How to not think too much?

[GuitaRoland]

What is the best way of not thinking to much of what you play? Thinking too much seems to take energy from, at least, my playing.

I mean thinking about scales, modes, notes, intervals or whatever. How to get a nice flow and really feel that this is improvisation and not a theoretical way of treating your instrument, guitar in our cases?


/Roland

[gersdal]

Practise!

In essence I would say if you have explored and played the tunes to a level where you know the possibilities you have (and hence have done the thinking), then you know the tune and can play it live.

Hal Crook illustrate this in his book "how to improvise" in a good way.

Easier said then done, tho...

[GuitaRoland]

Gersdal - I don't know if I was indistinct, but the idea was to find a way to get away from focusing on the examples I made.

Your example would add more questions than answers to what I ment - the way would even be longer, sorry if this didn't get through.
Still I appreciate your participation.

/R

[itsall4you]

I think of it this way - once you have done enough scales, arpeggios and intervals, that's when you don't have to think anymore!..

So the key is to know them well enough so you don't have to think about it..

This largely means knowing the 'sound' of scales, arpeggios. You should be able to sing back the scale or the arpeggio instantly without thinking and the next step would be to be able to do this on guitar..

What really helps you integrate these into your ears is to singalong I find..

[gersdal]

Originally Posted by GuitaRoland

Gersdal - I don't know if I was indistinct, but the idea was to find a way to get away from focusing on the examples I made.

Sorry. My intention was good, but I got carried away .

Hal Crook is promoting the idea of practicing and live playing is very different. While live you take what he calls the "Ready, fire, aim" approach to soling, while when practicing you should take the "ready, aim, fire" approach. In my understanding that means that you have to practice the tunes, check the possibilities, etc etc. The result should be that when you play live you don't have to think.

Originally Posted by GuitaRoland

Your example would add more questions than answers to what I ment - the way would even be longer, sorry if this didn't get through. Still I appreciate your participation.

Like I said, I got a bit carried away, but the mind-map say a lot about what you should practice... so that when you play live you don't need to think.

Hope this helps, and if I'm still totally off ... I'm sorry

[Reg]

I like the visuals... way cool...
You pretty much need to put in the time, ( most believe this to be 10,000 hours or 10 years), to get your level of proficiency at a level where your thinking doesn't get in the way of your expression. But can start anytime. just play what you hear in your head first. If you don't hear that much, practice hearing simple tunes or studies and progress to more difficult material etc...
There's nothing wrong with crashing and burning...I play live all the time, a lot of different types of gigs, I have more fun putting myself a little on the edge, trying to play what I hear and create some energy or excitement rather than play it safe. The people listening usually dig it, even musicians... Obviously not at all gigs... When I concentrating on what I hear, it helps me eliminate a lot of the thinking process. To be able to hear something you need to; listen and memorize or learn and apply. Train your brain...Reg

[Goofsus4]

If improvising freely is your goal, then you probably need to woodshed for quite sometime on just that - improvisation. Just loop various chord progressions or song changes and just play over them endlessly using arps, the scales you know, and chromatics by ear. Just keep playing, and don't worry if you hit bad notes or you can't always play the line you hear in your head, just keep trying. Don't stop - play over a chord or a vamp or a set of changes for two hours at a time. Do this 15-20 hours a week for a year. Unless you are unemployed, you will likely have to cut back on learning songs and maintaining a repertoire, but if improvisation is what you want to do, you've got to develop that critical mass. I guarantee you that if you focus on this exclusively, in six months you will see big time results in terms of not needing to think to be able to play a line through a set of changes. Repetition is the way the human brain learns something well enough to go on auto-pilot. It's the only way. It's why all the greats always are quoted as saying some version of "learn the theory, then forget it."

When I first stated playing guitar, I honestly had no idea that it was going to take years to get anywhere with it. But unless you are some sort of musical genius, or just want to copy other people's solos, it's going to take a long time and a LOT of practice for it to come easily.

[bkdavidson]

Transcribing solos will actually help with this. It might seem a little counter-intuitive to improve your creativity by copying other people, but what it will do is get your ear used to all these different note combinations. This will make a much more direct line between hearing a melody in your head and playing it on the guitar.

[bako]

With practice, we can learn to combine effortlessly into a single gesture multiple details of info that are far too awkward to apply in real time playing.
There are many things involved in the act of walking but we no longer know about them. We simply think about where we want to go next.

