Improvisation is underrated!

[Mark Kleinhaut]

It’s one thing to “play to the song”, but what about when there’s no song- then we play to the sound and just follow the path by instincts and reflexes. It’s pure in the moment stuff.

[Reg]

Yea... Mark I agree. You do it well.
years ago many musicians did... Jams... maybe start with a tune and completely end up somewhere. I'm talking 60's and early 70's. It seem we all had ears ....

There also is that... audience awareness etc...

Anyway... I like the above post.. thanks

[Mark Kleinhaut]

Yea... Mark I agree. You do it well.
years ago many musicians did... Jams... maybe start with a tune and completely end up somewhere. I'm talking 60's and early 70's. It seem we all had ears ....

There also is that... audience awareness etc...

Anyway... I like the above post.. thanks

in the early 70’s before I got caught up in jazz, I was in a rock band that did lots of extended jamming. We covered Allman Bros, Jethro Tull, Santana among others but we’d stretch tunes to run 1/2 hour down the rabbit hole. Never touched the Grateful Dead though (we all hated them for some reason) Anyway, even when I’d only been playing a few months the jam was always THE thing.

[Jimmy blue note]

While I was at music school, there was no real program for free improvisational music. The curriculum was focused on teaching students the skills of playing on structured harmony.
It happened that a number of students at the time had come from backgrounds that included real time composition and improvisation, and it happened that all these students worked with one particular teacher at the time.
This man was Mick Goodrick and the last phase of his long teaching career was heavily focused on visual arts, free improvisation and ways of playing that were closer to Ernst Toch's Shaping Forces in Music than the Real Book.
Because there was no real program of free improvisation at the time, we formed a group that met after hours and evolved a community of improvisors that included well versed jazz players (Julian Lage was a regular part of our group, Wolfgang Muthspiel was a real mover, David Tronzo was a regular contributor and mentor) but also classical players who had never improvised a single note, artists who had never played music before and folk and bluegrass players new to any free or jazz playing.

The collaborative effect was astonishing. Everyone learned to listen to EVERYTHING, and learned the abilities within each of us to create. Everyone learned to play and control melody, rhythm, dynamics and self created phrases that others could then compose with.

And it was easy and fun. I think just about everyone who worked in this group went on to become very accomplished improvisors within their native genres because the process of improvisation had become crystal clear and freed from specific rules that had become more important than the process of playing.

[Bop Head]

While I was at music school, there was no real program for free improvisational music. The curriculum was focused on teaching students the skills of playing on structured harmony.
It happened that a number of students at the time had come from backgrounds that included real time composition and improvisation, and it happened that all these students worked with one particular teacher at the time.
This man was Mick Goodrick and the last phase of his long teaching career was heavily focused on visual arts, free improvisation and ways of playing that were closer to Ernst Toch's Shaping Forces in Music than the Real Book.
Because there was no real program of free improvisation at the time, we formed a group that met after hours and evolved a community of improvisors that included well versed jazz players (Julian Lage was a regular part of our group, Wolfgang Muthspiel was a real mover, David Tronzo was a regular contributor and mentor) but also classical players who had never improvised a single note, artists who had never played music before and folk and bluegrass players new to any free or jazz playing.

The collaborative effect was astonishing. Everyone learned to listen to EVERYTHING, and learned the abilities within each of us to create. Everyone learned to play and control melody, rhythm, dynamics and self created phrases that others could then compose with.

And it was easy and fun. I think just about everyone who worked in this group went on to become very accomplished improvisors within their native genres because the process of improvisation had become crystal clear and freed from specific rules that had become more important than the process of playing.

Serious question: Do schools like Berklee etc. teach you to listen to yourself?

[Bop Head]

^ This post is in no way meant as an offence to anybody and not related to anybody in this thread. The topic came up in a discussion with a friend who has a several decades long experience in teaching, also with kids. He stressed the importance of teaching people listening to what they are playing themselves. Seems obvious but it isn't. I was always listening to myself (also in relation to the playing of others) but had never thought about that fact and somehow taken for granted that everybody does it. So the possible necessity of pointing people to listening consciously to their own playing was new to me.

[pamosmusic]

Serious question: Do schools like Berklee etc. teach you to listen to yourself?

It’s like anywhere else, I’d imagine. Students mostly get out what they put in.

In New York I played with loads of Berklee dudes. One of the first guys I met there was a Berklee guy who was mutually friends with college friend. And once you know one Berklee musician, then you basically know only Berklee musicians because there are so doggone many. (12 Berklee grads in one three story apartment building — they called it “grad school”)

Anyway … I used to go over to their place for reading sessions with a bass player who lived near me. Not reading big band charts or whatever, but bringing unfinished fragments of original tunes and that sort of thing. One day, on the way home from the session, the bass player looked at me and said “man … you can give them a piece of paper and they just turn it into music.”

