What is your primary reference for practicing improvisation?

[pamosmusic]

That's probably why horn players are generally more skilled improvisers than guitarists both technically and artistically. Their instruments are also more expressive for playing single notes than guitar. But the bar they reach is not just making the changes. That's just a basic skill. A hard one to learn but that's just a foundation for the jazz style. There are different levels of playing the changes.

Even when it comes to jazz guitarists, most people don't admire Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Grant Greene primary for their comping skills. There are obviously great guitar and piano compers but even their cases, most of them stand out because of their improvisation poweress which is what most jazz listeners pay attention to it seems.

This is all well and good, but the real test is to check the "comping and chord progressions" on a popular jazz guitar forum to see how many posts and views it has relative to, say, "improvisation" (or god forbid, "guitars, amps, and gizmos").

[Bobby Timmons]

But most players with their recorded history show us that, upon analysis, at best they're creating the illusion they're doing this. Even Parker.

It's not an illusion with Parker. We have him on tape saying so. Desmond asked him how he got his technique, meaning how does he shred so hard, and Parker said he studied, meaning he worked out his shit. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise anyway. Yeah he runs all those eloquent 8th and 16th notes at up tempos by just hearing it up in the moment lol!

[princeplanet]

That's probably why horn players are generally more skilled improvisers than guitarists both technically and artistically. ....

The fact horn players don't spend time learning chords probably isn't the main reason they're superior improvisors. Without being too sure, I'd guess it has to do with a combination of reasons:

- The bar was always set higher for horn players, more players (before the 60's at least) = more competition which set the bar higher.
- Most are great readers, and traditionally always were. More exposure to ideas.
- Horns are more expressive (more voice like, easier to "sound good").
- Despite its own mechanical challenges, it's easier to play faster, more fluid lines.
- The link between ear and fingers is more immediate and not slowed down by the kind of synch issues that plague guitar players.
- I'm pretty sure horn players aren't as bound by "shapes" as we are

There's bound to be more reasons, but I think we've all noticed that even after the first 5 years of practice on the sax vs the same amount of practice we put in on the guitar, the average (Jazz) sax student usually sounds more advanced at basic jazz improv. (trumpet may be another story!)

[princeplanet]

It's not an illusion with Parker. We have him on tape saying so. Desmond asked him how he got his technique, meaning how does he shred so hard, and Parker said he studied, meaning he worked out his shit. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise anyway. Yeah he runs all those eloquent 8th and 16th notes at up tempos by just hearing it up in the moment lol!

Well, he certainly had me fooled for a while, at least until the Thomas Owens dissertation, which made me listen a bit closer. The dude's still a fucking freak!

[joe2758]

I agree, he is pretty good.

[Bobby Timmons]

I agree, he is pretty good.

[AllanAllen]

This is all well and good, but the real test is to check the "comping and chord progressions" on a popular jazz guitar forum to see how many posts and views it has relative to, say, "improvisation" (or god forbid, "guitars, amps, and gizmos").

That subform is hard to enjoy, discussions on substitutions or different turnarounds usually devolve quickly when someone posts a lead sheet we all have and says just play this and get on with it.

[supersoul]

It's crazy to say horn players don't know chords. Most horn players I know spend a lot of time at the piano figuring out voicings and chord changes. They're often pretty good piano players, meaning they could comp their way thru a tune.

[AllanAllen]

It's crazy to say horn players don't know chords. Most horn players I know spend a lot of time at the piano figuring out voicings and chord changes. They're often pretty good piano players, meaning they could comp their way thru a tune.

Yes, that thought occurred to me, but it didn't support my argument so I chose to ignore it.

[pamosmusic]

That subform is hard to enjoy, discussions on substitutions or different turnarounds usually devolve quickly when someone posts a lead sheet we all have and says just play this and get on with it.

Lol.

