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If "improvisation" means "inventing something over an armature or devising a variation on a fixed text in real time," then I'm not sure that mere technical skill is the primary driver, however much it might be required for execution.
As I have posted in the past, I spent a couple decades teaching college-level writing, and the part that I decided could be learned (that is, acquired) but not taught was the generation of "ideas." The parts of writing that parallel formal musical training--grammar, semantics, rhetoric, stylistic control--can be expressed in a textbook, walked through in a classroom, arranged in workbook exercises, and so on. But I never could completely deliver to my students the means for generating content. And when I observe my own writing behavior, it is still a bit mysterious. I mean, I'm deliberately composing this post in real time with minimal rewriting (though I did go back and insert "deliberately"), so it's a kind of improvisation. Where is this content coming from? My best answer is that it is assembled from many decades of reading--from a huge body of language components (terms, phrases, rhetorical patterns, schtick) that I can draw on to mimic and adapt and assemble very quickly. There's no shortcut to that kind of real-time composing of text--even though I did have what could be seen as a master class in mining rhetorical and stylistic materials way back in grad school. (I still draw on those exercises, but not, I think, consciously.)
When I watch myself mess around with a tune that I know well, I notice that it's rarely played the same way twice. That's improvisation, and when I notice something interesting or pleasing, I try to do it again, and I also try to make sense of it technically--but those are after-the-fact activities that did not contribute to the generation of the novel phrase or approach--at least, not consciously.
Now I'm going to stop because it's tiring to not edit and rewrite my copy. And not as much fun as messing around with "Black Orpheus" or "Cherokee" (my favorite lab rats).
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11-01-2025 12:53 PM
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Would live-streaming or recording one of your practice sessions be a good idea? There's that benefit of not needing to script, sequence, or organise your content, or look for thumbnails or design them, and all that kind of work...
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
(Im not prescribing anything,by the way; im not a music teacher) For example, today you demonstrate for 15-20mins, how to play a triad starting on different quarter note triplets... Fake-demonstrate the 'difficulty' of trying to count and lock in with the groove (to say, show the common problems associated with this so that students feel ah, ok this is the expected difficulty), then with the same theatrics, go on to practising the triad poorly to nailing it.
Filming such processes where one 'gets their hands dirty' could be immense for learning. Kinda similar to making thinking visible.
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Sounds like you've never studied harmony formally. That is the framework that unifies all of those things. Harmony is not "play this mode over this chord." It's understanding why the chord is there in the first place, how it relates to what comes before and what comes after, other choices you might make for all of these things, and why those choices work or don't. Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
The standard university theory block is four semesters - about two years. Do you want to understand how music works two years from now, or do you want to continue struggling with incomplete and incorrect info acquired by watching random ten minute videos on YouTube?
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Addendum to my post above: My wife taught creative writing for quite a while, and while she could teach about the standard CW techniques/skills (viewpoint, tense control, genre expectations, tone, etc.), she could not compensate for her students' lack of reading experience. Many of them had very narrow reading backgrounds, and it showed in their attempts to compose stories. Many were not much interested in reading beyond their comfort areas. And some didn't want to read at all--they just wanted to express themselves. (Also, for many their models for narrative were drawn from movies and TV rather than prose fiction.) Her take is that you have to fill the hopper, not just with "experiences" (the raw material of memoir and endless "I woke up hungover in some girl's bed" undergrad stories) but as wide a range of writing as possible. You start with attempts to imitate what you admire or are moved by and expand on that.
Last edited by RLetson; 11-01-2025 at 04:05 PM.
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Okay, I'm trying not to get defensive. I have not been playing continuously for 40 years without progressing.
What I mean when I say 40 years is that over 40 years ago I started playing classical guitar after messing around with simple folk stuff. I learned a lot, but wound up dissatisfied and stopped maybe three or four years in. A decade later, I decided to try learning improvisation. I worked at that for maybe two or three years, but didn't get past basic blues scale or major scale improvising and stopped again. Remember that this is way before YouTube. You had books or you could buy a video tape.
A couple more decades pass at the height of my work life and I have time to try again. Over the last decade or so I've probably made three or so concerted efforts to get there. I do learn more each time, but I've gotten stuck at the same place--getting from fundamental knowledge and skills to actual fluency. I suspect this is not an unusual place to get stuck.
In any case, I've found over the last few days of just playing over a chord sequence that I actually do have a fair amount of facility. I can play and be musical and I really enjoy it. I'll try to figure out a way to record something and you can agree or disagree about where I'm at. Now the challenge is for me to formalize it a bit and combine it with the theory, scales and arpeggios, etc. to make more organized and richer improvisations. Combine that with better use of chords and I'm pretty close to where I want to be.
