How do you play spontaneously?

[Mark Kleinhaut]

I dunno. Try to remember to breathe?

That’s so often people’s problem.

[wolflen]

That’s so often people’s problem.

for me practice is meditation..in the Zen approach.. become the listener not the player

start on a G note..in the dark..nothing to see here..sound becomes light

Coltrane smiles..and glows in heat red..wait..the augmented scale..three majors and three minors

which minors though dorian phrigian melodic perhaps a 6/9 wait now..it could be a dominant 13

as the waves crash against each other its warm and cool and strong and fast and relaxed

oh yeah..breath..the Bb says hello..a lion looks at you and understands why

the sound-turning pages..the word mystery is comfort warm a friend

breath flows through my neck..the feel of wood and metal in my hands

its morning again

[Mark Kleinhaut]

for me practice is meditation..in the Zen approach.. become the listener not the player

start on a G note..in the dark..nothing to see here..sound becomes light

Coltrane smiles..and glows in heat red..wait..the augmented scale..three majors and three minors

which minors though dorian phrigian melodic perhaps a 6/9 wait now..it could be a dominant 13

as the waves crash against each other its warm and cool and strong and fast and relaxed

oh yeah..breath..the Bb says hello..a lion looks at you and understands why

the sound-turning pages..the word mystery is comfort warm a friend

breath flows through my neck..the feel of wood and metal in my hands

its morning again

my experience is similar except that I rarely ever think about notes, intervals, modes etc. just water, sun, wood and air….

[pauln]

Quote from Adler's Philosophical Dictionary, entry on Poetry...


(He might as well have been describing musical spontaneity?)

[Rsilver]

The spontaneity happens in your mind (we’re talking about improvising, right?) not in your hands. You just have to (after doing all your practicing, all your listening to jazz masters, etc) be fortunate enough to have good musical ideas in “real time,” then have worked on your ears and fingers so that the ideas get transmitted via ears to fingers on frets. Practice musical imagination by soloing in your head all the time.

[Mark Kleinhaut]

The spontaneity happens in your mind (we’re talking about improvising, right?) not in your hands. You just have to (after doing all your practicing, all your listening to jazz masters, etc) be fortunate enough to have good musical ideas in “real time,” then have worked on your ears and fingers so that the ideas get transmitted via ears to fingers on frets. Practice musical imagination by soloing in your head all the time.

I agree, but when doing this it’s a trap to try and have “good” ideas. That’s a value judgement. I’d submit that any idea is worthy of pursuit. It may be an uncultivated or unrefined idea, but in time with practice it can really be transformed into something brilliant. Acceptance and patience plus time is the simple formula.

[Rsilver]

I agree, but when doing this it’s a trap to try and have “good” ideas.

Point well taken. The point I was trying to make is that you are playing musical ideas. If the guitar is not in your hand, the ideas flit through your brain and can entertain only you; if you have a guitar in hand, your goal is to perform those ideas as best as your hands and ears allow.

[st.bede]

I agree, but when doing this it’s a trap to try and have “good” ideas. That’s a value judgement. I’d submit that any idea is worthy of pursuit. It may be an uncultivated or unrefined idea, but in time with practice it can really be transformed into something brilliant. Acceptance and patience plus time is the simple formula.

That is really interesting and useful way of thinking about the issue.

What I learned through out my various endeavors, is that humans can never really be random.

In my mind, there are different levels of clarity. Some things are super known. For example the sound of a scale. Others sounds in my mind are barely understandably. They live just beyond an edge.

There is a gradation. Depending on how comfortable I am, or what is needed, I get to choose what to do.

Sometimes when I reach for the less clear ideas/sounds, amazing things happen… other times the light end of tunnel is a train, and I did not realize I was tied onto the tracks.

I do trust my mind.. it is trying to tell me cool things. There will always be some sort of logic or structure. I might not be able to make it happen, but that is because I asking myself to do something different.

However, I am still a small fish… maybe a clown fish.

[Hyppolyte Bergamotte]

The first time I discover a new song or I have writed a composition, after learning the harmonic and rhythmic analysis of the tune,I write on a score 2,3 or more variations of the same length of the main theme.
It forces me to understand the rhythmic and harmonic connections of the different parts.

I begin to play those written variations, making rhythmic and harmonic corrections trusting my ears.
When I feel confident,I throw it away all this work and stay only with the main chart.
Then,I try to improvise,very slowly on the beginning and after on the real tempo of the song.

