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I was recently asked about how I approach improvising on tunes, and I think I was able to condense the concept into a single paragraph. I’m sure there’s no end to how expansive or detailed a discussion of this approach could be or if this has already been covered in various method books already out there. Anyway, here goes:
The approach I take with the harmony and counterpoint is to improvise the “arrangement”by drawing upon an inventory of movements. I sometimes think of these movements as lego blocks because of the implication with building something, but I’ve heard others refer to this idea as using cells or modules. The trick is assembling these blocks on the fly so they build something that is overall aesthetically pleasing and cohesive. My work has been to build up a large bag of these blocks, or harmonic vocabulary, integrate their use with melodic lines and work out the options for the connective tissue to make them useful. That’s pretty much my life’s work in one paragraph
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02-06-2026 01:00 PM
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So your melodic improvisation is founded on your harmonic improvisation? That would be the reverse of my approach, and of most guitar players I suspect. You think more like a piano player, have you played piano?
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Nope- never touched the piano
Originally Posted by Mick-7
I learned initially by ear and learned to read chord changes in a lead sheet but always struggled reading single lines. I learned melodic soloing by listening to the changes and wiggling my fingers until I found patterns that fit with the chords. Years of trial and error ensued and I tried to sound like I was playing jazz though I never played along with records, never transcribed or lifted anything from books. but I’d listen to lots of music and could hear that chordal or harmonic movement could be just as flexible and improvisational as single lines. Fast forward, decades later, the hearing of melodies and chords and especially countermelodies all happens at the same time and the most joy I get out of playing is weaving through moments where each can take the forefront.
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I was reading through this book last night, Mark, the approach is very similar to yours:
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Jimmy Wyble has been mentioned to me more than a few times, but I’ve never looked at his books. The bits of him on recordings and videos that I come across all sound amazing to me. When I first heard him years ago I felt instantly that I wanted to do more of “that”. Originally Posted by Mick-7
I was reading through this book last night, Mark, the approach is very similar to yours:
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I have always preferred playing the chords to playing melodies or even to soloing. I've always been given to understand that this is somehow wrong, that the point of jazz is the (mainly horn) solos which I have never bought as an idea.
When I'm playing tunes, I'm always drawn to the harmony much more than the melody. When I listen to John Coltrane, for example, my attention is generally held by McCoy Tyner and not John Coltrane. I really love Ed Bickert in small group settings because he so beautifully combines harmony and melody as a single thing: the music. And I love Julian Lage's playing which approaches this from the opposite direction: he doesn't play so many chord shapes per se but he plays a lot of moving lines against each other that create that sense of harmony and emotion.
I've always been struck how guitar instruction seems to separate harmony and melody, comping and solos. They're often not even covered in the same books: there's a book on chords and there's a book on scales, modes and soloing as if they're unrelated disciplines. "You shall comp like a pianist and solo like a saxophonist."
A year or two ago I watched a video with Peter Bernstein on YouTube. He sat at the piano, held a chord and noted "if you just wiggle your fingers, there is your line." Then he talked about how he does pretty much the same thing on guitar. For me, this gave me permission to start playing the way I hear it instead of the way I've been told I'm supposed to hear it.
I think that for horn players and vocalists, the melody comes first and they expect the chords to service the melody; throughout the history of jazz, it has been largely a horn driven form of music, from the brass bands on the streets of New Orleans to Pops to Duke Ellington to bebop etc.
But to me, the melodies and the solos emanate from the chords. I think that's why I like Mark's music as much as I do, because that's what it sounds like to me.
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The "most guitar players" generalization does not ring true for me (no pun intended). Maybe its true in the sense that "most" guitar players are untutored. Originally Posted by Mick-7
Most of the jazz guitarists I know base improvised melody on an understanding of the underlying harmony and substitutions to overlay, unless we are taking the approach of modifying the melody - which is another fine way to improvise: take the melody and change the rhythm, transpose pieces of it, add fills, etc.
