I think improvisation is overrated

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

Yknow I have this controversial opinion where I don’t think Giant Steps is that cool.

It just so happens also that I am not good at Giant Steps. So it’s hard to disentangle me not liking it because I don’t like it and me not liking it because it beats me up and leaves me for dead whenever we meet.

So it’s always tough to sort that out when someone says they don’t think improvisation is that cool but also that they struggle with it. Chicken or the egg situation.

Giant Steps is a beast, and great that someone can play it. But, most 'musician songs', (songs that are peculiar to jazz musicians and not the general public, such as 'Joy Spring', etc) are really not my cup of tea. There are exceptions, 'round midnight', 'After The Rain', "Naima' , 'Infant Eyes' but they are inspirational genius.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

Claiming that improvisation is overrated because "you aren't good at it" is basically BS. When you're in the moment in a jam and you maybe accent a particular beat and the drummer picks up on it and throws something twice as cool back at you as if saying, there, is that what you meant?, that's magic. Be a good accompanist by all means, but don't knock something just because it doesn't come naturally to you.

If you read my post, no way am I knocking improvisation. When someone is good at it, it's a real treat.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

If you get too far from the melody, I'm gone. I like a tune because of the melody (don't care much for lyrics unless it's Ella, Rosie, Frank or Tony singing them) and if you get away from that, my interest is gone. I guess, at heart, I'm basically a listener in some ways and I want to hear what I like and don't care much for players 'breaking new ground'. I understand that jazz is based on improvisation and I don't mind doing a few choruses after stating the head, but get back there before you lose everyone. I'd venture to say that jazz is just not overly popular because not that many listeners have the experience or knowledge to know what the players are trying to accomplish. I spent the better part of 40+ years playing in dance bands and that's what the average Joe & Jill on the street want to hear. I guess that's why I like the commercial 'pop' stuff that Wes did and the JS stuff off that old Roost Records Van Heusen stuff and even the 60s Tony Mottola albums. I guess that dates me, but then, I am old.

We're similar. I'm more into songwriters/composers/lyricists (and quality vocalists) than I'm into improvisors (though the really good improvisors are amazing). I'm 72.

[pamosmusic]

Giant Steps is a beast, and great that someone can play it. But, most 'musician songs', (songs that are peculiar to jazz musicians and not the general public, such as 'Joy Spring', etc) are really not my cup of tea. There are exceptions, 'round midnight', 'After The Rain', "Naima' , 'Infant Eyes' but they are inspirational genius.

That was my way of saying that it’s hard for me to disentangle your distaste for improvising from your assertion that you’re not good at it and can’t do it.

[pauln]

It's because I have a handicap, I find it impossible for me to hold the 'form' (the chord structure) in my head. If I look away from the lead sheet, the chords just vanish in my head and I get lost in the form and I'm no Chet Baker or Stan Getz with killer ears.

Improvisation is quite the rabbit hole; just a few minutes thinking about your post I fell into this...

Dalcroze noticed that students had a mechanical understanding instead of a musical comprehension. They were not able to hear harmonies that they wrote in the music theory classes, and they could not create simple melodies and chord sequences. This resulted in a lack of musical sensitivity that caused problems in the performance. His aim was to find ways to help students to develop skills to feel, hear, create, imagine, connect, memorize, read, and write, as well as perform and interpret music.
Wikipedia

I'm not sure much can be said until we all have some agreement on just what comprises improvisation in Jazz. People like to think of music as a language, so we might say that we acquire vocabulary, and learn to play grammatically, learn to listen and play in response, coherently, sensibly, and logically; but also learn to express emotion, feelings, attitudes, opinions, and perspectives.

Where is the line beyond which is improvisation?

- you play using your ordinary and customary musical vocabulary and musical grammar
- you play omitting either your vocabulary or grammar, so it's a "new" arraignment of old
- you play omitting both your vocabulary and grammar, and more, so it's all new

Or can we even break free of what we know and have learned? If improvisation is really unplanned, just how much time is allowed before the expiration of the unplanned and the initiation of the played? A la reductio ad absurdum it seems the "unplanned" must remain truly unknown up to and through execution.

