Playing Fast Sounds Like Sloppy Noodling

[stellarstar]

I have a pretty fast right hand like a shredder, but when it comes to improvising lines as quickly as my right hand can pick, I fumble around and it sounds like sloppy noodling. I like playing melodically but I wanna play some stuff in contrast to that, sharp and boisterous like Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet stuff. Any ideas or advice?

[fumblefingers]

I'm going through half of it

[Patrick2]

Shredding notes with no purpose other than speed . . . isn't quite the same as playing what you hear. Is it? The only way you'll ever become clean, precise and melodic at hyper speed . . is to first get clean, precise and melodic at slower speeds. If you could play great melodic lines with precise harmonic content at shredder speed . . you'd be a star by now, rather than here on an inter net forum asking for help.

What's your hurry? Develop the speed you seek the correct way. By walking before you try to run.

[stellarstar]

I do want to play lines faster for a purpose: I want to add to my sound pallette/repertoire, and I am hearing them, it's just my hands aren't in sync with what I'm searching to execute. When it comes to melodic medium speed stuff I CAN do that, I said that. So there IS a purpose for it. No need to be cheeky about it, I wanted to hear from people who'd went through the process of it or are working it out and specific things they'd done or are doing be it specific etudes, tunes, lessons, solos whatever. I wasn't looking for a super open-ended common-sense response.

[Hep To The Jive]

I do want to play lines faster for a purpose: I want to add to my sound pallette/repertoire, and I am hearing them, it's just my hands aren't in sync with what I'm searching to execute. When it comes to melodic medium speed stuff I CAN do that, I said that. So there IS a purpose for it. No need to be cheeky about it, I wanted to hear from people who'd went through the process of it or are working it out and specific things they'd done or are doing be it specific etudes, tunes, lessons, solos whatever. I wasn't looking for a super open-ended common-sense response.

IMO its hard to give advice like that without hearing a person asking for help first. Maybe somebody would identify with your playing and help better. When you are saying you are good at melodic stuff, what does it mean? Like playing in a key, non jazz stuff? Or you are good at creating melodic lines while improvising on a jazz tune? Sorry, not quite clear for me.

[stellarstar]

IMO its hard to give advice like that without hearing a person asking for help first. Maybe somebody would identify with your playing and help better. When you are saying you are good at melodic stuff, what does it mean? Like playing in a key, non jazz stuff? Or you are good at creating melodic lines while improvising on a jazz tune? Sorry, not quite clear for me.

Yeah you're right that's pretty ambiguous, I know how to approach/land on chord tones like 3rds and 7ths pretty smoothly. I like using extended intervals like major 9ths or 11ths for a spacier sound. I know how to play and keep form basically, and develop some basic ideas. I should film some stuff though

[vintagelove]

I do want to play lines faster for a purpose: I want to add to my sound pallette/repertoire, and I am hearing them, it's just my hands aren't in sync with what I'm searching to execute. When it comes to melodic medium speed stuff I CAN do that, I said that. So there IS a purpose for it. No need to be cheeky about it, I wanted to hear from people who'd went through the process of it or are working it out and specific things they'd done or are doing be it specific etudes, tunes, lessons, solos whatever. I wasn't looking for a super open-ended common-sense response.

I would guess your your fingers are faster than your ears, at least on planet jazz. It just takes several years for the Jazz vocabulary to sink in. Remember to listen, that will help get you there fast. Good luck!!!

[fumblefingers]

i must say that it's a little bit difficult to buy your story.

so - i would say that you should ask yourself a very sincere question or two:


can you play one solo transcription of a great player - slowly - from end to end?

can you play one solo of your own that sounds good - slowly- from end to end?

[Patrick2]

i must say that it's a little bit difficult to buy your story.

so - i would say that you should ask yourself a very sincere question or two:


can you play one solo transcription of a great player - slowly - from end to end?

can you play one solo of your own that sounds good - slowly- from end to end?

I think that's pretty much what I was implying. But, somehow it seemed to upset to OP.

[stellarstar]

I think that's pretty much what I was implying. But, somehow it seemed to upset to OP.

"Shredding notes with no purpose other than speed . . . isn't quite the same as playing what you hear. Is it?"

"If you could play great melodic lines with precise harmonic content at shredder speed . . you'd be a star by now, rather than here on an inter net forum asking for help."

