There Will Never Be Another You - Improvisational Elaboration

[mr. beaumont]

I think you're sounding pretty good Lawson...maybe it's a bit stiff, but I think that's just because you're in exercise mode still, itll swing more in time as you get more comfortable.

I wanted to keep the conversation going, so heres 2 choruses. I go fishing a bit, but this was a great exercise for me because I haven't played the tune much, and I dont have the chords memorized...but I can definitely sing the melody...so I'm just going off that.

There's so many directions you can go with this...and even though I might not take a whole solo like this, it's a great backbone.

[lawson-stone]

I think you're sounding pretty good Lawson...maybe it's a bit stiff, but I think that's just because you're in exercise mode still, itll swing more in time as you get more comfortable.

I wanted to keep the conversation going, so heres 2 choruses. I go fishing a bit, but this was a great exercise for me because I haven't played the tune much, and I dont have the chords memorized...but I can definitely sing the melody...so I'm just going off that.

There's so many directions you can go with this...and even though I might not take a whole solo like this, it's a great backbone.

Ah Jeff, your playing always puts a grin on my face. There ought to be some kind of regulation to keep you from having so much fun!

What I realize I'm lacking is basically vocabulary. I've learned lots of solo material, but I'm slow in pulling the phrases out of those and using them elsewhere. You seem to have lots of great jazz vocabulary that comes out pretty spontaneously, which is a great goal for us to strive for.

Thanks for jumping in!

[grahambop]

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.

This sounds good to me, the key thing is it’s MELODIC. Honestly, if you just tightened up the time a fraction and got it right ‘in the pocket’, it would be a great starting chorus of a solo. Keep doing this!

[lawson-stone]

This sounds good to me, the key thing is it’s MELODIC. Honestly, if you just tightened up the time a fraction and got it right ‘in the pocket’, it would be a great starting chorus of a solo. Keep doing this!

Thank you so much for that Graham. I admire your playing and your perspective on the music a great deal and appreciate your words. I have been having a lot of fun trying to tighten this up and put a little fire into it. I have another "drill" of sorts that I'm thinking might work for a solo concept. I also think I want to notate these just for the exercise of it.

[ragman1]

That turned out to be a fun exercise

Excellent. The fun comes through, Lawson!

[lawson-stone]

Excellent. The fun comes through, Lawson!

Well I can't help but observe how much fun you have spinning out the various takes on these tunes that you do. I need to be more free about just trying out ideas.

[ragman1]

There will never be another solo this noodly

Did I say anything?

Is that a mandolin on the couch back there?

[ragman1]

Well I can't help but observe how much fun you have spinning out the various takes on these tunes that you do. I need to be more free about just trying out ideas.

Ah, it comes out of already doing it far too many times. When it's that stale you stop caring... and, bingo, you get fun :-)

[mr. beaumont]

Did I say anything?

Is that a mandolin on the couch back there?

Good eyes to spot that shape, but that's the headstock of my little Recording King size 0 guitar. Super cheap fun lil instrument.

[ragman1]

Size nothing... yet it exists...

It would be strange except that they also do a size 000

scary

[Irez87]

Guys, I apologize for including a file on the thread. I recorded an example, but didn't want to go the Youtube route. Dang Sound cloud wants me to pay $80 to upload one more file... Hog wash!

Anyway, I've been packing everything to prepare for my move outta LA (Escape from LA!) and I packed away my mic and my amp. So I thought, why not just try at it on piana?

I really like this thread. Why not go one step further. Use the melody as a theme and move it around the harmony. Use the melodic rhythm as a theme and move it around the tune. Granted, this is only an example applied to the first A. However, the results are incredibly interesting. I found that I wasn't playing my age old licks and general bs. I was thinking more composition-ally. I think Jim Hall thought along these lines when he was soloing.

If you sit with a melody long enough, and let it seep into your soul, interesting melodic material emerges. This ties back to what I was saying about the truth that many of us don't spend enough time getting to know the melody. I, for one, am way too excitable and will jump into learning how to improvise line through the harmony. However, the melody is the glue that holds the tune together.

Scratch that, the melody is the tune--especially for jazz standards. Once I get to Seattle, I'll record more of this idea on guitar. I just wanted to get a recording in while the thread was hot

[Bahnzo]

Great thread. I've been looking for something new to learn, and I've also heard this whole "learn the melody and use it to improvise" many (many) times.

