How do YOU practice soloing - specifically developing themes and expanding etc

[mr quick]

Kind of an open-ended methodology question here. I know that I've got to work on how I solo - departing from muscle memory and licks, and work more on specific ideas in my solo - developing and expanding these ideas into new harmonic and rhythmic contexts, and so on. I feel like I have a solid grasp of it, but when push comes to shove on the bandstand, I play the most dull, uninspired solos, every single time. It's better when I'm alone, but even then I'm struggling to play a consistent and interesting solo that's not just regurgitated jazz and blues licks from the "jazz guitar for dummies" handbook..!

Every time it's my time to solo, I feel like I've got "nothing to say". So I noodle, and it's not good.

[vintagelove]

I take new vocabulary, usually a few concepts at a time

work on it over a ii V I, if it’s a dominant family line I apply it on all dom subs

switch keys (as I’m usually working on dominant material, I at least do it in the 3 “parent keys”)

apply it over blues

apply it over tunes.

This is at least a month long process (the stuff I work on is complicated). I then make sure to use it until it’s completely natural.

[Drumbler]

Recording yourself is a good idea.

[pauln]

Jazz improvisational soloing when performing is all about "having something to say", "making a statement", "testifying", and similar descriptions. Ideally on the bandstand you would want to be overflowing with fresh, strong, coherent, meaningful, authentic ideas competing within your ear to be chosen and executed through your instrument whenever you hear music, and you would want to have developed the musical judgement and mechanical facility to freely select, coordinate, integrate, and phrase these selected ideas as you improvise a solo.

I imagine three talents to achieve:

- idea production; the spring of musical ideas with respect to the music you hear
- musical judgement; the sense of which among choices of ideas is the best selection for execution in the moment
- mechanical facility; this is fingering and picking technique that supports transforming ideas into music

These are not three separate things; they are interconnected in performance. You can practice mechanical facility, musical judgement, and idea production somewhat independently, but it is important to bring them together in practice as soon a possible because in performance they approach being just one big thing, natural and effortless.

The classic jazz approach says learn songs (I don't remember who said, "Learn 200 jazz songs and you will be able to play anything".), which really means learning each song a few different ways using different keys, different variations of the progression, different variations in style... these variations are the critical developers of the three talents because you learn how to hold multiple grasps of aspects of "the same song".

The production of ideas means concurrent multiple ideas; you don't want to bear the desperate effort of hunting and searching for an idea... you want to be in a flowing spring of multiple ideas that present themselves for your selection. The musical judgement should likewise not be burdensome or cloudy; of the choices, it should feel effortless and natural to hear the one that is best for the present moment in the music. The mechanical facility (chops) should be sufficient to exceed the requirements of what is demanded for performance; this is not just speed, but covers tone, articulation, clarity, timing, agility (even when doing something new)... all pretty much captured by the description "competent and confident".

There is a quality of mechanical facility that is rarely discussed; the connection between the substance of a musical idea and its physical implementation on the instrument - Just how do you transport an idea you hold and hear in your mind to the physical instrument, especially a new idea, especially during performance? What is the nature of the mental musical idea and what aspects of it are transformed into deliberate motions on the instrument?

I can only relate what it seems like to me. The way I practice improvising alone is by playing songs in my head and playing the guitar from a harmonic perspective. Typically in jazz, the accompaniment to a solo is kind of a "reduced instruction set" - the progression harmony is simplified or minimized because it is the soloist's purpose to express the harmony. To me this means that I extend the harmony I'm hearing in my mind as I "play" the song in my mind's ear, so I'm already choosing a harmonic interpretation from which then the musical ideas flow. I experiment with different harmonies and compare and contrast their respective ideas. These ideas are really families of different schematic (abstract) ways to express a harmony... the elements of vocabulary are actually a three tiered waterfall starting with the families themselves from which one yields up one of its schemas to be made manifest - "individually formed" to complement the style and nature of the song.

I think of these things generally as "figures", which does not mean numerals or shapes, but in the sense of something "figured out" - what I figure out is a family (a way to generate individual instances of schemas that share a "family resemblance" relationship) with respect to a harmony, for example, a ii V I family sound changed from a Fm7 - C13 - Ebmaj7 schema to a C13sus4 - C13 - Ebmaj7 schema to lend a "Latin" style sound for a song in that style ... so three layers of vocabulary:

- one layer is the group of families that express aspects of a harmony
- second layer is the various schemas within a family
- third is the manifest instances (what gets played) generated from a schema within a family.

So when I hear a harmony in my mind practicing alone or on stage while performing, the musical ideas come as families that express multiple schemas. I chose the appropriate family (a style of harmony) and within that some possible version of one of its schemas, that particular version's assembly of structure, order, phrasing, and rhythm likely never having been played exactly before.

