Composing solos to get better at improvising

[BreckerFan]

Using this one bar line as an example, all 8th notes:
D - F - A - C - B - Ab - G - F - E

For fretboard knowledge:
Try it through the three three-string one octave D min arpeggio shapes:
E|----------------------------|
B|----------------------------|
G|-------------5--4---------|
D|---------7---------6-5-3|
A|-5--8---------------------|7
E|-----------------------------|

E|-------------------------------|
B|-------------------------------|
G|-------------5--4------------|
D|----3--7----------6--5-----|
A|-5-------------------------8-|7
E|-------------------------------|

E|---------------------------|
B|---------------------------|
G|-------2--5--4--1------|
D|----3---------------5-3-|
A|-5------------------------|2
E|---------------------------|

Try doing this with the root on the E, D, and G strings too

Pick a 5 fret area on the neck and try working the line through all 12 keys without leaving that area.

For technique:
Through all the shape exploring, find a layout or a couple layouts that fit your technique and do some metronome work. I usually do 3 sets of 4 minutes, increasing by 10 bpm each time, with the middle set being at your max comfortable tempo.

To expand:
Once you have a couple lines, start stringing them together with good voice leading through modulations. Do like a ii V I and then a ii V I to the IV of the first key. Stay in position, changing string sets rather than sliding in the same set. You could even do this through the cycle of 5ths. Once you can get through this, you can start writing lines over tunes.

Even just writing this out is giving me some new ideas haha

[pamosmusic]

Using this one bar line as an example, all 8th notes:
D - F - A - C - B - Ab - G - F - E

For fretboard knowledge:
Try it through the three three-string one octave D min arpeggio shapes:
E|----------------------------|
B|----------------------------|
G|-------------5--4---------|
D|---------7---------6-5-3|
A|-5--8---------------------|7
E|-----------------------------|

E|-------------------------------|
B|-------------------------------|
G|-------------5--4------------|
D|----3--7----------6--5-----|
A|-5-------------------------8-|7
E|-------------------------------|

E|---------------------------|
B|---------------------------|
G|-------2--5--4--1------|
D|----3---------------5-3-|
A|-5------------------------|2
E|---------------------------|

Try doing this with the root on the E, D, and G strings too

Pick a 5 fret area on the neck and try working the line through all 12 keys without leaving that area.

For technique:
Through all the shape exploring, find a layout or a couple layouts that fit your technique and do some metronome work. I usually do 3 sets of 4 minutes, increasing by 10 bpm each time, with the middle set being at your max comfortable tempo.

To expand:
Once you have a couple lines, start stringing them together with good voice leading through modulations. Do like a ii V I and then a ii V I to the IV of the first key. Stay in position, changing string sets rather than sliding in the same set. You could even do this through the cycle of 5ths. Once you can get through this, you can start writing lines over tunes.

Even just writing this out is giving me some new ideas haha

Right on. Yeah this is kind of what I do with lines I like from transcriptions or heads.

So you go all in.

I like your timed metronome practice. I usually go for a couple passes through something and bump the metronome by smaller increments. But I like the bursts of a few minutes. That probably amounts to twenty or thirty passes through a short line like this one, I’d imagine.

[BreckerFan]

I don't do the full permutations with every line. I've found a good system of scales and arpeggios that works with my technique, so now I write out a lot of choruses on different tunes, and it covers the same ground.

I stole the timing thing from Troy Grady. He interviewed a sports psychologist or something years ago who said it's more effective to do small, spaced chunks than one long sustained practice because it forces you to recall each time.

So the technique part of my practice is 5 lines (mix of my own and transcriptions) doing the 3 set thing. Run through all 5 before upping the metronome and repeat. Total of an hour, throw on a show or podcast in the background and it goes pretty quick haha.

[pauln]

Alright. Let’s say you have a little line you like. What’s next?

Do you go all out on them like it’s a transcription? Pick it apart, transpose, sequence it out through scales?

Other stuff, more stuff, less stuff?

(Particularly for Mr Brecker over there, since he said this is the primary way he’s been practicing lately. But let me know anyone.)

Ultimately you want to be able to use the line, either as part of a composed thing or as an improvised thing. To do either, you have to learn about the line... and about your own musical mind.

- what harmony or changes in harmony does the line serve to express?
- does the line express different harmonies or changes in harmonies in different contexts?

Meaning, what tunes do you know that can use this line, where can it be used, and can different tunes use the same line to express completely different kinds of changes?

- Does the line have a part where even a single shift of one pitch extends what you can do with it across additional harmonies or changes, leading to use in other songs?

- Does thinking of the line as a loop help explore how it sounds when starting from different places in the loop... to hear suggestions of how it might work in other songs to be explored?

With developing and exploring lines, it may be important not to "tag" them with too specific an interpretation (an assignment to a chord, change, or other structure) too quickly. A "vanilla" application and description may arrive first, but the very same line may be found useful in other harmonic contexts. You don't want to miss finding the line may work in more songs but in complexly different ways.

Conceptually (how to think about the line) you have to decide on some things that relate to how you already grasp music. For example, if you make a nice line and set out to explore its various applications across different harmonic contexts (different songs that take it in different harmonic ways), then you have a choice of how to "hold" the line in your musical vocabulary.

One way might be to hold it as one entry with multiple definitions, just like words in the dictionary that have multiple meanings. Another way might be to hold each different musical application you discover as its own entry in your vocabulary. There may be advantages to holding the line as a single thing with multiple applications attached to it. There might be advantages to holding the line as a set of multiple things with each application attached to each instance. Which way is clearer and most easy to access and apply depends on how your musical mind works - of which learning about is a big part of all this, no?

[Christian Miller]

Nb Technique does not improve linearly

[pamosmusic]

I don't do the full permutations with every line. I've found a good system of scales and arpeggios that works with my technique, so now I write out a lot of choruses on different tunes, and it covers the same ground.

Right. That makes a lot of sense. I get pretty crazy with the permutations and stuff on transcriptions I like, but that’s a use of the writing I hadn’t considered.

I guess if you’re working a particular concept or idea or structure, four choruses trying to implement is probably a more organic way to get to the useful permutations without sifting through the less useful. Super smart.

I stole the timing thing from Troy Grady. He interviewed a sports psychologist or something years ago who said it's more effective to do small, spaced chunks than one long sustained practice because it forces you to recall each time.

Ah yeah, I used to do this with my classical practice. Have three passages on the music stand and do 2 minute bursts with. Also pretty humbling as far as how much you *actually* practice. Look at the clock and say “oh I’ve practice for an hour already” and then do the math and realize you’ve played each of those passages four times and the rest of the time between you’ve been checking your phone or some nonsense.

So the technique part of my practice is 5 lines (mix of my own and transcriptions) doing the 3 set thing. Run through all 5 before upping the metronome and repeat. Total of an hour, throw on a show or podcast in the background and it goes pretty quick haha.

HA! I love a good ten-year, two-hundred episode narrative history podcast for this very reason.