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The more I think about this the more I would insist that it’s not an either-or proposition for us guitarists. Depending on the needs of the music we choose to make, it may seem to be more about the lines but then moments later it sounds more about the chords. In reality, they’re the same thing and it’s needless to think of them as separated. If they’re taught separately then shame on the educators (but that’s a different conversation). Piano and guitar both have the ability to play polyphonic, horns do not (not counting split harmonics and other tricks. So piano like playing (for those who are calling it that) are really just recognizing the guitar playing to its potential. When it sounds “horn-like” or linear thinking, it’s just the result of a limitation. We don’t typically enjoy single hand piano performances so why does guitar soloing with no chords even appeal to us? Well, it’s mostly a style that we’ve come to recognize and love. Well, some love it at least some of the time. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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I meant that I think that when most guitarists improvise, they are reproducing melodies, rather than harmonic phrases, that occur to them. Originally Posted by starjasmine
That may be why I don't want to listen to most jazz guitarists: rather than playing the lines that occur to them, that they hear in their head, their improvisation is based upon theoretical formulas, which results in solos that sound like a collection of patterns strung together. Originally Posted by starjasmine
I agree, but most of us started out playing something other than jazz or classical music on the guitar, and chord solos are uncommon outside of those genres... I mean, I have yet to see a Rollingstone article entitled, "The greatest rock guitar chord soloists of all time!" Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
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Tying this to my original post Lego blocks, it’s really about what we decide to internalize when we’re building our arsenal of building blocks. If you practice patterns and scales all day long this becomes what you actually hear in your head and what comes out in your playing. “You are what you eat” Originally Posted by Mick-7
really. The great masters of the math jazz style make this pattern playing compelling because of how they master the connections- or as you said string them together. It’s equally possible to have beautiful melodic ideas that fail because they’re poorly contextualized in the performance, or said otherwise, there’s no arc to the performance, no story. There’s no easy way to do this no matter how simple or complicated the building blocks are, but it does seem the approach that lands the worst is when complex blocks are seemingly spit out with no flow, story or context. That kind of playing comes across as pretentious and dick-headed.
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What, you're not going to tell us the fast and easy way to play like you do? Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
What good are you?!
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I couldn’t even teach anyone the slow and painful way. Mostly just find a good solid wall to bang your head on for the rest of your life. Originally Posted by Mick-7
What, you're not going to tell us the fast and easy way to play like you do?
What good are you?!
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How long is your typical building block line? Most of what I've accumulated over the years are 4-5 notes long. If I like a line that's longer, that usually means it is assembled tastefully from smaller "cells". Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
The trick is assembling these blocks on the fly so they build something that is overall aesthetically pleasing and cohesive. My work has been to build up a large bag of these blocks, or harmonic vocabulary, integrate their use with melodic lines and work out the options for the connective tissue to make them useful. That’s pretty much my life’s work in one paragraph
Last edited by Tal_175; 02-07-2026 at 07:47 PM.
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Great question! Short phrases of a few notes, or a rhythmic trick is but one type of block. Some of the blocks are a chord fragment or two with a few notes. Some are two line maneuvers. I can think of a few tha last several measures too. To be honest, I’ve never attempted to scientific about this in any way. Nothing written down in notebooks. And they’re probably changing all the time, evolving, etc. My perspective on this is observational rather than directive. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Now I understand why Jimmy got the sack from Hank Williams’ band! What an interesting book. Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
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What an interesting thread, Mark. I’ve been a fan of your playing for a long time, and have tried to figure out your approach. What you outline with the Lego blocks idea helps make sense, and I figured you were doing something like that. It’s clearly something you have been working at and exploring for decades, and explains why you are for me one of the most interesting guitarists in jazz. Keep on keeping on!
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Yes. I actually think this is how everyone did it/does it. Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
I was recently asked about how I approach improvising on tunes, and I think I was able to condense the concept into a single paragraph. I’m sure there’s no end to how expansive or detailed a discussion of this approach could be or if this has already been covered in various method books already out there. Anyway, here goes:
The approach I take with the harmony and counterpoint is to improvise the “arrangement”by drawing upon an inventory of movements. I sometimes think of these movements as lego blocks because of the implication with building something, but I’ve heard others refer to this idea as using cells or modules. The trick is assembling these blocks on the fly so they build something that is overall aesthetically pleasing and cohesive. My work has been to build up a large bag of these blocks, or harmonic vocabulary, integrate their use with melodic lines and work out the options for the connective tissue to make them useful. That’s pretty much my life’s work in one paragraph
The artistry lies in being able to vary, ornament and thread together these lego blocks in a way that does not feel contrived or modular, but forms a connected thread or flow through the performance. That's a deep intuitive process in the end.
