-
Interesting that your entire approach is based on this, and not just some of it. I think some of the greats may have felt the same effortless vibe regarding improv, but then, as we all know, there have been some serious shedders who put in some serious hard thinking and practicing, probably not effortless. If we take Wes, he sounds effortless, and he sometimes described the process as effortless (I just "cool".... "I don't practice, just throw in a hunk 'o meat in the guitar case every once in a while"...). But there are also interviews where he confesses he gave himself serious headaches over a long period of time working out his tricks.
Originally Posted by pauln
Let's face it, players like to play down how hard they work, as though it may make them appear more "special" if they say that it all just "comes to them". But we know it ain't so. 13 hours a day for 3 years straight doesn't sound like it came natural and effortless to Parker. Maybe some beautiful melodists like Chet Baker never had to work that hard (or did he?), and maybe these cats are special, but it's OK to work hard at the craft, and hopefully watch it develop into an art over the years. I'd say there's many more in that camp, particularly if much of their language is double timed...
But yeah, point taken, and warning heeded - "All work and no play makes Jack a dull ... jazz soloist! "
-
08-31-2018 02:38 AM
-
I like to coax untrained people into improvising folk tunes with me, what Americans might call fiddle tunes. Over here everyone above a certain age learned to dance to them in school. It's a great game, one line at a time each. Originally Posted by pauln
A little bit of preparation and, assuming I have been delicate enough not to kill their confidence, off we go, most everyone can do it.
There is a lot to it from a 'technical' perspective. Nothing but fun and not a lot of conscious thought from the playing a kid's game perspective.
It's different with trained people, they either won't try or overthink it. It's like someone driving a stock car looking at a map whilst I beg them to put it down before killing me.
Maybe I should release a book of 'licks' that they can shoehorn in...
Seriously though, I was listening to Ella yesterday on 'All of Me', in my inner ear I don't have the CD anymore, and she was scatting a third variation of the head, crazy flawless as usual, and I thought 'What is SHE thinking'.
Here's what I came up with, keeping place in the harmony is a given, not because she is supernatural (although she IS) but because she is singing. There is the chord tones ,and not the chord tones, there is higher and a lot higher, there is lower and a lot lower, there are passing tones and there are cheeky notes.
Most folk can scat, we need to practice to make our choices on guitar as simple as Ella's. Increasingly I build out from a bare triad, they are easy to see all over the neck, and ignore most changes. I know some of you have other ideas of what soloing is and maybe one day I'll find that you are right but meantime I'll try and chase singers, principally one with a terrible voice, ME.
D.
-
Well, I can scat in my head better than with my voice - limited range there.... But I tend to hear fast moving lines, think Ella scatting 8ths at 300.... Now, give a young Ella a trumpet or trombone and see how long it takes for her to play what she can sing. Then a sax, then a piano. Now a guitar.... Originally Posted by Freel
It's not so easy then is it? Sure you can transcribe your scatting. But playing it simultaneously as you scat, is something else. I know, I know, a ton of cats do the GB thing where they play what they're scatting, but here's their secret - they're actually singing what they know how to play! Heck, we can all do that to some extent.But playing what you, or someone else can sing instantly, well, that's a whole 'nother ball game...
-
I do agree mostly PP.
I have heard Ella scat that fast, pitch is hinted at. The scat singing whilst playing thing is EXCELLENT for improving rhythm and phrasing but anyone can do it if they try and pretty much straight away, I've never heard anyone do it honestly except this guy.
And I do think that it is necessary to work on licks and technique and chord relations systematically, but with a view to making the guitar as transparent to our fingers as Ella's voice is to her imagination.
Am I FAR, really very far from there, not even close, but I do believe that I am travelling in the right direction now, which is a relief becaues I spent a long time confused and credulous of some of the trusted texts. I do think that the best training for improvising is playing tunes by ear and getting through first time and fingering on the fly. That is because that work gives us OBJECTIVE feedback on wether or not our ear is truly connecting to our fingers.
