Improvising with scale fragments?

[Jazzarian]

People ask me how I improvise. I tend to look at groups of chords (2 to 3) as a clue to the key I should be in. After that it's viewing areas of the neck in terms of scale/mode fragments and arpeggios.

Perhaps this is self evident to old timers here, it might not be to younger people.

[mr. beaumont]

i find an approach like that particularly beneficial when the changes are really cooking...sometimes you gotta think, "key, not chord."

mark levine would be proud.

[Jazzarian]

i find an approach like that particularly beneficial when the changes are really cooking...sometimes you gotta think, "key, not chord."

mark levine would be proud.

Exactly, although I must confess, with zany chord changes, I have to map things out first. I'd be terrible trying to do something live, seeing charts for the first time.

Mark Levine is my hero. If I could retire today and start private jazz piano lessons with him tomorrow........ He's only about 50 miles away too.

PS: Would be applicants to Berkeley need approx a 4.1 cum to get in!!!!!! I'm absolutely serious. Kids have to take advanced placement courses to break the 4.0 mark.
Idiotic.

[Oniel]

I do that, but not all the time, It's a different way to approach to a solo. And it's fun to get not only the fingers, also the brain on action

[Jazzarian]

I do that, but not all the time,

Obviously you don't have to think that way over a 2 chord vamp, like "So What?".

Over complex chord changes however, one has little choice.

[Dystonian_Mode]

i find an approach like that particularly beneficial when the changes are really cooking...sometimes you gotta think, "key, not chord."

mark levine would be proud.

Agreed. When it's a series of quick changes, I'll look through at what I can eliminate and not necessarily have to play over. When I first started playing jazz, I had this bent idea that I had to play EVERY chord -- all hell then proceded to break loose. Eventually, I saw the light.

[Jazzarian]

AWhen I first started playing jazz, I had this bent idea that I had to play EVERY chord -- all hell then proceded to break loose. Eventually, I saw the light.

If you're quick enough, you could get away with playing an arpeggio over each chord :} You wouldn't have to think much on the fly either.

A side benefit to grouping chords, you tend to come up with logical phrases that follow the chord changes nicely. Maybe not Freddie Hubbard good, but getting there:}

[Antonio Carvalho]

In all of you technique do you use 3 note p string...or this is a big vicious to use that?

[mr. beaumont]

i find the three note per string scale positions don't sound all that "jazzy"--for jazz, i like to stay in areas of the neck and move gradually...three on a string gets me ascending too fast...this is just MHO...

[Jazzarian]

i find the three note per string scale positions don't sound all that "jazzy"--for jazz, i like to stay in areas of the neck and move gradually...three on a string gets me ascending too fast...this is just MHO...

There's a time and place for it. Done right it tends to sound "soulful" after having played "vertical" for a while. I like to do that when connecting areas of the neck, especially works well during a modulation.

God knows what Benson was thinking during the Take 5 solo.

Ol Wes Montgomery didn't have much choice when playing octaves. He was all over the place. I hope you have a good DVD of him. Truly one has to see Wes to believe Wes. Much like Lenny Breau in that regard.

[franco6719]

People ask me how I improvise. I tend to look at groups of chords (2 to 3) as a clue to the key I should be in. After that it's viewing areas of the neck in terms of scale/mode fragments and arpeggios.

Perhaps this is self evident to old timers here, it might not be to younger people.

Good begobbers!! I thought this approach was considered a sort of SIN on this forum. Don't you have to hit all those chord tones on every single down beat, even at 360 bpm on Rhythmn changes, and clearly outline every chord change? Otherwise, you are just FAKING the changes.

[Jazzarian]

Good begobbers!! I thought this approach was considered a sort of SIN on this forum. Don't you have to hit all those chord tones on every single down beat, even at 360 bpm on Rhythmn changes, and clearly outline every chord change? Otherwise, you are just FAKING the changes.

Er, ah Franco, do they teach music theory in Spain?

You couldn't be more off base.

[mr. beaumont]

i think franco was just joshin'...i think...

reading back at my anti-3-on-a-string-post, i should have made it clearer that that's just the way i play, not that it couldn't work at all...and sure, they've found their way into my lines, it's just not the basis of most of my playing...

[franco6719]

1) I was indeed joking/exagerrating. 2) I am an American born citizen living in Italy, not Spain. I studied most of my music theory at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They certainly did teach music theory!! Too much, in fact. 3) But I do remember being berated FEROCIOUSLY by a few members of this forum for suggesting that you could think in terms of key centers and not always outline every chord on another thread with a different cast of characters.