I learned that ,years ago from a French woman who played the lute professionally

[Jimmy blue note]

The first time I discover a new song or I have writed a composition, after learning the harmonic and rhythmic analysis of the tune,I write on a score 2,3 or more variations of the same length of the main theme.

+1
Absolutely. The soloing process is the improvisational process without the luxury of editing. Writing out a solo reveals the weaknesses in organizing, in concept, in phrasing, in the self reflective aspect of one's playing.
With writing down (composing) a solo, it's easier to create an inventory of your own shaping forces and just how and when to employ them.
Great recommendation Hyppolyte Bergamotte!

[DawgBone]

I don't really believe there is actual spontaneous playing. Everyone at a gig is going off muscle memory and previously practiced things to some degree. Yes, there are times you can go beyond your normal routine with some new moves that come out of left field but I find it is mostly about organizing musical thoughts you already have some grip on into an order that makes good musical sense in the context of the song, at the spur of the moment.

So to me, spontaneity is off-the-cuff organization more than just coming up with random stuff you never have tread over before. That would be something you do in a practice room, not on stage. Soloing can be on impulse, but there is always premeditation involved. If you know scales/arps and work from that general background that isn't spontaneous in the truest sense. Anyone claiming they are transcending the decades of practice they have put in is probably trying to sell you lesson material.

[Christian Miller]

Oh I definitely play stuff I haven’t practiced increasingly on gigs. I get bored with my own licks so it’s nice to surprised by what comes out sometimes, I wasn’t aiming for that. You can’t force it.

[Rsilver]

I don't really believe there is actual spontaneous playing.

Then how do you account for all the incredibly melodic “ear” players such as Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, Charlie Christian, Errol Garner, Stan Getz? (PS - Notice that these are the most melodic of players.) You can have a whole jazz career just playing ideas that pop into your head!

[ragman1]

How do you play spontaneously?

One can certainly play something spontaneously, it just happens. One hits a sweet note or a line that really works. But when you ask how to make it happen, I don't think that's possible.

Surely one can't conjure spontaneity, by definition. Although it would be rather nice if one could :-)

[pamosmusic]

I don't really believe there is actual spontaneous playing. Everyone at a gig is going off muscle memory and previously practiced things to some degree. Yes, there are times you can go beyond your normal routine with some new moves that come out of left field but I find it is mostly about organizing musical thoughts you already have some grip on into an order that makes good musical sense in the context of the song, at the spur of the moment.

So to me, spontaneity is off-the-cuff organization more than just coming up with random stuff you never have tread over before. That would be something you do in a practice room, not on stage. Soloing can be on impulse, but there is always premeditation involved. If you know scales/arps and work from that general background that isn't spontaneous in the truest sense. Anyone claiming they are transcending the decades of practice they have put in is probably trying to sell you lesson material.

This is one of those things that’s probably just a different definition of a similar phenomenon.

There are only a handful of chords showing up in jazz tunes and (forgive the cliche) only twelve notes to play over them. So it’s all kind of reorganizing the stuff that’s already there. Someone like Sonny Rollins who just has endless freedom with a relatively small number of rhythmic figures and melodic patterns and stuff seems very very spontaneous to me. Is any of it truly truly new? I guess probably not, but I also don’t think you can necessarily account for the difference purely with amount or quality of practice.

Maybe we’re using the wrong word. Is it “spontaneity?” Don’t know.

I like the word “invention.” That seems to fit better what we’re talking about.

[DawgBone]

Then how do you account for all the incredibly melodic “ear” players such as Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, Charlie Christian, Errol Garner, Stan Getz? (PS - Notice that these are the most melodic of players.) You can have a whole jazz career just playing ideas that pop into your head!

Lots of practice and rehearsal time and instrument mastery. Anyone gigging frequently will get bored and look for new things but to me purely spontaneous playing would be improvising a whole new song, on the spot, using unrehearsed melody and completely improvisational licks over a rhythm in a non-predictable time signature or in free time. Basically, the extreme end of avant-garde or someone who has guitar knowledge but just took a ten strip of acid. So maybe a definition of "spontaneous" is in order. I generally play from inner impulse but it is using premeditated, previously grasped materials assembled in an order that seems fitting for the song at the time I am doing it. Can licks type playing be spontaneous? Possibly.

Art Tatum always struck me as very spontaneous but maybe in Art's head a lot of it was business as usual. Coltrane's "Interstellar Space" struck me as spontaneous but I found it to be not very listenable and again, I can't be in his head to know what his musical thoughts at the time are. Anyways, it is an interesting topic. Best-dawgbone.

From google:

"performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus."