Sure, but that wasn't cheeky to you? What was that adding? I never asked for that, and frankly it pissed me off a bit. I digress though, it would've been cool to discuss with others that have the experience their process, but that's just too much to ask I suppose.

[Patrick2]

"Shredding notes with no purpose other than speed . . . isn't quite the same as playing what you hear. Is it?"

"If you could play great melodic lines with precise harmonic content at shredder speed . . you'd be a star by now, rather than here on an inter net forum asking for help."

Sure, but that wasn't cheeky to you? What was that adding? I never asked for that, and frankly it pissed me off a bit. I digress though, it would've been cool to discuss with others that have the experience their process, but that's just too much to ask I suppose.

Your interpretation of and reaction to my words makes about as little sense as your original question. If you're going to be a "stellarstar", you'd be best served by growing some thicker skin. I meant you no offense . . . just stated an observation that blowing competently over jazz changes is much different than shredding chromatics over a two chord vamp at 300+ bpm . . . which is nothing more than guitar gymnastics. But, I sensed that you already knew that . . as well as the answer to your own question. I went on to state the only practical and intelligent answer in the last sentence of my response to your question. fumblefingers too stated as much.

You claim to be a shredder with a great right hand technique. How'd you get to that level of technical facility? Also, why isn't your left hand (fingers) as capable of speed as your right hand when you attempt to play melodically? What did you do, shred chromatic 32nd notes at hyper speed . . . or shred just one note? I doubt it. So, your brain (knowledge) isn't quite capable of matching the muscle memory of the right hand picking as it is when applied to the simple patterns you're used to. When shredding, you really don't need to know the appropriate fingerings for hitting the arps and/or the tonics. You don't need to know or understand intervallic expression or motivic expression. You don't need lyricism in your speed. You don't need voice leading in anticipation of key changes within a chorus. Jazz improv is more than just diatonic and pentatonic gymnastics.

Your fingers and pick technique seems to surpass other requirements needed to do what you want to do. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't be asking the question. There are no secrets to developing speed when improvising . . . there's no magic bullet. You know what you need to do.

Next time you're going to post a question, just for the sake of posting a question . . . try to make it an intelligent one.

Apologies for "pissing you off".

[Flyin' Brian]

I have a pretty fast right hand like a shredder, but when it comes to improvising lines as quickly as my right hand can pick, I fumble around and it sounds like sloppy noodling. I like playing melodically but I wanna play some stuff in contrast to that, sharp and boisterous like Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet stuff. Any ideas or advice?

If you can play melodically at speeds that keep you happy, but can't play outside ideas at the same tempo then you need to find some outside ideas that you like, learn how to play them slowly and gradually bring them up to speed. Can you improvise slowly and play ideas that you enjoy? Can you play more melodic improvisation at speeds that keep you happy? Or are you just playing scales at fast speeds?

[stellarstar]

Your interpretation of and reaction to my words makes about as little sense as your original question. If you're going to be a "stellarstar", you'd be best served by growing some thicker skin. I meant you no offense . . . just stated an observation that blowing competently over jazz changes is much different than shredding chromatics over a two chord vamp at 300+ bpm . . . which is nothing more than guitar gymnastics. But, I sensed that you already knew that . . as well as the answer to your own question. I went on to state the only practical and intelligent answer in the last sentence of my response to your question. fumblefingers too stated as much.

You claim to be a shredder with a great right hand technique. How'd you get to that level of technical facility? Also, why isn't your left hand (fingers) as capable of speed as your right hand when you attempt to play melodically? What did you do, shred chromatic 32nd notes at hyper speed . . . or shred just one note? I doubt it. So, your brain (knowledge) isn't quite capable of matching the muscle memory of the right hand picking as it is when applied to the simple patterns you're used to. When shredding, you really don't need to know the appropriate fingerings for hitting the arps and/or the tonics. You don't need to know or understand intervallic expression or motivic expression. You don't need lyricism in your speed. You don't need voice leading in anticipation of key changes within a chorus. Jazz improv is more than just diatonic and pentatonic gymnastics.

Your fingers and pick technique seems to surpass other requirements needed to do what you want to do. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't be asking the question. There are no secrets to developing speed when improvising . . . there's no magic bullet. You know what you need to do.

