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Yes! That's exactly the kind of thing I"m working on. Just lovely! I'd love to have heard the solo following. You hooked me with the first phrases!
Originally Posted by hohoho
Thank you for sharing. I need to put up a post myself, however elementary it will be.
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04-16-2019 07:38 AM
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I don't think embellishing a melody in itself is very hard. A bit of syncopation, the odd passing note... to inject some swing and interest into it isn't that difficult. One needs a musical sense, of course, and familiarity with the tune and where it's played on the neck. A few go-rounds is sufficient usually.
But it does take some confidence to take off and depart somewhat radically from the melody before returning to it so the ear doesn't lose track of what's going on. Personally I think the more improvising one does the easier it is; the fingers just seem to find their own way. And one absolutely needs to sort out what fill-lines are needed. A bit of theory there comes in very handy indeed.
Soloing, of course, is another thing. But that's why we're here, n'est-ce pas? :-)
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Just another thought.. Do you know one of the hardest tunes to solo over? This is my own idea, I haven't borrowed it.
Summertime. You wouldn't think so because it's a pretty simple 12-bar. It's just a variation on a three-chord trick, it's got a basic repetitive rhythm and a very, very strong melody. Soloing over the changes isn't difficult as they stand but the problem comes when one wants to do something different with it.
Changing the phrasing is hard because one keeps hearing the tune and the original phrasing of the tune. I think, from what I've heard, even the pros have trouble with it. And you'd think it was the simplest thing to do...
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I hear you. I am never more uninteresting and lame than when I play that tune. I love it, but just can't seem to do anything with it. I also can't play a less-than-terrible solo over "Misty." Originally Posted by ragman1
Just another thought.. Do you know one of the hardest tunes to solo over? This is my own idea, I haven't borrowed it.
Summertime. You wouldn't think so because it's just a pretty simple 12-bar. It's just a variation on a three-chord trick, it's got a basic repetitive rhythm and a very, very strong melody. Soloing over the changes isn't difficult as they stand but the problem comes when one wants to do something different with it.
Changing the phrasing is hard because one keeps hearing the tune and the phrasing of the tune. I think, from what I've heard, even the pros have trouble with it. And you'd think it was the simplest thing to do...
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I won't disturb your thread with the actual video (remove x) but this is quite good. There's a short guitar solo at about 2.40. Absolutely nothing to do with the tune :-)
https://www.youtube.Xcom/watch?v=g1DHuAMSoOE
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Perhaps that’s why Wes played Summertime with those descending 2-5s added (same changes as his tune Four on Six). It gives a bit more to ‘get your teeth into’ when soloing on it. Originally Posted by ragman1
Just another thought.. Do you know one of the hardest tunes to solo over? This is my own idea, I haven't borrowed it.
Summertime. You wouldn't think so because it's a pretty simple 12-bar. It's just a variation on a three-chord trick, it's got a basic repetitive rhythm and a very, very strong melody. Soloing over the changes isn't difficult as they stand but the problem comes when one wants to do something different with it.
Changing the phrasing is hard because one keeps hearing the tune and the original phrasing of the tune. I think, from what I've heard, even the pros have trouble with it. And you'd think it was the simplest thing to do...
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Peter Bernstein is very big on keeping some reference to the melody in your solos, at least for the first chorus or two. There are some masterclass excerpts on YouTube where he talks about it.
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thing i like about playing off the melody is I can play the melody by ear...Then by trying to add things gets in me in the proper mind set of playing without thinking of scales or chord shapes etc. I'm still crap at this, but this has improved my ear playing 10 fold.
I also try to play along to my kids' movies in time by ear..that has helped too
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Lawson,
Lee Konitz has a ten step approach for using the melody as the basis for developing an improvisation. Here's a link to Marc-Andre Seguin's lesson discussing Konitz's process. It may give you some ideas for what you are looking to do.
Lee Konitz
Mike
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Looks interesting. I might give that a (partial?) whirl and post what I come up with. Originally Posted by MikeS
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I saw that several years ago, can't remember where. What happened was I got up to where the more-or-less diatonic stuff ended - about Level 5 or something - and the other notes began.
All very well except I hadn't the foggiest notion what he was doing. There's no real explanation, just notes that you don't understand so you can't benefit by them except by direct imitation, and I don't do that. I need to know why I'm playing something. So I gave it up.
You may have better luck :-)
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I found an interview with Konitz online where he talks about this but it seems to have been taken down...He talks about studying with Lenny Tristano, hence Originally Posted by lawson-stone
https://www.oscarvandillen.com/wp-co...tan-Polgar.pdf
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I'm still courting the melody to "There Will Never Be Another You".
The melody said "we're not ready to improvise" and we've only been going out for a week, so I'll respect her wishes.
Just don't tell my wife
In all seriousness, I am learning a lot from ingraining this melody. I used to think that this song was corny. Now, I really like the tune! It might take me some time, with the move and all, but I promise I will post something with an analysis of my process.