[James W]

Coltrane's "Interstellar Space" struck me as spontaneous but I found it to be not very listenable and again, I can't be in his head to know what his musical thoughts at the time are.

Interstellar Space is actually not only my favourite Coltrane album but one of my favourite albums by anyone. As most attentive listeners can tell it uses similar motifs, vocab and techniques across the whole suite which gives it its coherence, while at the same time demonstrating a great deal of freedom in how these things are applied - that, in fact, the ecstatic success is only made possible because of the freedom of it. So Coltrane can imply whatever harmonies he likes in his dazzling 'space-bop' style but also because there is no pre-arranged harmonic structure unlike with most other kinds of jazz, this parameter becomes part of what is improvised.

[Mark Kleinhaut]

I can’t always explain it, but I can play it with no effort. Here’s this morning’s bit:

[Tal_175]

It would be interesting to have a thread where we first post an improvised solo over a tune, then we post a "worked out" solo over the same tune. We can have a preparation time limit on the worked out solo. Say you have one week to compose the second solo. Then the members decide which solo they like more.

[wolflen]

a la John Cage...tune the strings in different intervals..start there

now play well practiced chord movements..scales..melodic patterns in a random manner

record the results if possible

listen to the playback

now..

can you play the same thing again..would you want to

while the mechanical aspects will be present..the harmonic/melodic results will be new

and..is there a reason for wanting to be a performer of such creation...or a listener of same

to the untrained ear..will this inspire or retire wanting to hear more in this soundscape

[pamosmusic]

Interstellar Space is actually not only my favourite Coltrane album but one of my favourite albums by anyone. As most attentive listeners can tell it uses similar motifs, vocab and techniques across the whole suite which gives it its coherence, while at the same time demonstrating a great deal of freedom in how these things are applied - that, in fact, the ecstatic success is only made possible because of the freedom of it. So Coltrane can imply whatever harmonies he likes in his dazzling 'space-bop' style but also because there is no pre-arranged harmonic structure unlike with most other kinds of jazz, this parameter becomes part of what is improvised.

I like it too, but I’m … let’s say “sympathetic” … to the folks who don’t.

[James W]

I like it too, but I’m … let’s say “sympathetic” … to the folks who don’t.

Sorry, I just saw it mentioned and thought it was an opportunity to wax lyrical about it.

[DawgBone]

Sorry, I just saw it mentioned and thought it was an opportunity to wax lyrical about it.

We are worlds apart in many ways but I always do appreciate your musical insights here James. You are able to put your musical thoughts, ideas, and opinions into text really well. So, thank you for your "lyrical waxing" as you call it.

It's not that I dislike Interstellar Space, it just requires a lot more focus and attention from the listener than the usual jazz album. It's very demanding. I once tried to rebuild a motorcycle engine listening to Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch,....wouldn't attempt that again. It was really messing with my ability to concentrate on what I was doing and I had to shut it off unless I wanted my buddy's bike to explode when he started it, lol. But I enjoy that album otherwise. I just don't consider those casual listening records.

[pamosmusic]

We are worlds apart in many ways but I always do appreciate your musical insights here James. You are able to put your musical thoughts, ideas, and opinions into text really well. So, thank you for your "lyrical waxing" as you call it.

It's not that I dislike Interstellar Space, it just requires a lot more focus and attention from the listener than the usual jazz album. It's very demanding. I once tried to rebuild a motorcycle engine listening to Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch,....wouldn't attempt that again. It was really messing with my ability to concentrate on what I was doing and I had to shut it off unless I wanted my buddy's bike to explode when he started it, lol. But I enjoy that album otherwise. I just don't consider those casual listening records.

Yeah interstellar is a great album but I agree on that point. It takes a lot of focus and sometimes I’m not ready to work that hard. A Love Supreme is kind of the sweet spot for me on that score. Super deep and intense and has that free ish vibe, but very listenable (to me).

[pamosmusic]

Anyway … I’m always for derailing a conversation with Coltrane Chat, but for the sake of the others I’ll try to bring it back around.

A Love Supreme might be a good demonstration of what I’m talking about. Particularly on the opening track, you can hear that really beautiful development and free invention using the pre-determined theme. Whether it’s a predetermined theme, or a pre-practiced idea or something, it’s the agility and creativity with that initial kernel of music that I love to hear and that strikes me as “spontaneous.” So I’m not super bothered if someone has a different definition of “spontaneous” that puts it on another side of the line. It’s still beautiful, creative improvisation and I’d listen to it all day if I could.