Generic Question - How do you Improvise?

[Tal_175]

OP, you could've stopped all this by asking follow up questions and being more involved with your thread.
This is really all your doing.

[John A.]

OP, you could've stopped all this by asking follow up questions and being more involved with your thread.
This is really all your doing.

The OP was probably one of the regulars on this topic trying to stir the pot incognito.

[ragman1]

he literally wrote a piano score, you daft plonker - with all his voicings specified in notation, like a classical composer would. Graham linked it. There’s only so much you can specify in a chord symbol, so a score makes sense.

Presumably you can click on a link…

You plonk too quickly. I didn't see Graham's link (#140) when I wrote #141 and apologised for it in #148.

As for this:

Monk knew exactly how he wanted things to sound... it’s clear as it could be HE knew and heard what he was doing.

it contradicts what Monk himself said quoted in Graham's post:

'even Monk had difficulty with the melody. “It has a funny amount of bars,” he confessed. “I’m just naïve like they are. I make up something and I don’t even know what it is, so I look at it again myself. It’s new to me!” '

[ragman1]

Disputing with ragman is like dancing about architecture.

I rarely dispute, I'm usually too dogmatic. But I could if you like :-)

[ragman1]

Yeah he could notate a song and reduce it to simple chord symbols but didn't use theory. Sure.

I didn't say that. I'd agree reducing a whole notation to very basic symbols is the application of theory.

[Christian Miller]

You plonk too quickly. I didn't see Graham's link (#140) when I wrote #141 and apologised for it in #148.

As for this:



it contradicts what Monk himself said quoted in Graham's post:

'even Monk had difficulty with the melody. “It has a funny amount of bars,” he confessed. “I’m just naïve like they are. I make up something and I don’t even know what it is, so I look at it again myself. It’s new to me!” '

As a composer/performer playing my own material, I know that feeling EXACTLY. It doesn’t mean i don’t know what I’m trying to do. One does have to practice ones own compositions.

Music is funny like that.

[rpjazzguitar]

As a composer/performer playing my own material, I know that feeling EXACTLY. It doesn’t mean i don’t know what I’m trying to do. One does have to practice ones own compositions.

Music is funny like that.

When you write or arrange there's an issue about how easy the result will be to play. And then, when you perform your composition, how many times have you played it before? Probably fewer than you've played ATTYA. And the sidemen have played it less than you, most likely.

I've noticed that pro arrangers don't often write things that require massive chops. They do write things that require high degrees of ability in other ways. So it may be odd time signatures, high tempos, odd phrase lengths, long strings of novel hits etc, but, once you understand what it is, it generally isnt physically challening. Sometimes, in a guitar chart, you'll see chord symbols reflecting horn voicings which may be unplayable at the tempo indicated. You have to simplify those.

Amateur arrangers, in contrast, in my experience more often write stuff that's simply hard to play.

[Christian Miller]

When you write or arrange there's an issue about how easy the result will be to play. And then, when you perform your composition, how many times have you played it before? Probably fewer than you've played ATTYA. And the sidemen have played it less than you, most likely.

I've noticed that pro arrangers don't often write things that require massive chops. They do write things that require high degrees of ability in other ways. So it may be odd time signatures, high tempos, odd phrase lengths, long strings of novel hits etc, but, once you understand what it is, it generally isnt physically challening. Sometimes, in a guitar chart, you'll see chord symbols reflecting horn voicings which may be unplayable at the tempo indicated. You have to simplify those.

Amateur arrangers, in contrast, in my experience more often write stuff that's simply hard to play.

That’s really not what I’m talking about.

I’m a guitarist writing music that I should at least be able to play on the guitar. It’s not like forgetting to put a rest in for the sax to breathe or put the lead line in a register that sounds crap on the trumpet or writing a low E and G double stop on guitar or whatever… (I’m not an arranger anyway.)

It’s just hard playing your own music, harder than you’d think. Ask any composer/bandleader they’ll all say the same. You have to practice your own music.

[Bobby Timmons]

You use the word theory a lot.
I'm curious - when you improvise you think more about theory or about music.
...for example... on a dominant/alt chord you can play phrases built on different scales so how do you know which scale will be the best?
Will theory help you choose the most appropriate scale?I mean the way you think when you actually play.

Are you serious? I consult a computer program beforehand and it tells me what theory to use for the tune.

I USE MY EAR! What did you think the answer would be? Just because I use theory like most successful musicians, I'm a robot? I know what my devices sound like before hand from practicing them so I have an idea of what could sound good. I also listen to organists to see which theory devices they use. (They don't wing crap willy nilly.) Then I evaluate how it sounds real time or afterward to see if it worked. Playing my instrument requires more than only using magic to make up single note lines. I'm responsible for bass, chords, and melody. It has to be functionally sound.

[rpjazzguitar]

That’s really not what I’m talking about.

I’m a guitarist writing music that I should at least be able to play on the guitar. It’s not like forgetting to put a rest in for the sax to breathe or put the lead line in a register that sounds crap on the trumpet or writing a low E and G double stop on guitar or whatever… (I’m not an arranger anyway.)