Somewhat a philosophical question, playing without thinking.
I am not sure at what level it is possible.

So working from the premise that the mind will be thinking about something, then what mental focus will support playing music at the deepest level that we are presently capable of.

[GuitaRoland]

Many clever thoughts and interesting contributions, I hope that one day it will be (for me) like learning to ride a bicycle.
You learn and then you just do it without thinking to much about it.

Have a nice weekend!

/R

[Goofsus4]

I do think copying the masters is a very traditional and valuable part of learning. But for me it was easier to establish a fluency first. By just improvising on my own, exploring different sounds on my own, I developed the abiliy to see how to play over a variety of chords first and began to really master the fretboard. I find after building that critical mass of knowledge it's far easier for me to pick up and, more importantly, understand and modify concepts I hear others doing now.

But there's no reason you can't bring self-expression and transcription/copying along together of course.

[GuitaRoland]

Hi there Goofsus4, I like your way of tackling (right or wrong word? remember I'm just a guitar playing Swede) this question in your two contributions.
This i close to how what I expected to hear.

Thank You!
/R

[squider]

I just want to second bkdavidson's post which is spot on!! I studied scales and arpeggios for years from many books with very little improvement in my soloing. I was beginning to give up hope but once I began learning solo's I loved, my ear gradually developed to the point I could really 'hear' those sounds over the chords. I can now go my own way without too much thinking. I thought this method would just make me good at playing other people solos but it really does improve your ear. Ear training is the key!!

[Reg]

I dig all the approaches and lot seem very similar, different words etc... Most of us want to play what we hear or somewhere in that direction, so do I. What I've found to help me pull that off is 1) if you have the time, learn the tune, the way the composer meant it to sound like. If you have the skills, analyze the tune, melodically, harmonically, rhythmically and understand the form. You should be able to do all this on paper, or right on the lead sheet, it doesn't take very long.... Don't let yourself get caught up in thinking it's theoretical bullshit, I can hear whats on the lead sheet just as well as when I play the tune. Usually much better because my personal abilities don't get in the way. I've been playing gigs for almost 40 years, I can cover... If you don't have those skills, then you need to put in a lot more time... trial and error does work, if your ears are extremely hip... 2) Sometimes, you don't have the time, like at typical gigs. You'll see new tunes or arrangements of old tunes, or original compositions.... You use your theoretical bullshit and reading abilities to give your ears a chance to work... players that play by ear usually crash and burn, it's not fun, I've been there too. At some point in your playing career your not just going to want to sound like someone else, ...or not... Nowadays you had better learn how to understand and read music as well as play it,...or not...it all works to some degree. Bullshit is fun, it's part of what makes life entertaining.... but at some point you need to be able to cover... It's a lot more enjoyable and usually takes less time... Reg

[jseaberry]

I have a suggestion; if it's playing intuitively you want, play/practice with another player; pick a tune, trade 8's, trade 4's, trade half-choruses. Listen to the lines and ideas the other player plays, pick them up and add/subtract from what they give you; the other player gives back to you, you give back to him/her; I do this with a bassist I know and you will find yourself playing not pre-concieved patterns and modes, etc., but reacting to what you hear, which comes to you unexpectedly (you don't know what the other one will play until you hear it).

[Lambosoa]

There's nothing more horrible than thoughtless improvisation, however the thinking shouldn't be about the notes and the technique but about the musical idea you want to convey.
I would suggest to force yourself to play lyrically, don't focus on speed and on trying to fit licks inside your impro. Rather use the theme, transform it, use it as a base to build a musical discourse.
At some point, it will become just obvious how you can make your theoretical and technical baggage match into the discourse.