4) "I couldn't be more off base". I certainly hope your right about that. I was taught to think in terms of chord/scales and key centers as a matter of fact. It's very hard to completely change approach at 41 years of age.

[franco6719]

i find an approach like that particularly beneficial when the changes are really cooking...sometimes you gotta think, "key, not chord."

Seriously and more straightforwardly speaking then: that is exactly what I think and how I tend to approach things, based on my study of music theory, playing experience with other musicians, educational background, etc.. Though I only played professionally for a very short period before health problems kicked in, I don 't remember anyone at Berklee saying there was something deeply wrong-headed with my improvisational style. I started out knowing absolutely NOTHING about jazz and serious music and ended up playing with some very serious amd talented people. I even became as sort of tutor to many newer students on campus. (This may have been the part I enjoyed most, now that I think about it). Not boasting here anyway, just stating a fact. No confrontationalism, please.

[FatJeff]

I think this thread is starting to finally sink in for me. I'm pretty new here, and I'm still in the very beginning phases of learning how to improvise over changes to the tunes I'm trying to learn. But I think I'm finally starting to "get it".

First a bit of background. Last semester (from about January - May of this year), I took a "Jazz Theory and Aural Skills" class from the local university. It was a good class, but I was afraid I didn't really have what it takes to do jazz improvisation, because the method they said to use was what the instructor called "melodic construction": know exactly what chord you are playing at any given moment, and over that, play only chord-tones on strong beats, and passing/chromatic/"outside" notes on weak beats. Well, that was all very fine for people whose brains seemed to work at the speed of light, but it didn't work for me. Too much information to keep sorted out at once! I was always lost. How the hell can someone think on a quarter- or eighth-note basis like that with even thie simplest of songs?

Anyway, about 6 weeks ago I signed up for the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute, and have been working diligently on the "5 Shapes" he talks about there. I am finding that with these shapes/fingerings, and along with a little work on pattern recognition in the harmonic changes of most standards, I can keep up these days and actually make the changes. It is really about key center, *not* individual chords. This makes the overall task of keeping up with the changes about 4x easier, because instead of having to think "OK, this measure is in Cmin, I guess I need to use C Dorian...now, F7, I should be using F Mixolydian...now Bbmaj, so I have to use an Ionian scale." Now I just recognize this whole 4-measure phrase as a big fat ii-V-I in Bb, and use appropriate phrases constructed from the Bb pitch collection, in whatever fret position I happen to be in at the moment.

For instance, I was working on trying to improv over "Misty" last night. That first measure is in Ebmaj, and if I put my pinky finger on the Eb on fret 6 on the A string, I'm in Shape 3. Moving on to the next phrase, I see a nice slow and long 2-measure ii-V-I in Ab. OK, well, there's a Bb right there on the low E string that I can place my pinky finger on, so that puts me right into Shape 7 in the key of Ab. Play with this for a little, then follow it with a quick (and nonresolving) ii-V in Gb (Shape 2 this time), then move right back to Eb again with a nice I-vi-ii-V-I.

WAY easier than thinking: Eb Ionian, Bb Dorian, Eb Mix (or maybe altered scale), Ab Ionian, Ab Dorian, Db Mix...etc.etc.etc until I just want to shoot myself in the head!

[Bluesguy]

Hey FatJeff, sounds like the Bruno course is doing the trick for you! It is a great feeling when you latch onto something that opens doors. I am working through Mark Levine's book and getting the same feeling, although it has complicated my life seriously. I am loving the learning.

[abracadabra]

Great post Fatjeff I know exactly how you feel!

When you're starting out it's all really daunting, especially the whole "which scale to lay over which chord" thing. But to me it's all just about practice, practice, practice. If you play whatever shapes, whichever scales, whatever songs, enough times, it will all fall into place in your subconscious, and slowly, but surely, become easier.

So whichever method we choose to learn to improvise over the changes WILL work in the long run. It's just a matter of time, and selecting the method of learning and playing that best fits with us as individuals.

Thinking back to when I first started learning the guitar. It seemed super hard to just fret a basic C-shape chord. Then the thought of changing to a different chord made it seem ever harder. Once I had C G and D down, I just wanted to stick with that forever. But the point is that in time you can fret any chord you want, change to any other chord you want, and do it four chords to a bar if need be. You don't think to yourself, "Here comes a Cm7b5 chord, so that's going to be C, Eb, Gb, Bb.", you just plonk the fingers on the fretboard without thinking about it.

So why should our learning of improvising over changes be any different? It HAS to become second-nature. If it isn't, and if somebody really can think fast enough to go "Cm7 (Dorian), F7 (Mixolydian)" throughout the song, then that is going to be one boring solo.