Hope this helps; everyone has their own ways of representing these things, and thinking about them.

[rpjazzguitar]

For me, it's often whack-a-mole.

But, if I were to try to elevate it into something that sounds like a coherent approach it would be as follows.

First, a caveat. I tried for years to sound like a classic jazz guitarist (any of them) and could not do it. Either I didn't know how, or was too lazy, or too untalented, or not well guided, or I just don't hear music that way. Eventually, with the onset of arthritis and looking at a limited horizon as a player, I gave up. I now make very little effort to learn so-called jazz vocabulary. I'm curious about theory, but I try not to think about it. I can look at a chart and figure out which notes will not sound like clams over each chord. I don't even listen to much American jazz and I rarely listen to guitarists.

Here are some things that I do:

1. I practice with IRealPro, 13 repeats, key change by a 4th on every chorus. Melody and comping. I drill on knowing the notes in the chords, arps and scales I use. 12 keys.

2. I record most of my rehearsals and gigs. I used to listen back to all of them and critique them. More recently, not so much.

3. I organize weekly Brazilian music sessions with the best players I can induce to show up. I have a book of 160 or so arrangements and we generally play from that book. I've been doing this for years. I'm also in two bands, and I practice those tunes.

4. I practice scat singing lines and then playing them. I figure that if I can't scat sing it, I don't really own it. So, by this logic, I don't want to play anything I can't hear well enough to sing. I violate this regularly, but that's the goal.

5. When I perform I try to focus on playing with good rhythmic feel and I try to solo in a way that communicates emotion. In that way, I may be more like a blues player who is playing through changes than a classic jazz player. Most of what I critique in the recordings has to do with time -- precision and feel. The rest has to do with notes I consider clams and how to avoid them.

6. Since I'm not trying to sound like a player who is grounded in classic jazz vocabulary, none of the above is directed at that. So, I don't know how applicable this will be to anybody else's journey.

[pingu]

When I get lick bound like that

In the shed , I slow down .... right down
and literally try to play a new melody over the tune

hear it in my head
sing the note
play the note
if I play it wrong I find the right note....
Ie. I don't follow on the wrong note and bluff my way through

repeat
IE dont let the fingers play what they want ....

i can only do it slow at the moment
but I'm getting faster at it , one day

singing through the guitar

One day i hope to be able to do it on the bandstand at mid tempo

[grahambop]

A couple of ideas I have come across are:

Use the melody of the tune as a basis. It’s easy to dismiss this idea but once you actually try it, you find it helps you get fresh ideas. The point is to change / embellish the melody but still keep at least some reference to it. Or even keep only the rhythms and change all the notes. Anything that you can generate from it. Peter Bernstein talks about this in one of those lesson videos which are on YouTube.

The other is as pingu said, practise slow improvisation. This was a big thing with Tristano and Konitz I believe. If you play the tune really slowly (use a metronome if it helps), you get time to think of little ideas and then try and play them. It helps you get out of the ‘fingers-led’ rut.

But I always find that anything I try like this takes a very long time to creep into my actual playing for some reason. So you have to be patient and stick at it, your playing won’t improve overnight.

[Rsilver]

When you try to solo with the guitar in hand, you say you don’t like how it comes out. But what about when you are just daydreaming solos in your imagination without guitar in hand? Do you like what you hear then? If you do, then that’s good, but you should work on your ear, to help recognize those notes and intervals so you can produce them on the guitar during performance.

If you don’t like your ideas, even without the guitar in hand, then I recommend listening to players you like and practicing material on your instrument such as arpeggios, approach note patterns, cells, and the like, to stimulate your imagination. In my opinion, when you practice particular material, you should always have a particular chord in mind... how does this material evoke some chord? For instance, if you practice the good old pentatonic scale C D E G A, have a chord in mind during the practice session ... say Fmaj7 one day or D7 the next. This will tie your material to particular chords (on which you are improvising) and they become better available to your imagination.

[JaxJaxon]

what Rsilver wrote is about the same as how I go about it only Ill run the progression of things in one session of improvise'n and there are some songs that don't need a lot of different notes.

[Reg]

Sounds like you have some skills... so what ist there

1) you have the physical space that your soloing within... the Form. This is generally the last thing guitarist work on... should be the first.... A blues... 8bars, 12bars 16ars etc... any Form... that all have physical space... time...and this space... the Form repeats.
Any tune has a form that repeats... with out even deciding on what you have to say... How you organize what you might want to say... needs to have organization within that form.