If so, that suggests maybe there can be no strict improvisation on the instrument with which you are familiar... that real improvisation is only if you pick up an instrument type you have never played before and make it sound from your own personal tabula rasa. I'm pretty sure that line is way past anyone's definition.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

That was my way of saying that it’s hard for me to disentangle your distaste for improvising from your assertion that you’re not good at it and can’t do it.

Well, a lot of improvisation is like talking, you have a vocabulary of words, and phrases, which you repeat in new ways.

Pure improvisation is rare, like the blues solo by Paul Desmond in Blue Rondo A La Turk, or James Moody's "Moody Mood For Love", and just about anything by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, and there are many others at that level, but for most, I find the playing is repetition of musical vocabulary. Am I wrong?

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Are you telling me that Yiddish is verbatim German?

Very hard to process that...

A big part of it is the kind of German that was spoken a few centuries ago (with a lot of Hebrew bits and bits from other, probably especially Slavic languages, maybe also some Hungarian, depending upon where the Ashkenazi Jews lived). "Yehudei Ashkenazi" means "Jews of Germania"; some had been living in Roman founded cities like Cologne/Rhine since the time of the ancient Roman Empire.

Languages are under constant change, modern standard German is different from the medieval one. The fact that the Ashkenazim kept the old German is due to the fact that they stayed under themselves, especially in Eastern European countries where many had fled to after medieval pogroms in Germany and where other languages were spoken. On the one hand they stayed under themselves because of the rejection (and again and again persecution) by the Christian majority until the time of enlightenment when more and more rulers started to give them full citizen rights (which did not stop prejudice and persecution, culminating in the Shoa). On the other hand they stayed under themselves because of the exclusive nature of their religion which had stopped to be a missionary one centuries ago.

Is it hard to process for you because you get the notion that the main part of the lingua franca of the "Ashkenazishe Yidn"*) is the language of those who murdered millions of them in the first half of the last century?

*) Yiddish was originally written with Hebrew letters. The modern transliteration to Latin letters from Hebrew letters (which some ultra-orthodox probably still use) is most of the time made in such a way that English speaking Americans can pronounce it correctly. The German transliteration would probably be "Aschkenasische Jiddn".

[joelf]

Yknow I have this controversial opinion where I don’t think Giant Steps is that cool.

It just so happens also that I am not good at Giant Steps. So it’s hard to disentangle me not liking it because I don’t like it and me not liking it because it beats me up and leaves me for dead whenever we meet.

Too crowded. I don't even care if I'm good at it or not. My least favorite vehicles are ones where it feels like someone's smacking me in the back of my head like every few seconds. No time or room to be melodic and spatially paced, which has to come 1st for me. (Like those too-fast bebop versions of Lover---no space, and that's why most 'improvisers' don't, they just run the changes. it's too easy to gravitate to that kind of silliness when melodic options are that impinged. It's like players feel they're holding on for dear life, better play something just to get through the damn thing. Reminds me of when people talk b/c they can't handle silence even for a few seconds so they fill up every space with gibberish).

And I'm not suggesting here that Giant Steps et al aren't accomplished and challenging. They are, and Trane was a hard worker who had a hell of a fruitful yield. He's said that he worked on it for a year. I don't doubt it, given the very strong and focused results. It just doesn't resonate for me personally. I need room and 'daylight between the notes'. (And interestingly, I like Tommy Flanagan's work best on the recording---you know, the solo where so many with shit in their ears thought he was awkward and stumbling. Naw, he sounded fresh, possibly b/c he was sight-reading the changes and didn't have a year to 'strategize'. It sounded more in the moment to my ears than Trane's undeniably great work there. Flanagan was thinking out loud, where Trane had done the thinking in his practice room).

But one day I may just rise to the challenge and disengage the comfort zone. And hope Chris Anderson doesn't somehow hear and turn over in his grave...

[Christian Miller]

I do not think so.
To make ornamentation one needs something to ornament.
though jazz improvization is often connected with this idea.
It is rather variation what you are talking about I think.
Variations can be improvized or composed.

