How to get to real improvisation?

[Tal_175]

I wonder how often, for many people, working on improvisation just means improvising and how many actually work on it by building phrases over chords and progressions. Sometimes I find myself spending an hour on a single chord in one position, trying to come up with different phrasal ideas that I can keep going for several bars by mixing them up freely.

[Cunamara]

I recommend getting a good Jazz teacher.

(I know this is the usual advice, but a good Jazz teacher will help you improve.)

That is a pretty obvious one that I managed to overlook. But it's absolutely correct.

Having a teacher who can play with you in real time and point things out, show you how things work, correct things when you get them wrong, etc. can just chop a whole lot of time off of the development process. Sure, there are autodidacts who taught themselves to play guitar from listening to records and figuring it out, but those are relatively few. Most of us had some kind of jazz lessons at some point.

It doesn't even necessarily take a lot of classes to see improvement (hear improvement?). Last summer I took a 4 hour master class with Stanley Jordan and by pointing out just three or four simple things that I was not attending to while playing, my playing improved. He could hear what was missing and what would be helpful to change in the lines I was creating. And the lesson was durable because simple; I still play better than I did before I took that master class. And I didn't even have to learn how to play with both hands fretting notes.

[pamosmusic]

Unfortunately, the answer may be you’re not inclined to be an improviser. I’ve been able to improvise and move my fingers around pretty well on a fingerboard almost within a year of starting to play. Whether it’s good or not is a different story :-) but I found that some people just don’t have the imagination to even think of something they want to play. First step is to invent something in your head and hum it, sing it, and then execute it on the guitar.

This is absolute nonsense.

[Cunamara]

Well, it's somewhere between nonsense and under informed.

[pamosmusic]

Unfortunately, the answer may be you’re not inclined to be an improviser. I’ve been able to improvise and move my fingers around pretty well on a fingerboard almost within a year of starting to play. Whether it’s good or not is a different story :-) but I found that some people just don’t have the imagination to even think of something they want to play. First step is to invent something in your head and hum it, sing it, and then execute it on the guitar.

Alright so I should probably note the reasons why this is nonsense.

Youre describing discrete musical skills like they’re magic and this dude is like … a muggle or something. It just isn’t there.

So for an example …

”First step is to invent something in your head.”

Hearing something in your head is called “audiation” and is a skill that can be taught and learned to the extent that there are entire bodies of research and theories of education that revolve around teaching this skill.

Musical memory is also something that can be honed rather quickly except for the fact that most people don’t realize it’s a skill at all.

As for the quantity and quality of the ideas—where do they come from? Is it possible to collect them? Of course it is.

“Hum and then sing”. Sight singing is a foundational skill that you start working on day one of any formal music education. For those of us without access to that formal education, it is 2025 and there are a gazillion resources on this.

“Execute it on the guitar.” Don’t even need to address this one.

People who think these things can’t be worked on or that some people have no capacity are generally people who don’t have a lot of experience teaching these things, who got them easily for themselves, and who don’t know what they don’t know.

[pamosmusic]

Well, it's somewhere between nonsense and under informed.

No it’s nonsense

[Mick-7]

When I got into jazz (age 20 or so) I already knew the basic scales and arpeggios because I’d had classical guitar lessons all the time I was at school. Also I didn’t have much spare time. So I didn’t see the point in drilling scales etc., it wasn’t what I heard on the jazz records (I could hear wonderfully flowing melodic ideas, and I wanted to play like that).

So I just learned a bunch of tunes by ear, and I figured out some solos by Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Dexter Gordon etc. (by playing them on a reel-to-reel tape deck at half speed - remember this was before the internet, computers etc!). This was enough to give me plenty of ideas and vocabulary to work with, I just kept applying those ideas to other tunes, adapting them to different chord changes etc. Eventually I wound up with some kind of ability to create my own solos on quite a few tunes (I also developed a pretty good ear from all that figuring stuff out).

I only had one book, the Joe Pass Chord Book, so that’s how I learned the common jazz guitar chord forms.

Later I did start learning more theory to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, but that was of secondary importance to me. Just trying to play the stuff like I heard my jazz heroes play it on the records was my top priority.