Another simple and physical detail... the shape of what you play within that Form, The best solos generally have some type of opening statement or idea,(something using the melody), then a development of what you use for that opening statement and ten you need to close it out.
EX. make statement... a motif, short melodic figure that open the door to where you might want to go with your solo...
(I like rhythmic patterns that create a feel, somewhat set up any melodic/ harmonic thing I want to do.
then I expand that rhythmic idea through changing the Harmony and generally close out solos with something from beginning or melody that brings a feel of being the end of solo... and helps... set up next soloist or the head.

The point....you can play a solo that sucks... but if you at least have the organization of the space... the Form together, generally it works...The shape you create within that space or Form.

If you want to get into... the nuts and bolts of how you fill that space... the melodic, harmonic and harmonic aspects, it's generally pretty mechanical. But being that we are guitarist... play what the instrument does... take advantage of Harmony... chords to help shape your melodic lines... I like to develop simple melodic phrases... with harmonic development.... if the changes are simple... I use Chord Patterns that imply that one or two chords. When you start to get down to melodic development that's what is going on...

The rhythmic aspect of playing is generally more important that melodic and harmonic content.... This is complicated and comes into playing after you get basics together...

Do you have a few tunes in mind... most have trouble understanding concepts, but can see them within tunes etc...

[wolflen]

practice soloing ...many factors are involved .. for me its using the years of study of the basics..scales arps chords and their inversions and all this in ALL keys..which I stress alot in my teaching and my own practice..

a fairly easy blues..ALL Blues by Miles Davis for example I have listened to it many times ..the feel of the solos by some of the best musicians Coltrane..Evans ..we have to realize these guys have a musical library inside them and decades of practice and playing to fall back on under their fingers so playing over a G7 for them is just a place to visit..touch base and go out again into the universe..and the same for all the harmonic structures in a tune

much of this kind of thing takes courage G7..ahhh OK and think of what to play over it..and get lost in the thought process ..yes it seems to be part of the learning curve in the study of jazz improv..the many techniques of speeding up this process and books, teachers and all really cant "get you there" you have to evolve as it were .. to where any melodic line you play can be related to G7 or any chord for that matter..and not get lost..but really know how to do it with out fear...my term is "working without a net" from the old highwire acts of circus fame..wow Ebmi11 lines work over G7..who knew..and this process never ends really..but you must keep growing with it and not fear that you will loose it if you dont write it down or record it..and that is another factor..sometime an idea may well up from the distant past and just fit in with the line your playing..to your surprise as well..how this process works is a mystery in and of itself and can only be understood by those who invest the time and energy to develop the environs to let this process grow

[Cunamara]

I put the guitar down and scat over a recording to develop the idea. Then I try to scat and play what I am scatting. It's a Howard Roberts idea from his old Guitar Player Magazine column.

[PMB]

I put the guitar down and scat over a recording to develop the idea. Then I try to scat and play what I am scatting. It's a Howard Roberts idea from his old Guitar Player Magazine column.

I taught a student recently who said he regularly heard a whole lot of beautiful phrases in his head but felt that his own playing was aimless and square. We went through exactly the process you mentioned over 4-bar blocks of a standard and he sounded great. It's "transcribing yourself"!

[pingu]

I taught a student recently who said he regularly heard a whole lot of beautiful phrases in his head but felt that his own playing was aimless and square. We went through exactly the process you mentioned over 4-bar blocks of a standard and he sounded great. It's "transcribing yourself"!

Yes it's great what you can come up with like that
it's the same thing I was mentioning ....

im just adding .... Do it slowly ....

dont play any errors , don't play any filler !

it's the authenticity you play Vis a Vis what you heard
that allows the next line to appear in the ear .... In my experience

[emanresu]

I "practice" soloing just jamming for hours. That means this day is not gonna produce anything meaningful but get the forms more familiar for laters.. The days I'd like to get something nice done, I wont practice at all. Just looking for inspiration, trying to get a good sound and good feel of the guitar. Be in good mood.. etc. Lots of breaks between attempts. Trying to focus completely.
I just hope a day comes when the "practice" is not so relevant anymore.

..
oh, It's possible to "practice" being meaningful It takes a lot of recording and pondering about it. Not so much to do with skills at all then. But for each their own.

[jameslovestal]

For improving my soloing over a 'new' tune I do this:

1) Learn the melody - Get this down and be able to play it in at least two 'sections' of the guitar

2) Over a backing track - improvise on the melody; I.e. play mostly melody notes but each chorus add variation using those notes

3) Play only chord tones, then only scale tones over the changes; Do this over at least 4 'sections' of the guitar

4) combine #2 and #3, playing the song as many times as possible until I have a solo that channels Jimmy Raney