I remember one of the great many 'shred' instructionals where someone delineates what they hear Al di Meola do. It was all about connecting three note per string patterns mathematically, it was horrifying. I don't mind maths in music but it should be the right maths, the idea that all seven notes of a scale are equal gives that shred sound, kills harmony and structure and leaves me miserable. It can SOUND great with a clean technique and good gear but ..... its just b0ll0cks really, and it takes about a year to master from scratch because it sets the bar so incredibly low.
But yeah I do agree, we need to do a lot of work, and maybe me more than the majority round here, to get to the point where we can find what we hear.
Interestingly the pianist that I worked with with the highest level of perfect pitch (must have known about half a dozen fairly well) was a big admirer of Oscar Peterson and could not work out how he did it at all. She was well aware of the reason for her difficulty, it was not enough to be able to hear it perfectly she needed to second guess and try and work out his way of working and had not. She was a wonderful musician, open minded and gracious. Yet she was stuck teaching an increasingly terrible syllabus as a classroom teacher and counting down the days till here retirement. I recommend George Orwell's 'A Clergyman's Daughter' to anyone who teaches in a formal environment as a description of how demeaning it can be. I wonder what she might have achieved on Piano if she hadn't been a life long sufferer from arthritis.
I met another younger pianist who described himself as having perfect pitch. I asked him if he played BeBop and he, glad of the chance, explained to me again that he had perfect pitch. I was stunned by the arrogance and stupidity, as if being able to spell perfectly could give one the facility to rap...
Developing the relationship with our instrument that most of us get for free for our voice learning nursery rhymes in infancy is likely to be a life long task and one at which I am doomed to failure.
Personally I love it, REALLY love it. I love it in a much more intellectually and emotionally sustaining way than the first flush of pride I took in being able to sound like any other shredder a year and a half after buying my first electric guitar.
I may not have many answers and people have to find some things out for themselves. The maze of choices of now wider and strangely shallower than it was for me thirty years ago. So many channels claiming to rediscover the wheel presenting trivia as gold dust. I do think it is important to blow the odd raspberry when someone is going down a corridor that you know leads to nowhere, it isn't fashionable or politically astute and maybe noone who reads a word I write will be convinced. But I put it out there because some of them, maybe in a few years, maybe in a decade, will find it out 'for themselves'. That's OK, I've had some good help, despite my awkward contrarian nature, and should pay a little forward.
D.
-
I think a lot of what Wes was working on was predictive/adaptive left hand mechanics. In the videos it is clear that he moves around the finger board a lot, but if you watch closely his positions and fingerings always place his hand and fingers in just the right way to set up for what is coming up in the subsequent phrase. I think a lot of his confident sound came from this; he could press musically with less concern on the physical details because his technique had already explored and developed the mechanical solutions.
Similarly, Pass said that as a youngster he spent hours before and after school practicing, and then more hours before going to bed, every day, for years. This is technique development that builds the mechanical foundation from which one may express musical ideas with an apparent effortlessness.
Freel, I do an experiment with myself all the time. It is kind of like those childhood puzzles, "There are five differences between the two pictures - can you find all of them?" It goes like this:
- I identify something I want to learn to play (a particular solo line, or harmony change, or unusual chord type, etc.)
- I start by pretending I'm going to play it and examine why I can't do it yet (I study the feeling of what it feels like to not know how to play the thing, what it feels like for the knowledge to be missing... search what part of my mind is it missing from)
- the idea is to get a strong feel for this "I can't play it" state or condition - I want to be able to remember this because I'm going to compare it to the "Now I can play it" state a little later
- I teach myself to play the thing
- Now I stop and pretend again that I'm going to play it and take notice of what has changed (what is it really that I have now that I didn't have five or ten minutes ago? Where is it in my mind? What is different now that I can play it? Thinking back to before I could play it, did I just not know where to look or was it actually missing? Etc...)
I highly recommend this examination of the acquisition process of abstract internal representations, especially for those like me that play exclusively by ear.
Reply With Quote
McCoy Tyner style asymetrical pentatonic sequence...
Today, 08:42 AM in Improvisation