And of course variation can be one of the technical tools to improvize on given material

But the essential conception of improvization is not necessarialy connected with variation or ornamentation.
Improvization is spontaneous creation and it can also be a creation of the whole piece of music, the form itself.
Actually classical improvization (after renaissance at least) is in most cases like this.

I already wrote a few times on the forum..
I am convinced that to get what the improvization is as an essence we should rather focus on the listner's perception and not on the player's intention.
What does the listner in particular context percieve and recognize as improvization and what not? This is what is important becasue this is created by the cultural context and artistic language.

This is interesting

not least because it suggest a way to improvise in binary form and a method by which one could to some extent improvise as duet in binary form (maybe even a string trio if the contrapuntal archetypes are well understood.)

In aiming to become better at this type of thing, the most difficult bit of this process for me is the embellishment. I also think it’s where much of the art is especially for very stereotyped forms such as variations on a lament bass or simple binary dance movements.

You can see this in historical style improvisers - Ewald Demeyre is most often quite learned and contrapuntal (‘baroque’), while Nicola Pignantiello models his style on Guiliani’s guitar works. Other keyboard improvisers play more in the style of Couperin, a popular choice …. You have an interesting dialogue between repertoire and improvisation

The underlying structures in a lot of early c18 music are not usually complicated. (Which is not to say form plays no part in the composers expressive means.)

Historically the Italian school at least were first taught solfeggio which introduced ornamental improvisation on simple archetypes (such as the Do Re Mi and La Sol Fa Mi Re Do in the video.) While this might obviously be related to improvisation for example in a baroque Da Capo Aria (the virtuoso singers of the era were presumably supreme artists at this) the development of harmony/counterpoint from these simple melodic archetypes and then stylistic ornamentation of them is apparently a keystone of historic c18 partimento technique.

to do that you need vocabulary, a type of improvisatory repertoire, and that seems to be what the children were taught early on (according to Nicholas Baragwanath and others.) This kind of ability to recognise Schemata and patterns would also aid sight singing/reading. (Many went on to become church choristers, only a few were chosen to study composition.)

This is how solfeggio reveals some of the melodic sub structure of a finished composition, and aside from being impressive it also teaches us about how these melodic archetypes were embellished by a master.

i also think we can get an idea of an overlap between the compositional world and the world of operatic vocal improvisation in this early Italianate sonata. I’m always struck by how central Opera was to absolutely everything at this point.

(Haydn had to hustle hard to get composition lessons with an Italian master - Porpora in his case. He was seemingly destined to the Spartan life of an obscure chorister early on.)

for the purposes of this thread it has some points of similarity with melodic ornamentation approaches in jazz. there are also clear differences in the format and formal aspects.

in any case none of this exactly what we do in jazz, but as John Mortensen points out jazz solos are a form of variation (in what we think of as the more baroque sense although music history isn’t that neat)

For the purpose of playing a jazz standard I think there’s two sides of this - stripping down the melody where necessary to something like those simple melodic frameworks and then building up again. (Although many standards melodies are already very simple, one thing that makes them such an enduring resource for creative variation)

A familiar example might be recognising the A section of AATYA is built on the thirds above the bass/roots of the chords and going from there. But using this as a basis does not mean we can solo like Bird. But it may help as a road map.

There’s something very much like this in several jazz books.

one thing I like about it is that it gets rid of distracting choices.

[Christian Miller]

Yknow I have this controversial opinion where I don’t think Giant Steps is that cool.

It just so happens also that I am not good at Giant Steps. So it’s hard to disentangle me not liking it because I don’t like it and me not liking it because it beats me up and leaves me for dead whenever we meet.

So it’s always tough to sort that out when someone says they don’t think improvisation is that cool but also that they struggle with it. Chicken or the egg situation.

Fwiw I think I’m decent(ish) at Giant Steps and also think it isn’t cool. It’s an exercise.

it’s clear that Tranes solo is largely constructed of typical bebop (Barryoid) modules.