Next time you're going to post a question, just for the sake of posting a question . . . try to make it an intelligent one.

Apologies for "pissing you off".

First off, the name "stellarstar" is from a song I like by Flying Lotus, it has nothing to do with status or arrogance or anything. I never said I was shredder, I said I have a fast right hand. The point I was making is, my left hand can't keep up with the ideas that I wanted to play.
How was the question stupid? It was a question of experience, who's gone through. Music is difficult, hearing experience first-hand from those who've been through similar dilemmas make the process easier to deal with, which is a good reason to be a part of a forum. Really though, your responses have just been cheeky and presumptuous, a lot of which I didn't even say; and have been of no help at all. Again, I ever said I was shredder, and I never said I wanted to play fast just to play fast, I said I have right hand technique like one to give an idea of where my right hand was at... I also never said I was skipping all of the other nuances of improv like voice leading, phrasing, whatever. You made it seem as if wanting to improvise faster is something to avoid or is pointless.
FF and Brian gave reasonable responses without the disrespect or presumptuousness, which was all I asked.

[JensL]

I have a pretty fast right hand like a shredder, but when it comes to improvising lines as quickly as my right hand can pick, I fumble around and it sounds like sloppy noodling. I like playing melodically but I wanna play some stuff in contrast to that, sharp and boisterous like Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet stuff. Any ideas or advice?

It's quite normal that you find yourself developing a right hand technique that allows you to play scale and scale like melodies very fast but since it is much more difficult to use that technique for arps and especially stuff with wider intervals. Been there done that.

You probably need to look for some techniques that appeal to you for that stuff like legato (think Holdsworth) or sweeping, or combinations of that.

Besides that you need tio get better at defining what kind of melodies you want to play so if you want more weird Eric Doplhy sound effects (I am not that familiar with him, so I am guessing a bit...) You need to check out what he does and get that in your ears and/or to make sense to you so that you can make lines like that. Otherwise you can't reproduce it in your own playing. That part can be achieved by transcribing and/or by composing lines that sound like that, it could be useful to take one space lick and then see if you can use that to make 10 other ones.

Does that make any sense?

Jens

[pubylakeg]

Try a set of these.

https://www.stringsbymail.com/la-bel...5-56-8073.html

[stellarstar]

It's quite normal that you find yourself developing a right hand technique that allows you to play scale and scale like melodies very fast but since it is much more difficult to use that technique for arps and especially stuff with wider intervals. Been there done that.

You probably need to look for some techniques that appeal to you for that stuff like legato (think Holdsworth) or sweeping, or combinations of that.

Besides that you need tio get better at defining what kind of melodies you want to play so if you want more weird Eric Doplhy sound effects (I am not that familiar with him, so I am guessing a bit...) You need to check out what he does and get that in your ears and/or to make sense to you so that you can make lines like that. Otherwise you can't reproduce it in your own playing. That part can be achieved by transcribing and/or by composing lines that sound like that, it could be useful to take one space lick and then see if you can use that to make 10 other ones.

Does that make any sense?

Jens

Thanks for the reply. I've been learning some Eric Dolphy stuff and picking up on his devices and I do quite a bit of sweeping. When I'm practicing though I tend to avoid legato develop right hand accuracy and consistency. I plan on learning some Bird stuff tomorrow because Dolphy to me is just a more convoluted version of him, and modifying the intervals in the licks to make them weirder, and I'll see where I go from there. I've been doing some Julian Lage stuff to get my RH used to the complex right hand positions and movements. It's one thing to learn some licks or solo and learn to play it fast, and thinking and conceptualizing spontaneously fast.

[JensL]

Thanks for the reply. I've been learning some Eric Dolphy stuff and picking up on his devices and I do quite a bit of sweeping. When I'm practicing though I tend to avoid legato develop right hand accuracy and consistency. I plan on learning some Bird stuff tomorrow because Dolphy to me is just a more convoluted version of him, and modifying the intervals in the licks to make them weirder, and I'll see where I go from there. I've been doing some Julian Lage stuff to get my RH used to the complex right hand positions and movements. It's one thing to learn some licks or solo and learn to play it fast, and thinking and conceptualizing spontaneously fast.