[Reg]

Trial and error is a very slow way to learn to improv. or solo over a tune.
LETS KEEP IT SIMPLE; most tunes have a melody and a form, their not just random notes on music paper. The simplest way to solo is to develop or use the melody. I'm taking for granted you understand the chord changes or Harmony of the tune. There are standard methods of development, by use of; 1) rhythm; change the rhythm of the melody, create or use a rhythm pattern from the melody to create a framework for your melodic ideas to fit into, this will at least give a shape or form to your solo, usually you try and create a high point to your solo then wind it down. There are a lot of rhythmic shapes that will work, buy need to be aware of which one your using. 2)Melodic development; melodies have forms or shapes, most composers don't get it right the first time, and they usually have all the skills. Theirs a balance to the pitch and duration of certain notes which usually make the melody. You can invert ( turn it upside down)a melodic or try types of retrogade, (playing it backwards), add and take away notes, use a part of the melody as the call or the answer of "call and answer" type of phrasing. There are lots of methods. Keep it simple so the melody doesn't get lost. And typically you restate at least a part of the melody at end of your solo. 3) Harmonic development; once you know what the harmonic form of the tune is and understand how if functions,( again very easy when you take the time to learn that theoretical bullshit), there are many ways to re-harmonize, it's not complicated, but takes more time than I have here. Simply put, you substitute different chord(s) for the original chord(s). There are standard methods for doing this depending how different you want it to sound. You either keep the same root and change the arrangement of notes or change the actual notes through modal interchange, inversions, parallel, diatonic etc... theirs no limit, or you change the root and use similar techniques. Then use your harmonic ideas to develop your soloing ideas. Theirs obviously a balance to all of this and some can skip all and use their own ideas to solo, but there is usually structure or form to soloing whether you are aware of it or not. Again trial and error doesn't always get there. Time on your axe is every thing... but that alone may not get you to that level of PROFICIENCY your searching for. Learn how to read and understand music, it doesn't take any more time... Reg

[jeffstocksmusic]

Something to consider...

To me, much of improv is really understanding and feeling the harmonic movement of the tune at a very deep and profound level. Your fingers likely know exactly what to do already to create melodies, even if you have only decent grasp of impov fundamentals (scales, arps, etc).

If you are like me, it is the ear that is the problem. If you are keen to give it a pop, try this:

• Pick a tune w/ standard-style changes.
• Sing and play the root movement of the chord changes slowly to a metronome (50-80 bpm).
• Sing the root movement of the changes slowly w/o the guitar to a metronome.
• Sing the root movement of the chord changes while playing the 3rd/7th of the chords slowly.
• Sing the 3rds of the chords while playing the root.
• Continue on as you feel necessary w/ other intervals.
• Then begin to improvise.

This isn't my idea but rather comes from the work of Abby Whiteside, the famous classical piano teacher (filtered through a jazz musician lens).

This kind of work sucks, to be honest. I hate it because it isn't sexy, but I swear it works. Something about engaging the ears, voice, fingers, etc seems to just start to fix all kinds of problems. Plus it seems to relax the nervous system, which is ALWAYS a plus.

[Reg]

Originally Posted by jeffstocksmusic

Something to consider...

To me, much of improv is really understanding and feeling the harmonic movement of the tune at a very deep and profound level. Your fingers likely know exactly what to do already to create melodies, even if you have only decent grasp of impov fundamentals (scales, arps, etc).

If you are like me, it is the ear that is the problem. If you are keen to give it a pop, try this:

• Pick a tune w/ standard-style changes.
• Sing and play the root movement of the chord changes slowly to a metronome (50-80 bpm).
• Sing the root movement of the changes slowly w/o the guitar to a metronome.
• Sing the root movement of the chord changes while playing the 3rd/7th of the chords slowly.
• Sing the 3rds of the chords while playing the root.
• Continue on as you feel necessary w/ other intervals.
• Then begin to improvise.

This isn't my idea but rather comes from the work of Abby Whiteside, the famous classical piano teacher (filtered through a jazz musician lens).

This kind of work sucks, to be honest. I hate it because it isn't sexy, but I swear it works. Something about engaging the ears, voice, fingers, etc seems to just start to fix all kinds of problems. Plus it seems to relax the nervous system, which is ALWAYS a plus.

Great stuff Jeff, good place to start...harmonic motion usually becomes less deep and profound when you start to understand why it works, although it's still has a level of elegance and distinctive beauty. The intervals between 3rds and 7ths and rest of notes in harmonic areas or chords of tune typically want to resolve somewhere, how you chose to do that, or not, is what makes the harmony, of course along with melody. Great ear training stuff, we all should work on this. There's a ear training site that another member referred; Good Ear - Online Ear Training Site very simple but all musicians should use daily until your ears are trained. I've been doing it for 40 years, and still practice... You have cool ideas... keep them coming... Reg
PS I totally dig playing through tunes and spelling out harmonies, great practice for solo work, or even trio stuff....yea... maybe not sexy...