It’s just hard playing your own music, harder than you’d think. Ask any composer/bandleader they’ll all say the same. You have to practice your own music.

I also write and gig my own tunes. I practice them the same way I practice other tunes. It's no harder, unless I've written something that's hard to play. For the band, the only issue is that, when I bring a new tune in, there's no previous version to listen to. For the music my main group plays, the lead sheets rarely contain all the info needed to nail the rhythm, so an mp3 helps. In that sense, practicing an original is different and rehearsal is necessary unless the tune is very straightforward.

[kris]

Are you serious? I consult a computer program beforehand and it tells me what theory to use for the tune.

I USE MY EAR! What did you think the answer would be? Just because I use theory like most successful musicians, I'm a robot? I know what my devices sound like before hand from practicing them so I have an idea of what could sound good. I also listen to organists to see which theory devices they use. (They don't wing crap willy nilly.) Then I evaluate how it sounds real time or afterward to see if it worked. Playing my instrument requires more than only using magic to make up single note lines. I'm responsible for bass, chords, and melody. It has to be functionally sound.

This is not an answer to my question.
I am not asking about technical matters of playing the organ.I meant something completely different.
The problem affects all musicians.
What I meant was that having a lot of theoretical knowledge, I choose a particular musical scale at a given moment. There are a lot of possibilities ofcourse.
What influences this choice? the style of music, the nature of the composition, or do I play what I have best developed?
The music flows and I have to decide what to play at the moment - decide what and there is no time for that.
Should I follow my intuition and forget the theory?
Perhaps this question is too difficult.
I am thinking about it anyway.
I played hundreds of concerts and I often think that I could have played something differently and I can't turn back time.

[Bobby Timmons]

I see, sorry for raging. This is an important topic, remember I made a thread about it? I think you can do whatever you want as long as it sounds good. Some players put their approach on every song like Joey Defrancesco. To me, I think there's a better answer - to use the scales/devices that enhance the tune. You can do this on the fly, but a lot has to be worked out in practice time. I scheme about what scales/colors to use for 1 tune all the time. I've been scheming about what to use for a simple bluez for weeks and I think I am getting it. I think the more work you put in during practice time, the better command you have with manipulating the scales/colors on the fly.

An example is the color my teacher uses on a bluez here at 1:18 on the 2-5 in bar 4 into the 4 chord is actually melodic minor and chromatic into diminished. Pretty tech, and has a nice effect. I think someone working by ear only might not get the framework of how to do that. I worked at it for a while. I thought, it sounds melodic minor, chromatic, and diminished. Then he told me and demonstrated it in a lesson and I was right. Even if I didn't get the notes of the line yet.

[kris]

Yes that's true...but musicians you haven't played with come along and things get complicated.
eg the pianist plays "very modern" and his style of playing influences the whole band.
All this requires a lot of experience and stage skills as well.
This is probably what this communication in the language of jazz is all about.

[Bobby Timmons]

I think so.

[kris]

There is a concert by W.Shorter, which goes beyond all academic theories...That's the beauty of this music:

[Christian Miller]

I also write and gig my own tunes. I practice them the same way I practice other tunes. It's no harder, unless I've written something that's hard to play. For the band, the only issue is that, when I bring a new tune in, there's no previous version to listen to. For the music my main group plays, the lead sheets rarely contain all the info needed to nail the rhythm, so an mp3 helps. In that sense, practicing an original is different and rehearsal is necessary unless the tune is very straightforward.

Yes that’s more what I meant - it still needs to be practiced like anything. If you write hard music it is, unsurprisingly, hard to play. Just cos you wrote it and know how it is meant to sound it doesn’t mean you can automatically play it…

While Monk was in my opinion the best at playing his own music, I wouldn’t say I’ve always been the best at playing my own music haha.

Monk wrote hard music and it’s clear he had to work on it from his quote.

[Christian Miller]

I see, sorry for raging. This is an important topic, remember I made a thread about it? I think you can do whatever you want as long as it sounds good. Some players put their approach on every song like Joey Defrancesco. To me, I think there's a better answer - to use the scales/devices that enhance the tune. You can do this on the fly, but a lot has to be worked out in practice time. I scheme about what scales/colors to use for 1 tune all the time. I've been scheming about what to use for a simple bluez for weeks and I think I am getting it. I think the more work you put in during practice time, the better command you have with manipulating the scales/colors on the fly.

An example is the color my teacher uses on a bluez here at 1:18 on the 2-5 in bar 4 into the 4 chord is actually melodic minor and chromatic into diminished. Pretty tech, and has a nice effect. I think someone working by ear only might not get the framework of how to do that. I worked at it for a while. I thought, it sounds melodic minor, chromatic, and diminished. Then he told me and demonstrated it in a lesson and I was right. Even if I didn't get the notes of the line yet.

I hear a standard piece of ii V I bebop vocabulary, worth internalising.