In my experience you should not avoid a technique, legato is very useful for getting the phrasing right and is by far the easiest way to get Parker lines to sound right. Picking everything will probably not do that for you.

I don't know the Julian Lage stuff, I did some Steve Morse things and practiced a lot of open triads and drop2 voicings as arps to get used to that.

The idea of changing Parker lines to make them more Dolphy like sounds questionable to me, but if it works for you then that's fine.

Jens

[vintagelove]

shredding chromatics over a two chord vamp at 300+ bpm . . . which is nothing more than guitar gymnastics.

When shredding, you really don't need to know the appropriate fingerings for hitting the arps and/or the tonics. You don't need to know or understand intervallic expression or motivic expression. You don't need lyricism in your speed. You don't need voice leading in anticipation of key changes within a chorus.

This is complete nonsense. While it is nowhere near the complexity of playing jazz, if this is your idea of what is required for shredding, Im willing to bet your a terrible shredder.


Think about the term "fretboard gymnastics"

You do realize the gymnasts work very hard to be able to do what they do? Fretboard gymnastics is actually a compliment. Which btw, I have never seen anyone who could play in that style put down shredders, in fact, the only people I have ever seen who put down playing fast are those who can't. However by all means, feel free to post you shredding to prove me wrong.

[vintagelove]

Thanks for the reply. I've been learning some Eric Dolphy stuff and picking up on his devices and I do quite a bit of sweeping. When I'm practicing though I tend to avoid legato develop right hand accuracy and consistency. I plan on learning some Bird stuff tomorrow because Dolphy to me is just a more convoluted version of him, and modifying the intervals in the licks to make them weirder, and I'll see where I go from there. I've been doing some Julian Lage stuff to get my RH used to the complex right hand positions and movements. It's one thing to learn some licks or solo and learn to play it fast, and thinking and conceptualizing spontaneously fast.

A couple quick tips to go with my above advise that your ears need to catch up. You will need a lot of legato and economy picking if you plan on playing at bebop tempos. The truth is you will need to be able to do everything, alternate, economy, legato, the impossible, etc...

Learning some parker is a great idea, though perhaps not the best place to start (though listening is a great place to start). Its like learning math starting with calculus. You would benefit greatly from learning hundreds of ii v I lines. At the same time you should start learning tunes so you can better understand how chords move in jazz. When you see the light, you will understand why a said learn lots and lots of ii V lines.

Hope that helps and good luck!!!

[stellarstar]

A couple quick tips to go with my above advise that your ears need to catch up. You will need a lot of legato and economy picking if you plan on playing at bebop tempos. The truth is you will need to be able to do everything, alternate, economy, legato, the impossible, etc...

Learning some parker is a great idea, though perhaps not the best place to start (though listening is a great place to start). Its like learning math starting with calculus. You would benefit greatly from learning hundreds of ii v I lines. At the same time you should start learning tunes so you can better understand how chords move in jazz. When you see the light, you will understand why a said learn lots and lots of ii V lines.

Hope that helps and good luck!!!

Parker to me is the most logical way to get into bop, learning licks is like patterns almost if you do them repetitively it's easier to play them fast. As far as the picking everything goes, I do it because I like the staccato sound of the guitar, it's a part of the appeal for me. I really only use legato for cool microtonal sluring especially on cool foreign sounding scales. I've been shedding the changes to Four On Six a lot lately, it's really been helping me keep form especially due to the 2 brief one chord vamps in the chorus, I plan on getting back on Giant Steps to get my ii-V-I vocabulary and anticipation of key changes better next week and after that I plan to do Nardis.
Thanks for the reply!

[vintagelove]

Parker to me is the most logical way to get into bop, learning licks is like patterns almost if you do them repetitively it's easier to play them fast. As far as the picking everything goes, I do it because I like the staccato sound of the guitar, it's a part of the appeal for me. I really only use legato for cool microtonal sluring especially on cool foreign sounding scales. I've been shedding the changes to Four On Six a lot lately, it's really been helping me keep form especially due to the 2 brief one chord vamps in the chorus, I plan on getting back on Giant Steps to get my ii-V-I vocabulary and anticipation of key changes better next week and after that I plan to do Nardis.
Thanks for the reply!