Remember that I'm not looking to perform or jam with others. I want to be engaged with music and enjoy myself being a little creative with it. It's more about the process than a destination, but of course I do want to get to a point where I can enjoy myself by being expressive. I'm trying to get away from working endlessly on memorizing patterns, chord voicings, scales, etc. They're mostly in there by now. I need to put them to use. I'm going to start with my ear or my musical instincts and see if I can't expand on that.
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I may do livestreams. I’m not really big enough atm. I have done some lightly edited OBS content. Originally Posted by brent.h
Tbh The video making and editing is not the issue. The issue is what people click on.
90% of the success of a video is in the thumbnail and title. People click on certain things.
There’s also the incentive to provide written materials for a charge or to members which is where most of the channel income comes from. Tabs etc are convenient for this - and you can monetise your transcriptions.
So none of this means I have to do generic content and I try not to. But more to say there are reasons why things tend to be this way.
(OTOH in business you do have to give at least some people what they want at least some of the time. People like tabs, what yo gonna do? Some of them extra liked the last one I did cos it had fingerboard diagrams. Guitarists are… guitarists.)Last edited by Christian Miller; 11-01-2025 at 06:38 PM.
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people telling you what you *should have* done or what you *should* be able to do by now or sort of by definition not being helpful. So it’s tough but don’t worry about it. Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
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Why aren't you already putting them to use? Why aren't you already expanding on your ear and musical instincts? It's fairly easy to declare mission statements and great intentions but why aren't you already doing it? Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
Do you see what I mean? You keep declaring 'I really want to do xyz'. Why aren't you already doing that? It would be a different story if you said 'I've been trying to do this particular tune and I'm a bit stumped by bars 12 - 14'.
What's your favorite tune? Or at least one of them? Can you immediately pluck one from the sky and say 'Summertime!' without hesitation?
Find a song you truly want to play and start playing it, however badly. Not more exercises and whatnot.Tell us what it is. Get out of the realm of good intentions and start getting your hands dirty. Then it'll be a pleasure to help you, if that's possible.
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I don't think anyone was criticizing him based on not reaching strenuous milestones under a professional standard. I'm pointing out, and I think others were as well, that it usually as a rule takes serious / formal / systematic study to become decent at jazz improv rather than just faffing around. While a minority of people have the natural ability to self start effectively. If one has gone 4 decades without achieving competence in jazz improv, it's probably safe to say that they might be in the first camp. People are free to do what they want without being condemned, but the answer to how to get to real jazz improv doesn't become keep dicking around, it remains you must study seriously / formally / systematically regardless. The OP started the thread asking how to get to real jazz improv. I'm going to tell him - you must study seriously, more faffing will not result in anything. If he had started a thread stating I'm having fun just dicking around over standards and not playing them correctly, I'm sure noone would object. People are free to do what they want. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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I couldn't see how to respond to a PM, so I want to reply here to AllTunes. No harm done. I don't think your post was bad. It's hard to read intent in a written post. It was also nice that other posters stepped in and responded to what they perceived as a negative post. Made me feel a little safer here. Forums can get pretty rough.
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I get where you’re coming from, just pointing out that assistance generally needs to be forward-looking. Originally Posted by Strat-itis
People come at this from wherever they need to.
A friend of mine has three rules for teaching.
1. It’s not about you. Meaning that my pet concept or strategy might not be the one that a student needs. And when you’re working with kids, it’s also a helpful reminder not to take it personally when they call you bald or tell you they hate your class or whatever.
2. *Meet them where they are.* Someone comes to me for help with whatever background they have. Whatever they’ve been doing up to now is only relevant in how it informs what they do next. It’s not useful for me to project my own idea of where they should be onto a student who is coming in with their own weird hodge podge of experience and interest.
3. High expectations and positive reinforcement. Ask a lot, and validate success.
Obvs no 2 is the one I’m pointing out. But it’s a big one. When you get preoccupied with what a student should have accomplished with the resources or time they’ve used, you can very quickly end up teaching an imaginary student rather than the one actually asking the question.
And like I said — I get where you’re coming from. And this is an Internet forum, not a teacher student thing. Etc.
Still I try to keep that one in mind.
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I don't want to begin spending all my time writing here instead of playing, but this conversation has really made me think about music, what I want from it and how I can get to where I want to be. It's been giving me some real insight both from your comments and my efforts to understand and communicate where I'm at.
These are some of the things I've learned from this conversation:
1) I actually have developed an ear for music. I can quickly find the key centers or "right" notes as I play. Second, I respond strongly to the relationship between the notes I play and the chord I'm playing over, and I actually have and can play melodic ideas. My accuracy in playing those melodies is limited, but the instinct is there.
