you want to play before you play it, and being able to execute that phrase, is THE ultimate goal for an improviser.

You achieve this ability via a mixture of the following over a span of years:

- transcribe soli, tunes, chords, melodies, licks, patterns, etc. Do it with your guitar in your hands or write it down first, and play it later.

- practice ear training (sing intervals, arpeggios, scales, rhythms from memory, do melodic dictation, etc.)

- sing what you practice and play. If you practice a scale, sing along and aim to nail every pitch as you play it.

- listen to (jazz) music every day.

Basically with all this you develop an ear-finger connection, and gradually you get the sounds in your head. This takes years to achieve for most people. In the traditional jazz-idiom training you learned this by transcribing solos and tunes. But you can speed up the process with ear training and extensive listening and singing what you play.

Last but not least I'd like to mention that I believe that most people exaggerate their own ability to play what they hear. Like Jody Fisher says, some days you hear almost everything, and some days you simply don't a thing. It comes and goes. Of course I aim for 100% ability, but it's not that realistic. Even Joe Pass, George Benson, Pat Martino, etc. have basic licks and lines they know work, if their ears aren't offering them new things to play.

So practice the ability, nurture it, but don't expect to become a creative oracel with new stuff to play every single time you pick up your guitar. My old teacher told me that the difference between a good jazz improvisor and a master improvisor was that, the good one hears 30% and play familiar stuff 70% of the time during a solo, while the master hears 70% and plays familiar lines 30% of the time. That's a more realistic goal.

[franco6719]

Hey,

I believe the ability to hear what you want to play before you play it, and being able to execute that phrase, is THE ultimate goal for an improviser.

You achieve this ability via a mixture of the following over a span of years:

- transcribe soli, tunes, chords, melodies, licks, patterns, etc. Do it with your guitar in your hands or write it down first, and play it later.

- practice ear training (sing intervals, arpeggios, scales, rhythms from memory, do melodic dictation, etc.)

- sing what you practice and play. If you practice a scale, sing along and aim to nail every pitch as you play it.

- listen to (jazz) music every day.

Basically with all this you develop an ear-finger connection, and gradually you get the sounds in your head. This takes years to achieve for most people. In the traditional jazz-idiom training you learned this by transcribing solos and tunes. But you can speed up the process with ear training and extensive listening and singing what you play.

Last but not least I'd like to mention that I believe that most people exaggerate their own ability to play what they hear. Like Jody Fisher says, some days you hear almost everything, and some days you simply don't a thing. It comes and goes. Of course I aim for 100% ability, but it's not that realistic. Even Joe Pass, George Benson, Pat Martino, etc. have basic licks and lines they know work, if their ears aren't offering them new things to play.

So practice the ability, nurture it, but don't expect to become a creative oracel with new stuff to play every single time you pick up your guitar. My old teacher told me that the difference between a good jazz improvisor and a master improvisor was that, the good one hears 30% and play familiar stuff 70% of the time during a solo, while the master hears 70% and plays familiar lines 30% of the time. That's a more realistic goal.

+10. Great post, CAJO. The only question I have is WHICH ear training techniques. I now spend about half of my day on ear training every day. I used to transcribe, but I felt like it was too slow and indirect as a process for ear training. Nowadays, I sing solfege stuff and work on the intervals, melodic dictation software, etc.. I can't do ALL of these things without going bonkers. Though I know I have made a lot of progress from where I started, I don't know exactly how...

[jayx123]

At least for me, singing while improvising helps also in the construction of rhythmic ideas and phrases, I often do this when I find myself in auto pilot mode. even if you don't nail the exact notes the rhythmic ideas will be implemented as it is much easier to follow the rhythmic ideas then hitting the exact notes.

[C.A.JO.]

+10. Great post, CAJO. The only question I have is WHICH ear training techniques. I now spend about half of my day on ear training every day. I used to transcribe, but I felt like it was too slow and indirect as a process for ear training. Nowadays, I sing solfege stuff and work on the intervals, melodic dictation software, etc.. I can't do ALL of these things without going bonkers. Though I know I have made a lot of progress from where I started, I don't know exactly how...

Thanks for the +10 grade

Work on intervals first. Take 1-3 at a time. Sing them ascending, descending and in different registers all over the neck. Within 12 weeks you can work through them all. You know it "well" when you can sing each them from memory both ascending and descending. Play a root note, sing the interval.

After or along with intervals, sing and practice scales. Start with the major scale, then each of the modes. Then the melodic minor scale, the harmonic minor, etc.

Also sing arpeggios/chords. You should be able to sing an arpeggio from the root to the highest chord note.

I wouldn't spend more than 30 min. pr. day doing this. You can't force it along. 15-20 min. 3-4 times pr. week is fine, and what I did. The days I didn't practice ear training, I transcribed solos. My idea is to practice your ears via specific work or transcribing 20-30 min. pr. day.

Hope it helps.

[franco6719]

I can sing all of the intervals ascending, but I noticed a weakness in singing descending intervals at random. That's something I started working on and the got sidetracked with solfege exercises. And then I read something by someone suggesting that the interval practice was pointless because you need the context and so on. It's sort of the problem of doing things on your own. I think I will take your counsel anyway, put the solfege aside for a while, and just master the interval singing all over the neck like that. I can sing major and the minor scales. Haven't worked on the modes.

And I like your idea about intermixing the regular ear training with transcribing. Thanks.