For me, just learning to play great phrases by people like Wes, Joe, Bird etc. was great fun, I loved doing it. I think if I’d spent hours just on scales and arps I would have got bored and given up.

Of course this was just my approach, whether it would work for everyone I don’t know.

That's pretty much what I did, except with a cassette tape player, not a reel to reel deck.

Did you group your vocabulary into different chord clusters like tonic minor licks, altered dominant licks, half diminished licks etc. or did you just collect phrases and applied them to different chords differently? I tend to do the latter. I find that the lines flow more naturally this way than when stringing together licks dedicated to specific chords.

That would require understanding theory, which I didn't when I started playing jazz, I presume that is also true of Graham. I learned to recognize chord progressions, most of which are common to the majority of jazz standards. I remember having a hard time with tunes that had uncommon changes, like Have You Met Miss Jones.

I did play blues before I got into jazz, sounds like Graham skipped that phase, which is unusual.

[WannaBePlaya]

All tunes, yes that is exactly the style I mean, though he's miles from where I would ever get. I like the idea of just playing the chords and responding to them interactively. I think of it sort of like an intro to a tune where you're playing freely and just feeling the chords and adding a bit of melody. It would take a lot to get even a basic level of this, but I think it would be a lot more interesting to work on than scale and arpeggio exercises. I think if I play rootless shell voicings and put melody on top with free fingers, I could get a start at it. It would be a lifetime of work to do it with any fluency, but it would be fun trying to get there.

[WannaBePlaya]

Strat-itis, I'll look into Open Studio. I'm not familiar with it. Private lessons are a little too pricey for, but this may work. I started looking for a teacher, at least to talk with someone about the things I've posted here. I literally have no one to talk with about any of this. You all are giving me things to think about and thinking and writing about this is clarifying for me what I want to do and how I might begin.

[Mick-7]

It would be a lifetime of work to do it with any fluency, but it would be fun trying to get there.

You're making this sound a lot harder than it needs to be, which it can become if you try to do it on your own.

[grahambop]

That would require understanding theory, which I didn't when I started playing jazz, I presume that is also true of Graham. I learned to recognize chord progressions, most of which are common to the majority of jazz standards. I remember having a hard time with tunes that had uncommon changes, like Have You Met Miss Jones.

I did play blues before I got into jazz, sounds like Graham skipped that phase, which is unusual.

I did have some theory knowledge as a result of classical guitar studies plus things I had read generally (I understood basic chord construction and intervals well, and could read music). I hadn’t really grasped the importance of ii-V-I progressions and I didn’t really ‘get’ altered dominants at first, but it didn’t take long to gain that understanding.

I did in fact play blues and rock guitar for a few years, before getting into jazz.

[alltunes]

All tunes, yes that is exactly the style I mean, though he's miles from where I would ever get. I like the idea of just playing the chords and responding to them interactively. I think of it sort of like an intro to a tune where you're playing freely and just feeling the chords and adding a bit of melody. It would take a lot to get even a basic level of this, but I think it would be a lot more interesting to work on than scale and arpeggio exercises. I think if I play rootless shell voicings and put melody on top with free fingers, I could get a start at it. It would be a lifetime of work to do it with any fluency, but it would be fun trying to get there.

There is a recent Adam Levy YouTube where his Brooklyn neighbor discusses and demonstrates this very concept. May be worth watching.

[starjasmine]

Unfortunately, the answer may be you’re not inclined to be an improviser. I’ve been able to improvise and move my fingers around pretty well on a fingerboard almost within a year of starting to play. Whether it’s good or not is a different story :-) but I found that some people just don’t have the imagination to even think of something they want to play. First step is to invent something in your head and hum it, sing it, and then execute it on the guitar.

@peter and @cunamara, I did not interpret this the same way you did. I considered this as if there were a couple of additional paragraph returns:

Unfortunately, the answer may be you’re not inclined to be an improviser.

I’ve been able to improvise and move my fingers around pretty well on a fingerboard almost within a year of starting to play. Whether it’s good or not is a different story :-) but I found that some people just don’t have the imagination to even think of something they want to play.

First step is to invent something in your head and hum it, sing it, and then execute it on the guitar.

In that context, "Unfortunately ... maybe you're not inclined to be an improviser" is a fair statement. We all have strengths and weaknesses.