That’s every sub forum

[Tal_175]

Despite the fact that on most popular music records, from radiohead to your next country hit, there is a skilled arranger (the session guitarists, the producer, a gifted band member or someone else in the production team) who writes/plays the guitar accompaniment parts, most guitarists in these styles think comping is strumming cowboy chords or bars chords. Don't they listen to the records? The average jazz guitarist is at least aware of the arrangement possibilities when comping and know when they suck, lol. Anyway, I digress.

[Mick-7]

I think Mick's point about chords is that it's easier for a horn player like CannonBall to play by ear because he doesn't have to learn how to comp. So, that time we spend learning to comp can be dedicated to ear training or more single note playing.

Yes, thank you, but also that they don't have to identify individual chords by ear. That is, a guitar player may transcribe the chord voicings he's hearing, a horn player would not be motivated to do that - unless it's of interest to him and he plays piano or another chordal instrument.

It's crazy to say horn players don't know chords. Most horn players I know spend a lot of time at the piano figuring out voicings and chord changes. They're often pretty good piano players, meaning they could comp their way thru a tune.

Wondering who these horn players are, because that has not been my experience. If they are music students or wanna-be composers, sure, but that would be one of the last things the average player would spend his practice time on.

[rpjazzguitar]

Also interesting question … without the name of the tune and the chord symbols, would you know what the changes were?

Take a gander at that third line … c triad, alright … D F A Eb … a brief pause and then a B … C triad into an Eb diminished … scale run down from B into a C triad.

I don’t think I would.

I think if you HEARD it that might be a different story. This is an aspect of jazz that I think is kind of close to alchemy or something, honestly. He’s playing the harmonic shapes and the patterns of motion and rest (Eb dim over A7 makes no sense, but Eb dim going to Dm certainly does, for example). But when we say “wow he’s nailing the changes” it’s almost frequently not true, in the narrow sense of actually outlining the chords in any theoretically useful way.

I thought the same thing. At times, he's playing the chord that is written above the bar and at times he's playing something a little different. Line 3 is all C tonal center, except for a couple of Eb's and an F#. And, he's got an Eb on beat 1 of a Dm.

Often, when something catches my ear and I take the trouble to figure it out, it's a juxtaposition of one chord over another. Nothing new. One of Charlie Christian's devices was playing a descending Cm arp over a D7.

It seems to me that learning this stuff would be easiest on piano, because you can play the chord (or a fragment) in one hand and solo in the other. A little harder on guitar, but easier now that you can use a looper. Probably, the availability of backing tracks has made horn much easier but prior to that, the horn player had to learn harmony without being able to hear it when alone in the practice room.

Not to say that piano is easier. Any guitarist who has had to read a piano chart in a big band has probably marveled at what the pianist is asked to read.

[Tal_175]

Often, when something catches my ear and I take the trouble to figure it out, it's a juxtaposition of one chord over another. Nothing new. One of Charlie Christian's devices was playing a descending Cm arp over a D7.

Yes, this is common sub, Cmin-F7 instead of D7 when going to a G chord (backdoor instead of V). .This is the sort of sub a comper might also do. What I see in that solo fragment is that he is always aware of the next chord in the form. The lines are mostly the devices that work on the chords (or their subs).

[John A.]

I find the original question unintelligible. I can't see any way to apply it to how I practice. I can't see any way to respond to the poll. It makes about as much sense to me as "when you practice fuel injection which of these mortises is most aboriginal to your volleyball?" I get the words on their own, but can't for the life of me see how they fit together as an idea. If others get it, I guess our minds work differently.

Anyway, I practice:
- Tunes, both new ones (or the sake of expanding repertoire and ones I already know for the sake of enjoyment and/or in different keys, tempos, and feels.
- Theory ideas (voicings, scale patters, chord sub/superimposition ideas) for the purpose of expanding my melodic and harmonic palettes.
- Technique, mainly using tunes as a vehicle, though sometimes exercises/patterns -- I do things like set iReal to repeat a tune 10x and bump up the tempo by some number of bpm with each repeat. I'll also do things like practice something I "know" but can't really play (e.g., a Johnny Smith arrangement) in order to push the boundaries of what I can execute incrementally.