2) The minute I introduce technical thoughts such as thinking about a changing key centers or even an arpeggio, the feeling gets blocked. It's as if they are different parts of the brain (they may actually be different parts) and I can't use both at the same time. Thus, I get stuck when trying to play the "right" notes for passing chords or key centers.
Of course, these are the things that prompted my initial post, so they are not new ideas, but I can feel them better now as I experiment playing back and forth between the two.
3) I really enjoy improvising in a context where I don't have to think too much. It's one of those really satisfying flow states where you're fully engaged and following your musical instincts. That's really nice, as I spend much too little time doing this.
4) I really enjoy engaging with music, probably more than performing it. I love feeling and finding melody that fits the chords or creates tension with chords. I love the sound and feeling of interesting chord progressions.
It is true, as someone commented here, that I can't play a damned thing as far as a song. Yes, I could struggle through the chords of a few things I'm working on at the minute, but ask me to play a standard and I wouldn't have a clue. I don't work on them as the tunes themselves don't generally attract me. I get that the chord progressions make a good basis for musical expression and experimentation, but I tend to play songs that I like rather than standards that everyone says we must know.
5) I don't care so much about playing songs. I am more interested in interacting aesthetically or emotionally with music. When I make an effort to learn and play a song, I get bored way before I get to real proficiency. Part of this is that I'm playing mainly the chords or maybe some elements of the recording, but I'm not doing anything creative such as experimenting with chord voicings or rhythmic devices when I play them. I'm essentially only playing the head and never improvising. That's not very interesting. I literally have no interest in having a canned song that I can perform from start to finish in the same way each time. I don't need the ability to play a song since I don't perform with others or for others. Sometimes I think that a nice chord melody will work for me, but so far it really hasn't.
I suspect the above insight will drive people here crazy, but it's the truth. It doesn't mean that songs don't matter. It means that I want to interact creatively with them, not just play through the form in a boring way.
And that dovetails nicely with something I expressed earlier; that I want to be able to accompany myself while improvising with chord voiceings (sp?) and melodic ideas. It's a perfect fit for what I've figured out I want to do. I can do something similar by looping the chords and playing over them. I do enjoy that, but it would be nice not to need a backing track.
i'm also starting to have figure out some things about how I want to progress from my present sticking point. I think it will come from improving my ear and my ability to play melodies I hear in my head more freely. I can play a mainly scalar melody now, but if I want to play a bigger intervals and more complex ideas I'll miss the notes and wind up wandering.
If I can connect my ear to the key centers and chord changes, then I will be able to play over those changes. I can use the scales and arpeggios as an outline or map, but I will be playing from my head or my ear, rather than tracing the shapes and learned patterns through the progression.
Making that connection will be challenging, but I think it can be done if I focus my time on hearing the harmonic underpinnings, hearing melodies that fit them and then playing them. It also sounds like a lot more fun than running scales and arpeggios! I'm actually looking forward to playing (not "practicing") now and excited about learning and enjoying some intuitive interaction with the music.
With that in mind, I ran across and started looking at some ear training stuff on YouTube. There are actually some really interesting channels that I think will be helpful. Max Konyi looks like he has a really cool approach to ear training and there are channels that have a series of ear training exercises without the technical explainations. Of course I can practice that training by imagining and playing melodies, trying to hear the intervals and patterns before I just guess or find them by trial and error.
There will be more beyond these steps, but I think I need to start here and stay close to my imagination and ear. Of course I will need to study chord voicings and harmony and more complex scales than just the major scale and modes, but I'll do those things as they support the process of connecting ear to music and as they are needed to help me play the way I want.
I will try to respond to more of your comments as I read all the posts. This is like starting a conversation with ten people, walking away for an hour and trying to reply to all ten when you get back! For now, I want to get to playing.
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I think the answer is that I haven't figured out how to do it, or perhaps even what I really want to do. I've been pursuing all of the pedagogy and never getting to the music. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I did start shooting a video on my phone, thinking maybe I could post that here. I don't really want to mess with YouTube videos. The truth is I get nervous when I have to perform, even in front of a camera, and I play even worse than I do when I'm playing for myself. I will try to film a passage that is decent, but I'm not sure I want my playing critiqued here. As I've said here, I have a lot of knowledge and some facility, even an ear for melody, but I can't play a damned thing that anyone other than I would want to hear. I always disliked performing even for other students when I played classical guitar. Performing is not a goal of mine. No one has ever asked me to play for them and that's just fine with me! Originally Posted by brent.h
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I think this is absolutely correct and is not unique to you. When I’m playing, I am largely relying on my ear, previous phrases which I have worked out, my knowledge of the tune and common progressions, and just the sound of the harmonies, to let my instinct take over. I guess this is rather like the ‘flow state’ you mentioned. Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
If I start to think about specific notes or even chords, I start to hesitate and make errors. I’m sure it’s a ‘left-brain/right-brain’ thing, you can’t really mix them up. I sometimes think ‘ok here’s the bridge it’s in D’ or ‘I’m back at the first bar’ but that’s about it.