Moving on, alltunes goes on to say that he felt that he could get around on the instrument fairly well within a year. Also a fair statement.

The part about "some people just don't have the imagination to even think of something they want to play" is controversial, perhaps would be less so if it were phrased differently. For example it might be phrased as "beginning players often haven't listened to enough jazz to develop their melodic sense sufficiently to generate strong melodic ideas." Early in my uni studies, I found that I could understand theory well enough, but I struggled to come up with good jazz lines because I just hadn't listened to enough jazz to develop my concept beyond ideas rooted in rock and pop melodies.

Alltunes then goes on to actually offer some practical how-to advice: "First step is to invent something in your head and hum it, sing it, and then execute it on the guitar."

Thus, I didn't read that post to say "if you're not one of the chosen few, fuggeddaboutit."

[joe2758]

Hell, I almost quit after reading that post

[pamosmusic]

The part about "some people just don't have the imagination to even think of something they want to play" is controversial, perhaps would be less so if it were phrased differently. For example it might be phrased as "beginning players often haven't listened to enough jazz to develop their melodic sense sufficiently to generate strong melodic ideas."

I agree that his post would have been less controversial if he had said something different.

[pamosmusic]

All tunes, yes that is exactly the style I mean, though he's miles from where I would ever get. I like the idea of just playing the chords and responding to them interactively. I think of it sort of like an intro to a tune where you're playing freely and just feeling the chords and adding a bit of melody. It would take a lot to get even a basic level of this, but I think it would be a lot more interesting to work on than scale and arpeggio exercises. I think if I play rootless shell voicings and put melody on top with free fingers, I could get a start at it. It would be a lifetime of work to do it with any fluency, but it would be fun trying to get there.

There’s a lot to practice with this stuff. Very cool. These are pretty much the only voicings I play anymore.

Good start is to play the rooted shells, then rootless shells, then shells with the roots on top. Lots of that so that you can really start locating the chords you want. Rootless shells rule and are easy to play but they can be hard to find because of their ambiguity.

After that start working with the fifth on top and voiceleading one to the next. Root on top, fifth on top, root on top, fifth on top etc

You can start working on little pairs that voicelead well like that to start getting the hang of making melodies

[ragman1]

how I might begin.

What worries me is why it's taken you 40 years to get round to it!

[JazzPadd]

So much advice here! I'm in no position to add advice, all I can do is share my approach.

For me, improvisation starts with melody. In many ways, everything one needs to play jazz is in the tunes. So I learn the melody to the tune I'm working on, in as many registers as possible. A metronome is helpful, although I prefer to have bass and drums on iReal.

I start slow until the melody is fully internalized and knock it up a notch as I go. Then, once I'm completely fluent with the melody, I start to play around with it, to see it as a theme for variation. Simple variations first, delaying notes, anticipating notes, very basic passing tones between melody notes, repeating notes. I'll get the backing to a feasible tempo, and I'll keep running through it until the melody variations are completely fluent.

I also do the same with comping, which is in itself a kind of improvisation responding to the setting (in a live situation). I'll get the chord progression down fluently and in several registers with various voicings, no charts, committing it to memory so I can freely move around the neck in tempo with no hesitations. By then, the tune is usually internalized.

From there, improvisation can involve moving back and forth from the melody variants to comping, or trading fours with myself, or doing a chorus of chord improvisation then back to melody variants, and eventually I'm just playing the tune without really thinking about it.

I find after doing that with one tune for a week in one key, I'm ready to take it out to the jam sessions and, if there's a chance, I'll call it and play it with others. How I take it from there, on stage in a social setting, depends of things not apparent in the practice room. But I think I get what others mean when they say "don't think, just blow." If it goes well in the jam, then I move on to another tune; if it flops, then I spend another week shedding it.

This might not work for everyone, and has its weaknesses. It's only one tune in one key, which although for me is more than enough to do what I want to do with jazz, which is to play out with others for fun, it will likely be insufficient for those with higher aspirations.

I have tried exercises and theory, but they all go out the window when I'm on stage in an unpredictable, spontaneous situation. The jam session ecology matters, too, and it helps that the sessions I go to (there are several in various venues every month) are open and supportive, and players of various levels join. We're playing for fun and to learn together. This is all from the point of view of an avid amateur playing primarily for the sheer joy of it.