If you can get good at running D7 into Bb7 and Bb7 into F#7 that kind of breaks the back of it. Coltrane appears to be doing this, phrasing the Bb7 Eb D7 G and Bb7 Eb F#7 B in chunks. Barry obviously taught it that way - go from the top of the piano(guitar) to the bottom through those changes. Easier than it sounds because it’s just two scales. Use the half step rules for just the dominants and you really bring out the harmony.

Barry could smash through it but also got the distinct impression he thought it was a bit unmusical and wouldn’t call it at a gig. I think he just wanted to demystify it for us, and it’s something people sometimes put out there as a challenge or rite of passage.

I do like 26-2 though which imo is kind of way harder

[pamosmusic]

Well, a lot of improvisation is like talking, you have a vocabulary of words, and phrases, which you repeat in new ways.

Pure improvisation is rare, like the blues solo by Paul Desmond in Blue Rondo A La Turk, or James Moody's "Moody Mood For Love", and just about anything by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, and there are many others at that level, but for most, I find the playing is repetition of musical vocabulary. Am I wrong?

I mean … okay?

I guess the first thing is that I’m not sure why those get the label of pure improvisation as opposed to any others.

But there’s also a point at which our standard for what we call “improvisation” becomes so narrow that I’m not really sure what the point of the word is.

Improv theater groups still call it improv even though they aren’t spontaneously generating new languages on the fly.

More to the point, I don’t really see what this has to do with anything. You think improvisation is overrated. You think you’re not good at improvising. You think improvisation is incredibly rare?

[Christian Miller]

Ok as much as I hate to do the dictionary definition thing, I will cheesily quote what comes up on google:

Improvisation

• something that is improvised, in particular a piece of music, drama, etc. created spontaneously or without preparation. plural noun: improvisations "free-form jazz improvisations"

by this strict definition I am not very often an improviser. I can do what is described but I don’t make a habit of it.

Whether or not we might think it’s a crap definition, I do think it’s a popular usage. So I would therefore question its exactness as a term, and I think people do get hung up on this idea to an unhelpful degree in terms of music performance practice

[pamosmusic]

Ok as much as I hate to do the dictionary definition thing, I will cheesily quote what comes up on google:

Improvisation

• something that is improvised, in particular a piece of music, drama, etc. created spontaneously or without preparation. plural noun: improvisations "free-form jazz improvisations"

by this strict definition I am not very often an improviser. I can do what is described but I don’t make a habit of it.

Whether or not we might think it’s a crap definition, I do think it’s a popular usage. So I would therefore question its exactness as a term, and I think people do get hung up on this idea to an unhelpful degree in terms of music performance practice

Yeah it’s worth noting that it’s a circular definition too.

As are most when you get down to it.

the definition of “improvise” seems better:

create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneouslyor without preparation.

until we start arguing about what qualifies as spontaneous.

[pcjazz]

the definition of “improvise” seems better:

create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneouslyor without preparation.

until we start arguing about what qualifies as spontaneous.

Or (more to the point imo) preparation.

[lawson-stone]

Pity then that so many members of the public who might otherwise enjoy the melodies consider all improvization to be completely random.

Sometimes I think it's because they think we play the melody/"head" and then just go out on our own. They don't grasp the form of the tune, the harmonic intersections and traffic flow of the form. A confused listener is not the same as a listener struck by the tension created in the solo. Confusion just kills it. I think that's why touching base with the tune's melody, nailing some of the changes, helps to give the solo structure. At least that's what I enjoy hearing. I don't really want to just hear the embellished melody played over and over, but I do like a solo that points to the melody at key places, identifies turning points in the form, and signals that somehow.

[lawson-stone]

Sinatra winked at his own inability and/or choice not to scat. Check out 1:51 here:

God, he's good. There just ain't no other in that class.

[AllanAllen]

Well, a lot of improvisation is like talking, you have a vocabulary of words, and phrases, which you repeat in new ways.

Pure improvisation is rare, like the blues solo by Paul Desmond in Blue Rondo A La Turk, or James Moody's "Moody Mood For Love", and just about anything by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, and there are many others at that level, but for most, I find the playing is repetition of musical vocabulary. Am I wrong?