Tunes is most important to me because life is short, I am old, discretionary time is finite. I like playing tunes, and lack of repertoire is the main problem I face in the performance situations I find myself in. OK, technique is probably as big a problem because sometimes I can't keep up with the pros on the fastest tunes, but it's also the aspect of my playing that has proven itself least amenable to rapid improvement. Learning new tunes gets easier and faster the more I do it. Cherokee at 300 bpm, not so much). So I go for what's practical and fun.

[pamosmusic]

Yes, this is common sub, Cmin-F7 instead of D7 when going to a G chord (backdoor instead of V). .This is the sort of sub a comper might also do. What I see in that solo fragment is that he is always aware of the next chord in the form. The lines are mostly the devices that work on the chords (or their subs).

For what it’s worth, I’m not saying I’m confused by why he’s playing what he’s playing … just that I think you’d have a hard time knowing what the changes were if you didn’t already know what the changes were. Thats not true of everyone all the time either, but I think it’s true more often than we’re lead to believe by the average method book or whatever

[Question]

"He's not really playing "what he hears", he's hearing what he knows, which means he's playing what he knows. At least in the main."

This great quote from Princeplanet for me really sums up what I could not yet express with words and how I would best describe how I improvise.

Some sounds or structures, like minor pentatonic are for most musically inclined people, relatively easy to hear.
Other sounds like altered scales etc. for most of us require some theoretical understanding before it starts to come out organically in our playing.

This is why I have always worked to transform what I theoretically "know" (or newly learn) into what I can really "hear".

Sort of transforming math into art.

As another poster pointed out; there is a difference between playing verbatim licks (rhythm & notes) and reorganizing your own material (that you can really "hear") to create something new.

[Tal_175]

I find the original question unintelligible. I can't see any way to apply it to how I practice. I can't see any way to respond to the poll. It makes about as much sense to me as "when you practice fuel injection which of these mortises is most aboriginal to your volleyball?" I get the words on their own, but can't for the life of me see how they fit together as an idea. If others get it, I guess our minds work differently.

The poll is about practicing towards improvisation. Your post seemed to me like it was about practicing in general, maybe that's why the poll questions didn't make sense to you.
Let me give an example of what I'd call a primarily visual approach. There is a recent thread about improvisation based on chord shapes. Herb Ellis wrote some books on this topic. In one of the books he shows specific chord shapes for different chord types and each chord shape has lines associated with it written out as etudes. The lines are built around each shape. Then he shows an example solo over ATTYA where over each bar there is a chord shape. The shape doesn't indicate the comping voice but indicates what shape the corresponding line is outlining. Of course something that starts visual eventually may become muscle memory, then eventually aural. But I'd call the primary reference in this type of approach to be visual.
I attempted to give a description of each of the references in an earlier post (#45). I won't repeat it here but I was also curious about how different people describe these references. It is possible your approach is completely orthogonal to these references.

[Ukena]

In this video of an improvisation class (there don't appear to be any guitarists), Gary Burton talks about his approach, as well as mentioning how horn players he knows approach improvising (visualizing the chord patterns, either on a piano or sheet music in the mind's eye). At 3:00, he starts talking about how you won't fool him if you have no idea of the chord changes.

At 3:30 he talks about playing for years with Stan Getz, who he says had no idea of chords other than the triad. He would wait to hear what the rest of the band was playing to fill in the other notes – Burton said when you played with him, you became aware that he was often waiting to hear what the band was playing.