[PMB]

Quite by accident, I found this clip today from 10 years ago playing over TWNBAY. As I mentioned in another thread, I was spending most of time teaching at a few locations, finishing a master's degree and looking after my kids back then so practise time was limited and there are definitely some ropey passages!

[lawson-stone]

Great thread. I've been looking for something new to learn, and I've also heard this whole "learn the melody and use it to improvise" many (many) times.

That old cliche is exactly what prompted this thread, so you've come to the right place!

[lawson-stone]

...
I really like this thread. Why not go one step further. Use the melody as a theme and move it around the harmony. Use the melodic rhythm as a theme and move it around the tune. Granted, this is only an example applied to the first A. However, the results are incredibly interesting. I found that I wasn't playing my age old licks and general bs. I was thinking more composition-ally. I think Jim Hall thought along these lines when he was soloing.

...

That's pretty much what I was trying to do in the chorus above. I was taking the phrasing of the first line and seeing if I could shift it around and keep the idea more or less there over the changing harmony. Eventually of course the wheels came off but I still kept finding melodic fragments I liked, and tried to land on an original melody note here and there.

I look forward to listening to your clip later today. Headed out to Easter Services this AM.

[ragman1]

Quite by accident, I found this clip today from 10 years ago playing over TWNBAY. As I mentioned in another thread, I was spending most of time teaching at a few locations, finishing a master's degree and looking after my kids back then so practise time was limited and there are definitely some ropey passages!

Totally excellent, that's exactly the way to do it!

So where are we ten years later? Own up :-)

[lawson-stone]

Quite by accident, I found this clip today from 10 years ago playing over TWNBAY. As I mentioned in another thread, I was spending most of time teaching at a few locations, finishing a master's degree and looking after my kids back then so practise time was limited and there are definitely some ropey passages!

That is really fine! I enjoyed that solo and kept hearing pieces of the tune in and out though it all. Lots of great jazz vocabulary in there too, and it really swings. Great tone.

Thanks for sharing!

[PMB]

Totally excellent, that's exactly the way to do it!

So where are we ten years later? Own up :-)

Thanks rag. Playing out lots more these days and recording a quartet album soon of originals and standards with my organ trio and tenor sax. Here's a fun live clip from last month at my local bar - the trio with a good friend sitting in on vocals (usual caveats about the unbalanced sound as the zoom camera that captured the audio was set up near my guitar):

[PMB]

That is really fine! I enjoyed that solo and kept hearing pieces of the tune in and out though it all. Lots of great jazz vocabulary in there too, and it really swings. Great tone.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for watching! I'm looking forward to hearing where you end up on the tune, Lawson. It's an important topic and a great idea for a thread.

[ragman1]

PMB -

Great. Nicely played.

[Bahnzo]

Ok, rainy day today, so I spent some of the afternoon learning this song a bit and put down a couple choruses. It's my first time playing this song, so I made an effort not to listen to anyone else (besides Nat King Cole to get a feel for how it's supposed to sound) to get a "baseline" on my take. And then I'll listen to others on here and see how much I can progress after listening and learning more of the song and it's structure.

[Irez87]

Lots of really musical interpretations of TWNBAY.

I just signed up with Reverb Nation, hopefully they will give me more recording space.

Here's the clip I uploaded before, but it's streaming now (so no downloading anxiety)

Everything but my guitar, laptop, and bare necessities are packed. I'll post something more substantial in two weeks when I've moved. I have to say, using the melody as a springboard for inspiration is quite challenging. I have to really pull back from all my usual melodic habits (and rambling) and really focus on the shape, rhythm, and weight of the melody.

To that end, this melody-centric work is hard, but I think it's really rewarding in the long run. I already hear some exciting melodic developments in Lawson-Stone's last video. Let's keep this thread going to challenge each other and see where we all end up.

Oh, here's the link to my reverb nation page. It's short, but it outlines the bones what's possible when you manipulate the melody:

Alex Link | ReverbNation

[lawson-stone]

Hey, Lawson,

Well, I spent a good part of an enjoyable afternoon playing takes of this and ended up deciding to use the first one. There's something a bit perverse about "trying to improvise" to demonstrate an idea, because the intellect gets in the way of what's supposed to be a mostly intuitive process. So it is what it is. The backing is Aebersold's Another Yew from volume 15. I'll attempt to explain a little bit of the process.