But the actual process of getting this lego bricks into your playing to begin with is quite a materialistic process. That's what I mean by 'stop trying to improvise, learn the music'. Improvisation is based on repertoire. It's not a repertoire of pieces in the classical sense, but of things that can be used to create music in combination.
I think it's fundamental to the way the human mind operates. I would guess that even players with no formal theoretical knowledge learn this way. If anything, I think they may be more in touch with it.
Schema (psychology) - Wikipedia
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Aw man, thanks for that Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I don’t actually think too much about this stuff. If I had ever needed to make money from teaching I probably would fleshed this thing out long ago, but as I’m getting older and have more time on my hands it’s helping understand how did all of this happen.
one more thing about the blocks themselves- there’s huge variety of them. I mean not just duration or whether they’re notes or chords or both, but I mean the actual clarity and definition of the blocks. Some are absolute sequences- like a lick, but many are just whisps of directional shapes. Some angular, some are soft blobs. Some are fixed while others amorphous and shape shifting. The thought of cataloging this is completely daunting and aside from the curiosity of it all, there’s no reason such a thing.
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wow! This link to schema is gold! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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I’ve heard someone describe Cecil Taylor’s work in a similar fashion. In that this approach is driven by sounds that you are drawn to and/or discover along the way, the results are not replicative.
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when I’m free playing I find it especially true to be a sound based thing. Originally Posted by bako
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Very popular word in graduate school (retired teacher here). Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
Mark you have a cool, unique style. Hanging around here has made me more interested in the harmonic side. I’m more interested in two/three note chords to poke into the single note stuff but I am more curious in that direction.
Wall-banging a good metaphor too.
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schema does have a very academic connotation to it, though I only agree with the parts of it that confirm what I already know to be true Originally Posted by Aiq
I’m also most interested in the small chords that move around and dance with the melody. This extends into the intertwining of two line work which can see to be as an illusion created by using small chords, 3 notes becoming 2 notes becoming 1 note and so on.
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Mark your approach makes me pay attention..and be surprised and wonder how you do that.
I could Listen to Bach and follow his lines and they are very melodic and pleasing but many times not surprising..
Wayne Shorter may have been one of the most innovative harmonic composers as he disregarded "rules" of movement and made many wonder.
Miles made stylistic jumps in this way, surprising many..and then left the rule book behind altogether -- first he took the breaks off..then threw the steering wheel out!
I could see your style trying to be taught.."..ok now put the D minor scale in with the whole tone scale..now put he blender speed on Frapee"
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Mark, your explanations make a lot of sense to me as does your playing. Since I don’t have a degree in music I am always hesitant to chime in about such topics, but many times I do anyway. It’s the internet. I can only look somewhat stupid.
I have also made way too many excuses for not recording my stuff. Hopefully when I finish my man cave sometime this year I will stop with the excuses.
First, I started as a (somewhat educated) piano player, so I see the comment about that as being relevant to me. I always try to emphasize the melody when improvising. But that emphasis can be direct or less direct depending on how wide a net I want to cast. If the melody feels flowing I may need to go there. If the melody is heavily syncopated then I may need to go there. And, most times I am open to any type of way to get there. Could be a strummed chord melody, an arpeggiated chord melody, single notes, single notes with double stops, etc. But, the building block analogy is there. And I like to think of it as somewhat separate layers of building blocks for each type of technique that I want to use.
As I get older, I feel like I hear a lot of recorded music that merely fills up the grooves on the disc with a lot of missed opportunities. The key blocks are either missing or not the appropriate blocks to use. I was listening to one of Andy Summer’s more jazz oriented albums yesterday. There were some songs where he ended phrases that I felt needed a lot more attention to get them out of being crimped, if that makes any sense. He could do it for sure. But maybe they were out of studio time? I was also listening to some Mike Stern. He seems less prone to that sort of truncation of a melody to me.
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