[Francis Zérah]

Here is my advice:
Practicing hard (scales, arpegios, intervals, chords..) is very important for fingers, ear and building of an inconscient vocabulary ("play what you hear" is funny. It depends of what you are abble to hear) . But when improvising, one must forget all of this. It is rather frightning but I think that's the real spirit of jazz: taking risks. Playing guitar while listening great records (avoiding guitarists) is a good way too. You have to forget your ego and discover another personality expressing herself. I like to play "with" Chet Baker for example. Another way: think that words don't exist just notes. In contrary think of the spirits of the song.
In a word... don't play for you it's a kind of masturbation.
I often think, when hearing the best choruses, about the slave in his running scape from the plantation. He didn' know where he was going but he ran. Jazz is freedom.
Sorry of my poor English

[RememberClifford1]

Memorize changes. It sounds like a no-brainer but any time I have my head in the book I sound canned and boring. Not that I sound fantastic with everything memorized but when it is memorized it's a lot easier to "forget the changes and blow"

[GuitaRoland]

You have given a lot of good point of views, to RememberClifford1 I can say that I always memorise the changes.
The problem is how to dare go further and not always stay and play on the safe side.

I have in some occasions by mistake been playing in the wrong key but what has happened is that it has a created a
"sound" that I don't have accomplished earlier, but it is hard to play in the wrong key on purpose.

Any of you recognise this phenomena?

/R

[Francis Zérah]

Its not only memorizing changes but to work on them and their extensions, scales, arpegios etc.. I think it's important to separate working (to cut wood for winter) from playing. This is hard. You'll feel frustration but also satisfaction because what appears impossible become easy a few moment later. Concentrate on your fingers and what you hear. It's a kind of méditation. Feel the beauty of a single note. Don't try to play fast because you'll mémorise your mistakes.
So... a time to study... a time to improvise.
For example, try to work on the Bb scale and throw the entire neck:
1,3 /2,4 /3,5 .... (thirds) then improvise on track 1 of Aebersold 24 using what you've learned.
1,4 / ...... (fourths) , fifths, sixths, sevens etc
So you build a vocabulary. Idem with arpegios on each degree of major, minor mélodic, minor harmonic, 1/2 ton/ton, ton/ton scales.
Look at the word doc. that I send with this mail (in fFrench) to find ideas to study.
Try it and tell me if you progress. But don't forget that frustration is part of the music.

[Francis Zérah]

Originally Posted by GuitaRoland

You have given a lot of good point of views, to RememberClifford1 I can say that I always memorize the changies.
The problem is how to dare go further and not always stay and play on the safe side.

I have in some occasions by misstake been playing in the wrong key but what has happened is that it has a created a
"sound" that I don't have accomplish earlier, but it is hard to play in the wrong key on purpose.

Any of you recognize this phenomena?

/R

It was not a "wrong key" just a key you did'nt know that it was possible to play.

[Bailz]

why not get a list of random aebersold tunes and play over one without knowing any of the chords that are being played. focus is all on the ear then. also take melodies that you've heard and try to play them with out any sheets or anything. ear training is i suppose my point. in a word. or two.

[TommyD]

Miles Davis said; "Learn it then forget it!"

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Originally Posted by TommyD

Miles Davis said; "Learn it then forget it!"

I used to know Miles said that

[Lambosoa]

Originally Posted by GuitaRoland

I have in some occasions by misstake been playing in the wrong key but what has happened is that it has a created a
"sound" that I don't have accomplish earlier, but it is hard to play in the wrong key on purpose.

It's not that hard, you just need to practice it. There are some silly tricks to get the basics:
- chromatic sequences,
- whole-tone scales,
- play a pattern and immediately transpose it half-tone higher... or whole tone higher or lower - the guitar allows that with really little effort, you just slide along the neck.

[Gramps]

"I have in some occasions by misstake been playing in the wrong key but what has happened is that it has a created a
"sound" that I don't have accomplish earlier,...."

Yes, mistakes are a great learning tool. When this happens to me I'll stop and write it down before I forget it. Then, afterwords I'll go back and figure out why the mistake worked and then try to apply the concept to everything I play. It will work in some places and not in others but that's how I learn.

[whippersnapper]

Don't get too hung up on knowing so many scales. Transcribe and listen to the greats and always think of lines, melodies. It will happen eventually.