The fact that my Real Books are packed and Jazzcats is no more only helps my cause. By the way, Aimee Nolte made some videos about TWNBAY on Youtube. I won't clutter the thread with more videos, but it's worth checking out--especially for this topic.
See you soon
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I had a bit opposite experience... I intuitively played off the melody and had to develope especially a conception of playing just off the changes (with no melody at all) - though it is still straneg for me... and I think I kind of compose melody first in that case and then play off it.
I believe it is personal thing... some people are more melodically prolific, some are more structural... Mozart used to compose new themes extensively without any motivic realtions with each other even for the parts where usually a main theme should be used (because he heard reference on harmonic structure level and was very prolific melodically - it was easier for his to express an idea in a mew melody), this is the magic of his operatic dramas.. there is mostly no motivic semantics and references at all but you still hear the relations and characters...
and Beethoven was all in exploration of one two motives or even intonations.
Same thign Miles whose impros are often just melodies that can navigate quite freely - closer of futher from the original, and Trane who have no melodies mostly but statements expressed in structures (it is not strange for me Trane called Hawk more important influence for him that Prez).
But ... there is one serious 'but' in it... there is actually not so many hings one can do off the melody ... melody is intontaion first of all... (ryth and harmonic rythm too of course but still intonation is first thing)
and there is not much so potencial for development in the intonation.
(classical music declined finally when it came to the means of intonation and motivic development).
Keeping reference with original tune is a bit different thing though, a reference idea is about quotation more, not necessarily development
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Thank you so much Lawson! Here is the complete take. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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hohoho
Hey, that was great, I enjoyed that!
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Ok. This is total BS noodling, complete with some clams, but this is kind of the way I work on phrasing things in different ways. In this video, I'm basically trying the limiting exercise of only playing the melody using 8th notes. Since, the melody is all quarter notes (sort of; four-per-bar anyway), this rushes the melody a good bit. So, it helps to start each phrase a beat or 2 late. It starts out behind, catches up, and then is very quickly "ahead".
Most of the non-melody notes are mistakes or creative flukes from trying to make the phrases fit. It's a cool exercise and opens up some possibilities, but I need to actually learn the melody.
Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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hey I really enjoyed that. You changed it up enough to make the melody "unfamiliar"-and also played it in the lower register which I've not done. Thanks. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Last night I actually started having ideas of my own on how to play a melody-based improvisation/ornamentation. I want to work on it a bit more so that the disappointment you all feel when I post it will be at a peak!!
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Vladan you always find a way to change things up and take a different path. I enjoyed this a lot. Not my style of course but still, I like the way you forge your own path. And the 2nd-3rd choruses had some ideas I need to test out for myself--like blues phrases where I haven't thought to use them.
Thanks!
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Thanks for the nice limiting exercise idea! It inspired this hemiola rhythm variation/etude. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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Nice. There's a whole rabbit hole you can go down with that type of thing that can be very interesting. You can basically move the whole thing half beat later... and then probably do the same for a couple more times. Each iteration has a different feel or "meaning". You can do the same with quarter note triplets, though easier at a slower tempo. Originally Posted by hohoho
Basically, when you move things around like that, you have different notes from the original would-be melody which are on/ahead/behind for each variation. For once you start learning to hear this way for different subdivisions of the beat, you can basically always catch up when you get behind and make things work for which are a little too far ahead etc.
There are really important implications for improv between phrases on this which may not be understood at 1st:4 . What if you could play very strong improv statement which ends on a strong beat-1 four and still be able to tastefully express the melody which basically begins on beat 1 as well?
Conflict is removed by simply having arrhythmic/phrasing vocabulary for quick abstracts time and let you move things around.
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So here's a clip on this. I realized right at the start that I had the tempo too slow. I stumbled a little right out of the gate. My goals here were (a) to play the melody single-note, as simply as I could, with some ornamentation or fills, then (b) to use melodic fragments combined with chord tones to create something.
The result I think would be much more interesting at a faster clip. I set it slow so as not to make mistakes, but alas. Some really good clams in here, but I think you'll get the concept, especially in the second chorus.
Just re-did the wiring harness in my L5ces and really liking the results!
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Slow is the way to go. Absolutely. Especially at this point in the process. Good job. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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I tried this again, just that second chorus. I've upped the tempo to about 160 and tried to give a bit more swing and phrasing. I do think there is a solo in here somewhere!
The concept here was to take the opening melodic phrase and ride it up through the Dm7b5-G7, then try to permute it through each chord change moving to the nearest chord-tone to preserve the movement. For the second 16 bars I thought about inverting the melodic phrase making the general movement downward.
This began as a drill where I played the melody and on each melody note I'd stop and see if I could play the arpeggio of the related chord. That turned out to be a fun exercise because it moved me away from starting on the root.
Anyhow, here's that second chorus a little faster, a little more swing, still a drill, though, not quite a solo.
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