I'm glad you came back OP.

So if pure improvisation is dismissing all the vocabulary and phrases, you're basically like having a text exchange with a monkey smashing the keyboard. That's called Free Jazz and most people, those without a head injury, don't like it.

I think you backed yourself into a corner with mental gymnastics. That's not how it works. The Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker had arrangements and solo parts. The arrangement of Blues Rondo A La Turk, that's a purposeful change from 9/8 to 4/4 and a solo full of blues language. These things were worked out. Compare the two versions of Rondo.

Sorry, these things just aren't as magical as you think.

[lawson-stone]

It is not bastardized but medieval German which is closer to Southern dialects than to modern "high-level" standard language.

Has a heavy dose of late rabbinic Hebrew as well.

[pamosmusic]

That's called Free Jazz and most people, those without a head injury, don't like it.

Whoa, bro.

[lawson-stone]

Had to look up Tony Mottola. This is great! Put a smile on my face, and that’s the whole point as far as I care.

Tony Mottola played with one of the network bands on a television show (Skitch Henderson???) and when the band would play my dad would say "Now THAT'S real-music-dammit!" So I grew up thinking the name of this type of music was "realmusicdammit."

[lawson-stone]

If jazz improvisation is part of the interaction among musicians in an ensemble, then it can't be totally novel, never before pondered. If it's part of a conversation going on among the musicians and even the audience, then there has to be a common coin, a set of ideas that are shared even if they are put in fresh ways. I never thought of improvisation as utterly novel playing, but as responding to the tune and to the musical environment, and even to previous solos, in a way that carries the "idea" or conversation to a new place. I'm a bad soloist partly because I'm a bad musical conversationalist. I've had to work alone so much I have not cultivated a good ability to listen to the whole ensemble, flow with them, and then respond to them musically in a way that's competent and fresh. The year I spent playing with a local jam session band every week was the time I grew the quickest as a musician, and it was exactly in this domain. Not playing faster, not playing weird scales, but I had moments where I really knew what was going on among the players and was able to fit in and enrich it.

One night I recall we played "Blue Moon." For some reason I was enjoying the tune extraordinarily, though I was just comping while quite an assortment of hornists stepped up to solo. Then the leader nodded at me--I wasn't expecting to solo. I'd been enjoying the other guys tremendously and so I was able to crank out about 2 choruses of just trying to sound like them, my main goal was "Do not ruin the vibe these guys have created!"

Later the pianist pulled me aside and said it was the best solo he'd heard me play all year, and he also said it was one of the best he'd heard on that tune. I was kind of stunned, but he was not one to praise soloists effusively (he'd heard too, too many!). I took him seriously, and have spent a lot of time trying to remember that specific tune on that specific night. The thing I recall is how much I was just enjoying playing with those guys, and how I didn't want to mess it up.

[AllanAllen]

Whoa, bro.

I wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

God, he's good. There just ain't no other in that class.

Didn't Miles advise people to learn tunes from Sinatra recordings? His singing is always so relaxed and I once read that he was able to sing one chorus on one single breath.

I prefer the young Frankie Boy from the 40ies and 50ies not the late Lad Vegas entertainer but I like this tune written by German Bert Kaempfert who also wrote "Danke Schoen", "A Swingin' Safari", "L-O-V-E" and others.

In this thread I am drifting far away from the original topic but i think it is worth mentioning that Kaempfert also played a role in the discovery of the Beatles:

Bert Kaempfert - Wikipedia

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Has a heavy dose of late rabbinic Hebrew as well.

And those are the words I have to look up in a dictionary (which is easy in the time of the World Wide Web), unless they have found their way into German or German dialects like "Massel" (mazel) in Bavarian dialect: "Da hamma no amoi a Massel ghabt!"

There are quite a lot of those loanwords from Hebrew and Yiddish in German:

Liste deutscher Worter aus dem Hebraischen und Jiddischen – Wikipedia

BTW do you understand our Andy Bartosh when he is teaching in Viennese dialect? (Which also brings us back a little to the original topic.)

[James W]

I love Giant Steps. And free jazz!