And I suppose age matters somewhat as well. I'm in my mid-sixties and want to focus on what I can do now, not what I can't do later, fully aware of the limited time that I have left.

Teachers have their place, definitely. I don't have the time for regular lessons, but when an opportunity arrises I'll take a lesson or two. For example, there was a guitarist from abroad (I'm in Japan) touring the region and offering lessons to those near where they'd be performing. So I booked a lesson. After reviewing with me some scale patterns and chord scales, we played a tune together. I noticed something they were doing with the chording as I played melody. I think it was a basic tune like Summertime, and instead of chords or shell voicings, which is what I'd use for comping, they used what I would call a "split voicing," a tritone on 4 and 5 and upper extensions on 2 and 1 (muting 6 and 3). I later found by chance a video with Jim Hall comping for Art Farmer and he was doing the same thing, split voicings for lack of a better term. That was an eye and ear opener for me, and it gave me enough to practice on various tunes for a year. When they were in town again, we set up a time and I asked to just play some tunes together for the time and call it a lesson. It was valuable to be able to play and observe, and ask questions.

This is getting verbose, so I'll stop here and wish you the very best on your jazz journey!

[WannaBePlaya]

Hell, I almost quit after reading that post

I didn't take the comment as mean spirited, though it did offend me a bit. It's fair to say that some people don't have an instinct or the background to improvise. That's not me. I have played, listened and improvised at one level or another for far too long. The music and the ear for improvisation does, or at least can, seep into you over time. Even if you have not done harmony or ear training, the sound of chord progressions and keys is there. I have no trouble hearing and quickly playing the appropriate notes for a song or picking out a melody on the guitar. I also have no trouble improvising in the sense of inventing melodies or lines and I enjoy it more than anything else I do. Where I struggle is with changing key centers and creating more complex lines that also make the changes clearly, something I imagine many intermediate players struggle with.

Yesterday I played for a few hours and really enjoyed myself because I did not spend any real time on scales or arpeggios. I love improvising, even if there are notes out of key here and there. I am seeing that what I want, at least for now, is to play very loosely (slowly and out of time) and take the time to hear and respond to the chords and progression. I am not yet at a place where I can or even want to construct long 8th note lines over rapidly changing key centers.

I'm actually not that attracted to jazz standards per se. I love the improvisation that great players create out of the chords progressions, but the melodies often don't really speak to me. I don't go around humming I've Got Rhythm and I doubt many people do. Obviously the progressions are valuable, but I like responding to music that captures my ear. I've mentioned that I love Bossa Nova. The rhythm, the interesting progressions, and those gorgeous pure singing voices are wonderful. I've set up a Pandora channel for Bossa Nova and I hear a lot there that I like. There is an album I love, Casa from 2001, (more classically inspired than jazzy btw) by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Paula Morelenbaum and her husband that is exquisite. Gorgeous voice, beautiful melody lines, and beautiful cello accompaniment.

Anyway, after improvising loosely over the first 8 bars of Corcovado for an hour or so, I later began fitting the arpeggios over the progression and working out the key. I had it in my ear and just needed a quick look at the chords to confirm. I actually can see adding those elements to my improvisation and creating more complex lines from them without getting lost--as long as I take it slowly and enjoy myself along the way. It actually sounds like fun. It helps that there are no real key changes in the first 8 bars, but there are chord changes to follow. I'll add the next section after I spend some time with this, and it does change key. I expect there will be several other key changes in the rest of the song. We'll see if that presents problems, but I think I can manage if they don't come too fast and I play at a slower tempo.

I think a big part of the problem for me is that the instruction I've seen on YouTube emphasizes making the changes and building complex lines that express them perfectly and are filled with chromatics and other devices. I think that's too much to start with. I need to slow down, simpify the requirements, and build up to those things. I decided this time when I returned to guitar that I would not do the whole "every mode, every arpeggio all over the neck in every key" thing again. I've found that if I work on too much, I retain less than if I focus on a smaller piece around a piece of music, that the understanding is deeper and comes more easily. I naturally extend the range into a second octave pretty quickly and that's enough to do a lot. I think this is a good place for me to start.

