The true secret of playing what you hear.

[fep]

It's impossible to speak intelligently if you haven't developed a vocabulary. And, it's impossible to speak without using your vocabulary. And, with enough practice, using your vocabulary is easy and becomes second nature.

For me, that's the way it works for music.

I know a few that go way beyond that and can play pretty much anything they hear, from the radio, from another musician etc., seemingly instantaneously, and without mistakes. They also happen to have perfect pitch.

[pingu]

I think that there is a third ear, like the third eye, that everyone has. Here is where the energy that is music in our realm, is channeled from the universe and then to your instrument. Just a thought.

Ty

the left ear , the right ear
and

...

...


the final front-ear

fa doom tish , thank you

[bako]

It's impossible to speak intelligently if you haven't developed a vocabulary. And, it's impossible to speak without using your vocabulary. And, with enough practice, using your vocabulary is easy and becomes second nature.

Frank,

I'm not disagreeing with what you say here, just mentioning an interesting aside.

Years ago, I gave intermittent guitar lessons to a very established Brazilian percussionist.
He was hoping to develop musicianship skills via guitar to present these elaborate compositions that he created vocally to the other great musicians that he regularly worked with.
In that he was performing, recording, jumping on and off airplanes constantly, he virtually never had time to practice.
At the same time that he couldn't execute many typical guitar type of moves, his internal rhythm and overall creativity was so intense that he could improvise incredible mini compositions on guitar using 2 - 4 notes (think berimbau)
So in a sense his language was highly limited from a traditional melody/harmony perspective but
his highly evolved rhythm and form were enough to make some great things happen.

The moral of the story is that music can be made with fewer resources.
We don't wait till every duck is in the perfect place to begin to express ourselves.

[Flyin' Brian]

Just saying I think all player have their cruise control lines they uses when pausing between thoughts.

I'm not sure about this because I don't believe that people who improvise at a very high level are consciously thinking about anything. The "cruise control" lines are the musical equivalent of using favorite phrases when speaking.

I need to say more but I have to think about it, but I tend to agree more with Frank on this.

If you have a decent ear and the chops to do it, you can immediately and accurately emulate anything that another musician plays providing that you have the same vocabulary as the other musician at a minimum.

[DaveWoods]

I agree totally. I also like the reverence you give to the melody. For a lot of players the melody is just an obligation to get through so they can jump into their licks. I have known people who had perfect pitch, could sing you a middle C, but their relative pitch was not so good. Go figure.

[Flyin' Brian]

I agree totally. I also like the reverence you give to the melody. For a lot of players the melody is just an obligation to get through so they can jump into their licks. I have known people who had perfect pitch, could sing you a middle C, but their relative pitch was not so good. Go figure.

Yes. The melody is king. Try walking down the street whistling with a lot of the pop music that's out there today. In many cases either there's no melody or it's very very simple to the point of boredom.

And for the purposes of playing by ear or improvising, perfect pitch is pretty useless without having good relative pitch.

[HighSpeedSpoon]

... The moral of the story is that music can be made with fewer resources.
We don't wait till every duck is in the perfect place to begin to express ourselves.

I think Victor Wooten would agree with the OP about the true secret of playing what you hear. You may or may not agree with what Victor says, but what he says is, if nothing else, germane to this thread. To the extent that you may accept Victor's comments, they also have important implications about teaching music.

Is Victor correct? I can only say that from my admittedly amateur vantage point, he makes sense to me.

[bobby d]

Being really comfortable with the song (and your instrument) should enable one to improvise with ease. Takes time.

[DaveWoods]

I agree, and also being sure enough of what you hear so that you have faith in it.

[Jonah]

When you speak to others, the process is the same as successfully playing what you hear.

To me in most cases the problem is not really in playing what you hear (which is just practical skill that can be developed), but to hear inside yourself something that is worth playing...
It is not just daily common speach, it is like improvized poem in proper form style on given subjet, big difference...

Another important issue - a bit controversal - is doing... a good writer at work - he does not always know what is going on in advance, language leads him... it is not just that he invents in his head and then just puts it down, no, it comes out in the very moment he puts it down and he is sometimes himself surprised but what is coming up.
Frankly speaking - I just do not believe in 'playing what you hear' as real creative process... it is just like sight-reading...

[Reg]

It's interesting how we try and fit something that maybe we don't totally understand... into some other context, or box that we do understand... looking for answers about what thing we don't understand.

The analogy approach.... it must help, I guess.

What are you trying to hear... do we have pre composed music in our head that we don't know about. Once we tap into that source... we're there, we can play anything, because we can hear what we're playing.

Personally I enjoy being able to think about what I want to play. There are a bunch of approaches to creating melodic/ harmonic results, realizations, solos, improv... whatever we're playing at the time in a context, a situation, a musical setting.

There are certain melodic / harmonic relationships and developments that I've spent years trying to get right...in different musical situations. I like and enjoy the fact that I can't hear everything, I like the developmental process of interaction and not knowing or hearing where the resulting music ends up. I enjoy trying things I'm not sure of, or can't really hear... I'm not sure of the results.

I played a gig last night with established players... trio and sax, I hadn't played with the bassist before, but we both new each other and new all the tunes. But I basically tried to create different tunes from existing standards... Verbally changed the forms while playing, added interludes, vamps etc... creating live performance arrangements. Easy to pull off in small ensembles... and I was incharge or directing. I have a fairly big bag of tricks, I've been in the business long time. So tricks are just previously played or organized sections time... anyway

I can hear what I'm thinking of playing... but I sure can't hear exactly what the other players are going to play, which really means I'm not going to really hear exactly what I'm going to play... I like and enjoy the fact that I'm not sure where the music is going to end up... That's part of playing jazz and the audience sees and picks up what's going on... I bring the audience into the performance, we, the musicians and the audience are performing. I don't really care about whether I can hear everything I'm playing, it's not about me... it's about the music being performed.

Sorry, no real point...