Please dont take this as me lecturing or telling you what to do.

learning giant steps at this point, is not going to help you on the other 95 percent of tunes that are not structured like that. If I were you I would make sure I could play the sh@t out of tunes like

fly me to the moon
out of nowhere
autumn leaves
stella
perdido
green dolphin street
just friends
another you
ornithology
Anthhropology
donna lee

etc etc

what you will find out is that most tunes are very very similar, going even further, much of the time the chords are simply going through the cycle. If you learn these standards first, it will make tackling giant steps much "easier".

to your point about picking everything, try doing that with Donna lee. Even if you do manage to get it up to the famous Parker/Davis version tempo picking every note, what are you going to do when a sax player calls it at 280? At a certain point it is impossible to pick these things, if your other picking methods aren't up to snuff, you will regret it. Not to mention that the Jazz rabbit hole is sooooooo deep, the Time wasted on trying to alternate pick the impossible is just going to hold you back from other things you need to know, like 75 ways to play Bb7..... Every inversion of every chord, tunes, time, tendentious oh my!!!

my two cents, good luck!!!

[henryrobinett]

Man. I kind of went through a similar thing, but this was long before the word "shred" was in common parlance. In MY case it was not actually hearing and then KNOWING what it was I was hearing. My right hand was way beyond my left. I had put so much attention on my picking hand that it was developed more. And this made ABSOLUTELY NO F***ING SENSE. The music was played by my left hand. I can't hear music in my right hand. I can hear music in my left. When I play my minds ear and my left hand are in complete sync, on good days. The right hand, now, just follows. I put zero attention on it. It's job is to follow, not lead. So in my case I had to refocus my attention.

[henryrobinett]

Yeah. You need to HEAR these lines. Not Giant Steps. You need to flow with the basics. And I really don't like the sound of shredders playing jazz. The ONLY reason I do is because they miss the boat on bop, the swing and the language. It COULD be fantastic. If you could get the right phrasing, fergitaboutit. It would be incredible. But fakery just is lame. I mean if that's cool for you, cool.

For fast check out Coltrane's sheets of sound period - Soul Trane. Michael Brecker. Modern tenor players have that thing. Sax lends itself to this better than almost any other instrument.

[stellarstar]

Yeah. You need to HEAR these lines. Not Giant Steps. You need to flow with the basics. And I really don't like the sound of shredders playing jazz. The ONLY reason I do is because they miss the boat on bop, the swing and the language. It COULD be fantastic. If you could get the right phrasing, fergitaboutit. It would be incredible. But fakery just is lame. I mean if that's cool for you, cool.

For fast check out Coltrane's sheets of sound period - Soul Trane. Michael Brecker. Modern tenor players have that thing. Sax lends itself to this better than almost any other instrument.

To me Giant Steps is fairly basic, it's just ii-V's and I think learning it's helped me alot with my anticipation, sensing form and connecting ideas from modulation to modulation, it's a lot less intimidating than Rhythm Changes or some of Monk's stuff for me. After I knock out the more intimidating stuff that challenges me with keeping form and connecting ideas I plan on getting into the old swing stuff, like Benny Goodman and Ellington.

Oh no I don't want to be a "shredder" by any means, I just modeled my right hand technique after guys like Paul Gilbert and Tosin Abasi since there's is very logical, efficient, and fast, but I don't want to play like them. Shredders just have good right hand technique practices I think are good for any kind of fast guitar playing, and besides I really dig how the staccato sound of the quickly picked notes like Django's tremolo picked stuff and Eddie Lang, it's a part of the instruments appeal for me. I'm not going for the legato sax sound really.

[fumblefingers]

Yeah. You need to HEAR these lines. Not Giant Steps. You need to flow with the basics. And I really don't like the sound of shredders playing jazz. The ONLY reason I do is because they miss the boat on bop, the swing and the language. It COULD be fantastic. If you could get the right phrasing, fergitaboutit. It would be incredible. But fakery just is lame. I mean if that's cool for you, cool.

For fast check out Coltrane's sheets of sound period - Soul Trane. Michael Brecker. Modern tenor players have that thing. Sax lends itself to this better than almost any other instrument.

Yep, horns and woodwinds can fly, keyboards too. Bowed string instruments can burn hotter than guitar, either plucked or plec'd.

But we have a secret weapon. Our instrument has a sound that is like no other, and the whole world loves it. Chopin knew it, and so do we.