There are many good ideas among your posts that I am thinking about. I like the suggestion of doing some ear training related work at a community college. I actually took jazz guitar at a community college many years ago. Ear training would sharpen my ability to hear the progressions and also my ability to play specific melodic ideas without hunting around. Right now, I can improvise in key, but playing specific melodies or jumping larger intervals is beyond me. I can work them out quickly, but not play them in real time. If I had those abilities, I would be a long way toward where I want to be.

Having a teacher would be nice. I did some looking into it recently. There's nobody in my immediate area. I looked online. The teacher I contacted wanted a massive commitment up front. I was just trying to figure out if it was worth trying this again after stopping a year or two ago. In the long run, I can't spend a ton on lessons and I actually enjoy working things out for myself, even if I haven't been particularly successful at it.

I'm excited to come at this from a more instinctive and aesthetic place rather than a technical one. It is much more enjoyable and satisfying and I will add back the more cerebral parts of the music as I can. I think I might be able to connect them together if I take my time and spend it making and responding to music rather than practicing scales and arpeggios and hoping they will somehow become internalized.

Anyway, enough rambling here. I'll get going on this approach and follow this thread and post some progress reports as I go. Thanks for your input and for helping me clarify my own thinking.

[WannaBePlaya]

What worries me is why it's taken you 40 years to get round to it!

It's not 40 years getting around to it. It's 40 years (on and off, mind you) trying to figure it out. All the instruction I saw emphasized this massive knowledge base and practicing fundamentals. I could never get past that or connect it musically to what I wanted to do. It's interesting to me how you get sucked into an approach. Every time I return after giving up for a while, I seem to have a little more insight into what I do and don't want to spend my time on. I have not yet found a way to get where I want to go. I think I may have a clue now. We'll see.

[Strat-itis]

Yikes. Ideally you should make progress each year. When it goes on for 4 decades, you'd think it would be time to study formally somewhere. That's how people learn stuff ya know. :P

[John A.]

It's not 40 years getting around to it. It's 40 years (on and off, mind you) trying to figure it out. All the instruction I saw emphasized this massive knowledge base and practicing fundamentals. I could never get past that or connect it musically to what I wanted to do. It's interesting to me how you get sucked into an approach. Every time I return after giving up for a while, I seem to have a little more insight into what I do and don't want to spend my time on. I have not yet found a way to get where I want to go. I think I may have a clue now. We'll see.

That's the big drawback to trying to teach yourself from online sources. Way too much emphasis on needing to know stuff as prerequisites to playing, and way too little emphasis on the aspects that make your playing sound like music rather than just a bunch of scales and arpeggios. Threads such as this one initiated by people led down this blind alley are a constant around here. Obviously, scales, arps, and theory matter, but people who really play this music with some degree of competence and fluency don't get there just be focusing on what pitches to play, and people who really know how to teach it know how strike the right balance.

[ragman1]

It's not 40 years getting around to it. It's 40 years (on and off, mind you) trying to figure it out. All the instruction I saw emphasized this massive knowledge base and practicing fundamentals. I could never get past that or connect it musically to what I wanted to do. It's interesting to me how you get sucked into an approach. Every time I return after giving up for a while, I seem to have a little more insight into what I do and don't want to spend my time on. I have not yet found a way to get where I want to go. I think I may have a clue now. We'll see.

How much time of that was spent getting the ingredients together and how much cooking the dish?

[Christian Miller]

Stop trying to make music out of raw materials, and instead copy stuff you like from records. Just licks and things, bebop heads, whatever.

Do this for a while and it should be much easier because you’ll be able to intuit much better how to put it together. You need to be a musician rather than approaching things like an engineering problem.

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[Christian Miller]

That's the big drawback to trying to teach yourself from online sources. Way too much emphasis on needing to know stuff as prerequisites to playing, and way too little emphasis on the aspects that make your playing sound like music rather than just a bunch of scales and arpeggios. Threads such as this one initiated by people led down this blind alley are a constant around here. Obviously, scales, arps, and theory matter, but people who really play this music with some degree of competence and fluency don't get there just be focusing on what pitches to play, and people who really know how to teach it know how strike the right balance.

I have to say that sometimes I feel I’m part of the problem. YouTube HEAVILY pushes you towards producing a certain type of content.


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