To me this is all just a language. When I speak English I don't think about grammar, I just speak. I'm learning Spanish, and when I speak that I DO think about grammar. But in time I will be able to speak it as fluidly as English, I hope. Same with music IMHO.

[franco6719]

Whatever approach works best for you, IMO.

[Smitty]

PS: Would be applicants to Berkeley need approx a 4.1 cum to get in!!!!!! I'm absolutely serious. Kids have to take advanced placement courses to break the 4.0 mark.
Idiotic.

Do you mean Berklee (College of Music) and GPA? If so, that's not true, I got accepted in January with a 3.7.

In regards to the topic, I've never felt comfortable thinking in terms of keys. I think in chords only. The reason being, though the two may be the same, thinking about them in different ways produces different results. For example, a ii-V-I in C could either be thought of as D Dorian, G Mixolydian, C Ionian; or it could be thought of as all C Ionian, D Dorian, or G Mixolydian...or F Lydian, and so forth. But thinking in terms of the individual modes produces different results than thinking in terms of a single key for two measures. If you just play in one key, you may just sort of hit notes that don't exactly sound very good, like a C over the G7. Not wrong, but not very good either (of course, the duration of the note affects this too, but you know what I mean). When thinking in modes, you really look at each chord as being a different world. I also completely disagree with you guys about thinking in terms of scale patterns or # of notes per string, etc...but that's a different story that nonetheless probably supports why I think in chords. Just my two pennies.

[FatJeff]

Do you mean Berklee (College of Music) and GPA? If so, that's not true, I got accepted in January with a 3.7.

Maybe he really meant Berkeley (as in UC)?

In regards to the topic, I've never felt comfortable thinking in terms of keys. I think in chords only. The reason being, though the two may be the same, thinking about them in different ways produces different results. For example, a ii-V-I in C could either be thought of as D Dorian, G Mixolydian, C Ionian; or it could be thought of as all C Ionian, D Dorian, or G Mixolydian...or F Lydian, and so forth. But thinking in terms of the individual modes produces different results than thinking in terms of a single key for two measures. If you just play in one key, you may just sort of hit notes that don't exactly sound very good, like a C over the G7. Not wrong, but not very good either (of course, the duration of the note affects this too, but you know what I mean). When thinking in modes, you really look at each chord as being a different world. I also completely disagree with you guys about thinking in terms of scale patterns or # of notes per string, etc...but that's a different story that nonetheless probably supports why I think in chords. Just my two pennies.

Fair enough, although when I play in a key, I'm also cognizant of the overall harmonic progression and tend to pick notes/lines that traverse the harmony nicely.

One problem I always run up against when playing in chords instead of key is maintaining continuity. At my stage of development, if I make a transition from Chord A to Chord B, and I don't understand the relationship between the two chords, my lines end up sounding disjointed. But if I think (ii-V-I) and don't worry about what the actual chords are, my ear takes over and I do fine.

The two approaches are probably complimentary, and I'm sure in a year I'll be crowing about the benefits of the chordal approach - but for now I need to stick with just the one approach until I at least reach the level of mediocrity. :-0

[franco6719]

BERKLEE | Berklee TodayBERKLEE | Berklee Today

[Jazzarian]

Do you mean Berklee (College of Music) and GPA? If so, that's not true, I got accepted in January with a 3.7.

In regards to the topic, I've never felt comfortable thinking in terms of keys. I think in chords only. The reason being, though the two may be the same, thinking about them in different ways produces different results. For example, a ii-V-I in C could either be thought of as D Dorian, G Mixolydian, C Ionian; or it could be thought of as all C Ionian, D Dorian, or G Mixolydian...or F Lydian, and so forth. But thinking in terms of the individual modes produces different results than thinking in terms of a single key for two measures. If you just play in one key, you may just sort of hit notes that don't exactly sound very good, like a C over the G7. Not wrong, but not very good either (of course, the duration of the note affects this too, but you know what I mean). When thinking in modes, you really look at each chord as being a different world. I also completely disagree with you guys about thinking in terms of scale patterns or # of notes per string, etc...but that's a different story that nonetheless probably supports why I think in chords. Just my two pennies.

Of course I mean UC Berkeley.

Everybody gets into Berklee. I was accepted as a junior in high school.

[FatJeff]

Of course I mean UC Berkeley.

Everybody gets into Berklee. I was accepted as a junior in high school.

You were that old? They asked me to enroll when I was still in diapers.

[Jazzarian]

You were that old? They asked me to enroll when I was still in diapers.

I'm a bit slow eh? Hear tell there's some distant Canadian relatives in the bloodline.