FWIW this is how I break it down. First part of the phrase is in G dominant scale. We play a 5 note chord starting on the 5th (important minor) and then apply some typical chromatic passing tones between 3 and 1 (changing the rhythmic subdivision briefly to a triplet) and then the Bb dominant scale (brothers and sisters) to move to the C using the classic (Bb-Ab-G) bebop cadence with a typical enclosure ‘4 phrase’ to finish.

I don’t hear any diminished or melodic minor in at all. It’s all G dominant until it briefly goes to Bb dominant and elides gracefully into the target IV chord, C

which is not to say you don’t or shouldn’t hear or analyse it your way… or I think your esteemed teacher is mistaken. just to illustrate we may analyse the same phrase in different ways. I’m coming out of Barry harris. 90% of bebop lines are covered by the dominant scales of the brothers and sisters; we spend a lot of time working on just that scale.

Anyway it’s a standard piece of Parker style bop vocabulary and I would prioritise being able to nail it in any key at tempo and apply to tunes. Is a good lick. Yer man borrowed it and so can you.

[Bobby Timmons]

The notes overlap between how you described it and how I did, but that's what he told me he's thinking. Basically melodic minor over the D- with chromatic faffing into mostly diminished over the G7 (-->C7). He plays it more times throughout the tune where he runs the diminished longer and you can hear it.

[Christian Miller]

The notes overlap between how you described it and how I did, but that's what he told me he's thinking. Basically melodic minor over the D- with chromatic faffing into mostly diminished over the G7 (-->C7).

Ah yes, I listened again and I think I heard D F A C Ethe first time whereas it’s D F A C# E. So that changes the analysis a little - it’s indeed a D melodic minor or in fact a Dm9(maj7). (Makes sense to me to call it that rather than G lydian dominant.)

Either work fine, the second is a little more ‘eyebrows’. I think bird would have been slightly more likely to play the first

i also understand many would hear that Bb Ab G F (E) bop cadence as belonging to G altered. Not me, but many would. You can also hear/see it as diminished.

thats interesting because in the first example there no ambiguity; it’s clearly a 5 note arpeggio/chord type figure and the chord symbol encapsulates it perfectly (and given the context it’s reasonable to say it comes from D melodic minor if that’s how your teacher teaches it.) There’s not much theory here - just naming the object.

The bop cadence phrase is much more ambiguous. It fits a number of scales. Personally I prefer to use Bb dominant because to me that’s simpler, and that’s how Barry taught. It could belong to Ab melodic minor (G altered), G half-whole and probably other scales I haven’t thought of. This is a theoretical understanding because you are making up imaginary notes that aren’t there to explain notes that are. Choose your religion.

In any case you should practice that cadence in every key as part of ii V I and learn the sound. It’s a melodic figure that just pops up all the time and one of things that makes bop sound like bop. It doesn’t actually matter what you call it. listen out for it - it’s absolutely everywhere.

[Bobby Timmons]

I think that's accurate.

[Christian Miller]

However for those getting together I would say that ‘understanding’ the phrase is less immediately good for one’s playing than being able to nail it over every major II V I in tunes like Cherokee and How High the Moon

Do enough of this sort of thing and will sound like you swallowed the Omnibook, but that’s stage 1. This is an important stage to progress the beginner to the gigging stage.

Taking it to bits and messing around with the bits is kind of stage 2.

EDIT; In this case it’s good to identify modules of a line by function - “this minor works great on this dominant, this chromatic run connects the 3 to the 1 of the G7 chord, this funny Bb-Ab thing leads really nicely into the C target chord.” You can then expand those ideas, vary them and recombine them into your own lines.

That’s the area I kind of think where some more in depth “theory” of some type is probably helpful. But the ears are always the final arbiter ime. I often come up with things that are ‘correct’ but sound like ass to me.

[Bobby Timmons]

It seems like chromaticism always sounds good to me. You're compelled to outline the chords vanilla, and it takes a bit to wrap your ear around the chromaticism, but once you get used to it it sounds so good. All that BH, Monk, and Parker stuff.

[grahambop]

An example is the color my teacher uses on a bluez here at 1:18 on the 2-5 in bar 4 into the 4 chord is actually melodic minor and chromatic into diminished. Pretty tech, and has a nice effect. I think someone working by ear only might not get the framework of how to do that. I worked at it for a while. I thought, it sounds melodic minor, chromatic, and diminished. Then he told me and demonstrated it in a lesson and I was right. Even if I didn't get the notes of the line yet.

As Christian said, that’s a pretty standard bebop line, I use it sometimes. But I don’t really analyse it much, I just learned it by ear years ago so I just don’t need to think about that stuff to play it in any key.

[Bobby Timmons]

I was making the point to kris about forming colors to the tune.

[grahambop]

I do sometimes analyse lines and try and see if the theory will give me some new ideas, variations on them etc. but to be honest, I seem to get better ideas just by relying on my ears and my own invention, for some reason. My brain must just be wired a bit differently to people who like to think about all the scales etc. all the time.