First of all I do think it's a really good idea and not a question of "moral authority" to know melodies to tunes cold. I hear a lot of otherwise good jazz players, students mostly, who BS their way through the heads to tunes and it immediately screams "unprepared" to me.

Second, I find that when I know the head very well to a tune it becomes much easier to improvise on it in general, but especially when using said melody as a springboard. Melodies tend to have fairly obvious starting and stopping places, and I find I can go away and come back easier when I know those places well.

Third, just a few ideas about how to use the melody. Some are pretty obvious, like syncopating it or playing a phrase when the written melody rests. Others are somewhat less so, for example starting the melody on a different note and following the intervallic shape and rhythm of the original melody. Another idea would be to take a piece of the original melody and sequence it through the scale or scales of the changes. I ended up doing some of that in this version.

Last, what can be really fun and interesting is to take a line that is from one section and play it in a different section of the tune, adjusting for the harmony of course. For example, TWNBAY is basically one lick, one variation, a second lick and two variations, then it starts over and the last part is different from all the others (There will never ever be another you). So you could, for example, take that last lick and start it at the beginning of the form, then play it again on another starting note such as Ab to D for the Dm7b5 to G7 part.

http://claymoore.com/yew.wav

That's a great take! And your thoughts here are very helpful to me. Honestly I have played this several times just because I enjoy listening to it. I feel like I have been at this so very long, and still somehow don't have the fluency and feel that makes it "sound like jazz." I feel like I just play guide tones and blues licks. Which I suppose one can even do worse than that, but I've honestly wondered if I should just give it up. After 30 years of working at it--going all the way back to the rmmgj newsgroup as you recall, it still feels out of reach.

But these thoughts have me thinking of things I can try, so I'm pumped up for another week or so!

Thanks for being on here and sharing your playing, Clay. It means a lot to have someone on the forum going back that far. I still love that Standards CD!

[hohoho]

Hey, Lawson,

Well, I spent a good part of an enjoyable afternoon playing takes of this and ended up deciding to use the first one. There's something a bit perverse about "trying to improvise" to demonstrate an idea, because the intellect gets in the way of what's supposed to be a mostly intuitive process. So it is what it is. The backing is Aebersold's Another Yew from volume 15. I'll attempt to explain a little bit of the process.

First of all I do think it's a really good idea and not a question of "moral authority" to know melodies to tunes cold. I hear a lot of otherwise good jazz players, students mostly, who BS their way through the heads to tunes and it immediately screams "unprepared" to me.

Second, I find that when I know the head very well to a tune it becomes much easier to improvise on it in general, but especially when using said melody as a springboard. Melodies tend to have fairly obvious starting and stopping places, and I find I can go away and come back easier when I know those places well.

Third, just a few ideas about how to use the melody. Some are pretty obvious, like syncopating it or playing a phrase when the written melody rests. Others are somewhat less so, for example starting the melody on a different note and following the intervallic shape and rhythm of the original melody. Another idea would be to take a piece of the original melody and sequence it through the scale or scales of the changes. I ended up doing some of that in this version.

Last, what can be really fun and interesting is to take a line that is from one section and play it in a different section of the tune, adjusting for the harmony of course. For example, TWNBAY is basically one lick, one variation, a second lick and two variations, then it starts over and the last part is different from all the others (There will never ever be another you). So you could, for example, take that last lick and start it at the beginning of the form, then play it again on another starting note such as Ab to D for the Dm7b5 to G7 part.

http://claymoore.com/yew.wav

Wow! Very nice playing! Thank you for sharing!

[Bahnzo]

My 2nd take. I sped it up a little from the "balladish" tempo to 120bpm as I felt a little more confident. My first was simply after learning the melody and noticing it centered around Eb. This time I took time to learn the chords and try to follow them a little closer. Still not overly happy with it, but I did feel like I improved a little, however slightly. Certainly open to ideas and criticism.

Oh and btw- I listened to everyone else's...I do remember the OP saying "no pro's"! (but seriously, I need to go back and listen again and try to glean a little).