Of course this ‘flow’ can only really come about because of years of working out all sorts of melodic ideas by trial and error, making them work over chord changes in small ‘chunks’, and a reasonable amount of theory knowledge.
But if you can make that a fun, musical process (at least to some extent), I’m sure you can get there eventually. For me, it was always quite enjoyable to just play around with phrases and ideas and make them fit over a few changes in a tune, then just ‘rinse and repeat’ indefinitely. Eventually I found I could play a whole solo.
Hopefully it sounds like you’re more on the right lines now.
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Agree. Originally Posted by grahambop
I’m always thinking when I play and hearing when I play. When I feel like a freaking smoked it, I look back and realize I don’t have much memory at all of what I did and wasn’t thinking much. When I feel awkward and bad, I could analyze my solo almost idea for idea in retrospect. Meaning that I was thinking a lot.
Usually the dial is somewhere in the middle, but the less I find myself thinking, the better I feel.
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Yes the best stuff often happens when your mind goes blank and the subconscious takes over. Doesn’t always happen that often though, I think even people like Sonny Rollins have said that!
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Well, you better find out what you really want to do. Just play with it or actually do something? As for 'figuring it out' that's something we all have to do. You figure it out by doing it, there's no other way. And that process is limitless, there's no end to learning. Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
But you didn't answer my question. Can you immediately think of just one tune that you'd really want to play?
Evidently. Actually, there's nothing wrong with that, a lot of people find it fascinating, like chemistry or something. Perhaps you have more of a theorist/analyst mindset than a player's.I've been pursuing all of the pedagogy and never getting to the music.
See, the bottom line, as I see it, is if you really wanted to play you'd be playing. It's that simple.
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I scolded another member for gatekeeping about jazz with you, but based on your tastes, it doesn't seem like you want to play jazz in the first place. Traditional jazz anyway. To play traditional jazz you need to be able to play tunes and when you improv, you're reinterpreting them, and the flux of the harmony and melody goes into what makes the sound of the resultant improv. It's not just wanking a key center over it. So if you just want to improv and not pay attention to deeper mechanics of the form, then you likely are looking at other styles of music with tonal center based improv in them like rock, blues, funk, fusion, smooth jazz, modal jazz, free jazz etc. Originally Posted by WannaBePlaya
Fwiw, everyone has that block that if they think of a raw device to use in a song in real time that nothing musical comes out. That's where actual practice beforehand comes in. You build up technique to where you have the chops ingrained and you can use them to fluently play in the moment without stumbling on multiple thought processes. Saying technical thoughts block the flow of music therefore technique is counter productive would be like saying if you can't do an entire choreographed dance routine for us on the fly that it's impossible to work it out using practiced steps.Last edited by Strat-itis; 11-02-2025 at 11:24 AM.
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Yes, it is Originally Posted by Strat-itis
I'm joking
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Yes agreed, I mentioned something like that in my previous post. Originally Posted by Strat-itis
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Developing as a jazz player I think is mostly about accumulating ideas that you can access musically. The difference between a player who struggles to do justice to the style and a player who can play jazz well is that the latter player has more ideas that are available to them at any given moment. That's true with single notes and harmony (comping or chord-melody).
Vocabulary, theory and fretboard skills sort of go hand in hand in this process. Theory and fretboard skills allow players to be able to access vocabulary ideas anywhere on the instrument, in the context of different tunes and progressions. When I say theory, I don't mean anything deep. When a player learns as specific lick in a specific setting, it might remain just a fingering tied to that tune. But if they can conceptualize it as, say, arpeggio from the third of a chord and have the ability to use the idea no matter where they are on the fretboard and no matter what chord they are playing on that would add to ideas that are available to them in a far more impactful way.
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I had to post this link here: Essential Ear Training - Feeling the Major Scale - YouTube
This guy's approach is really wonderful. I've never heard things expressed or visualized this way. I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
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Like I said, fascinating, like chemistry or something. Next question?
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Actually YT problem is a bit more deeper than just that (although it does exactly that too). Originally Posted by Christian Miller
The main problem with YT is, when you search something, YT keeps it in mind when suggesting other stuff. Ignoring alternatives. Sometimes completely.
Like when building a roof, when first searched roofing OSB-types, it will never ever reccommend anything else unless you do it yourself with hard typing like> "alternatives for OSB"
So, a newcomer, who doesn't know this habit of YT, will be flooded with a certain themed content and the danger is, it will seem like it is the best or (even worse) the only way.
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