[Tal_175]

For what it’s worth, I’m not saying I’m confused by why he’s playing what he’s playing … just that I think you’d have a hard time knowing what the changes were if you didn’t already know what the changes were. Thats not true of everyone all the time either, but I think it’s true more often than we’re lead to believe by the average method book or whatever

There might be method books that describe playing the changes as playing root to root over each chord and only using notes from the corresponding chord scale as an exercise. But I think most people would consider playing the changes as having a set of ideas over each harmonic situation (single chord type or small chord pattern) and having some sort of awareness of these situations while improvising and utilizing these ideas.

For example outlining Bmaj7 over G7 would still be playing the changes if tritone substitution is an idea in the dominant vocabulary of a player. In this case the player would be using a Db7 idea over G7 (arpeggio from the 7th of Db7).

[John A.]

The poll is about practicing towards improvisation. You'r post seem like it was about practice in general, maybe that's why the poll questions didn't make sense to you.
Let me give an example of what I'd call a primary visual approach. There is a recent thread about improvisation based on chord shapes. Herb Ellis wrote some books on this topic. In one of the books he shows specific chord shapes for different chord types and each chord shape has associated lines written out as etudes. Lines are built around the shape. Then he shows an example solo over ATTYA where over each bar there is a chord shape. The shape doesn't indicate the comping voice but indicate what shape the corresponding line is outlining. Of course something that starts visual eventually may become muscle memory, then eventually aural. But I'd call the primary reference in this type of approach to be visual.
I attempted to give a description of each of the references in an earlier post (#45). I won't repeat it here but I was also curious about how different people describe these references. It is possible your approach is completely orthogonal to these references.

As I said, I understand the individual terms (visual, theory, muscle memory, aural), but I can't see how one can be more primary than another, nor can I see how for a jazz musician "practicing" and "practicing for improvisation" are two different things. It seems to me that you're trying to make a new question out of the old chestnuts "what do you practice" and "what do you think about when you're actually playing/improvising" by somehow making it more structured or granular, but it doesn't strike me as opening the door to any information that the chestnuts wouldn't yield. Or it's either over my head or, as you say, orthogonal to it. If the poll had an option for "not sure, but probably something other than this" I think I'd know what to pick.

[Tal_175]

This is an interesting article about Rich Perry's "mindset":
What to Think About While Improvising: Jazz Chords and More • Jazzadvice

[pamosmusic]

There might be method books that describe playing the changes as playing root to root over each chord and only using notes from the corresponding chord scale as an exercise. But I think most people would consider playing the changes as having a set of ideas over each harmonic situation (single chord type or small chord pattern) and having some sort of awareness of these situations while improvising and utilizing these ideas.

For example outlining Bmaj7 over G7 would still be playing the changes if tritone substitution is an idea in the dominant vocabulary of a player. In this case the player would be using a Db7 idea over G7 (arpeggio from the 7th of Db7).

Well yeah, and when you say it like that, of course. But with multiple substitutions on multiple targets, different moves to the chord, blues licks, not all the chords played, some scalar things, all the attendant embellishments, I don’t think the solo is usually enough to tell a person what the changes are. Even if—in time—you’d be able to hear it, based on the ebb and flow within the context of the form.

I just think it’s interesting is all.

[Tal_175]

At 3:30 he talks about playing for years with Stan Getz, who he says had no idea of chords other than the triad. He would wait to hear what the rest of the band was playing to fill in the other notes – Burton said when you played with him, you became aware that he was often waiting to hear what the band was playing.

I would comfortably say that Stan Getz's primary reference wasn't theory in the practice room based on this anecdote, .

[Mick-7]

"He's not really playing "what he hears", he's hearing what he knows, which means he's playing what he knows. At least in the main."

This great quote from Princeplanet for me really sums up what I could not yet express with words and how I would best describe how I improvise.

Some whit, perhaps Will Rogers, said something like, "It's not that people know what they like, it's that they like what they know."

Two more relevant quotes from him:

"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."

"If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing."

Re: "he's hearing what he knows," thing is, he may not know that he knows it, that is, your best solos are the "channeled" ones that surprise you, when you play something that you've never played before and perhaps didn't even know you could play.