Which is about the highest compliment you can get, I think. At least as it pertains to having big ears etc.

(as an aside: that apartment was on Aberdeen Street and most of those Berklee grads and tunes turned into the band Aberdeen which is super cool and worth checking out.)

[Jimmy blue note]

Serious question: Do schools like Berklee etc. teach you to listen to yourself?

Boy what a loaded question. For those who it came to in their own development, they'd say for sure. But I've known and seen and heard WAY too many students and graduates who listen to the pop potential, listen to the money and listen only to others whereby the purpose of music education is to learn to imitate others.

You'd think that it'd be the fundamental order in an institution of creative endeavour like a music school that listening to yourself would be a given, but in a glib, personally biased and saddened observation, I'd say that one requisite of listening to yourself is knowing yourself, your own propensities, filters, biases, weaknesses, strengths and natural abilities. That's far from a given in a big music school where proficiency against an objective metric and being graded for your progress within a rigid calculus is more important than the development of your own self, or language.

I do believe listening is a carefully and finely honed skill/ability. How does an institution measure or grade that? How do you then use those grades to keep a regular semester by semester flow of cash to the bursar's office?

If you want to learn the craft, Berklee can take you far. If you want to learn the art, you have to learn to think, listen, hear and create on your own terms. Free improvisation is one pure way to confront the elements of music creation. It's not taught at Berklee.
My own opinion and only my opinion.

[pamosmusic]

Free improvisation is one pure way to confront the elements of music creation. It's not taught at Berklee.
My own opinion and only my opinion.

Not the case anymore … most of the Berklee folks I hung with took ensembles with Hal Crook.

Im sure you’d have to seek it out, though.

[Jimmy blue note]

And once you know one Berklee musician, then you basically know only Berklee musicians because there are so doggone many. (12 Berklee grads in one three story apartment building — they called it “grad school”)

I truly believe the greatest strength of Berklee is the gathering of great talent and desire to discover the individual and collective abilities through playing with others.
At its best and best applied, Berklee is a place where inspired and inspiring students do their own thing, using some classroom resources along the way. Berklee is a funny place where the best graduates had what they needed before they ever applied and used the place to network, or found something they didn't imagine and let it grow in spite of the classroom curriculae. The most successful ones make friends, play with them, transcend the limitations of the school and ...move to New York and play until what you do is greater than what you learned.

That's why improvisation is SO important.

[Jimmy blue note]

Not the case anymore … most of the Berklee folks I hung with took ensembles with Hal Crook.

Im sure you’d have to seek it out, though.

Hal, Mick, Jon Damian, they're all gone, retired, part of the big departure that's been steadily reshaping the place within the past decade. Yeah you do need to seek it out. Many find it through extracurricular time with friends, both Berklee and NEC. NEC has a stronger improvisational program, and a lot smaller classes too. That's where some of the strongest Boston talent is educated.

[Bop Head]

Boy what a loaded question. For those who it came to in their own development, they'd say for sure. But I've known and seen and heard WAY too many students and graduates who listen to the pop potential, listen to the money and listen only to others whereby the purpose of music education is to learn to imitate others.

You'd think that it'd be the fundamental order in an institution of creative endeavour like a music school that listening to yourself would be a given, but in a glib, personally biased and saddened observation, I'd say that one requisite of listening to yourself is knowing yourself, your own propensities, filters, biases, weaknesses, strengths and natural abilities. That's far from a given in a big music school where proficiency against an objective metric and being graded for your progress within a rigid calculus is more important than the development of your own self, or language.

I do believe listening is a carefully and finely honed skill/ability. How does an institution measure or grade that? How do you then use those grades to keep a regular semester by semester flow of cash to the bursar's office?

If you want to learn the craft, Berklee can take you far. If you want to learn the art, you have to learn to think, listen, hear and create on your own terms. Free improvisation is one pure way to confront the elements of music creation. It's not taught at Berklee.
My own opinion and only my opinion.

My question was meant much simpler: Things like: "Is my instrument still tuned properly?" (well, that you should maybe expect from s/o going to Berklee :-) ). "How is my time? Am I rushing or dragging?". "How is my phrasing?". "Am I groving with the others?" when playing with others. "Am I using the same clichés over and over?".

I meant such simple things, being or better becoming aware of what you are doing instead of simply letting your fingers move around mechanically on the fretboard after muscle memory learned by rote*). Before being aware of who you are and what has to be worked on (in life and in music) comes becoming aware what is happening at the moment.

*) Of course muscle memory is important, but it makes only sense musically being connected to the auditory senses.

[Mark Kleinhaut]

My question was meant much simpler: Things like: "Is my instrument still tuned properly?" (well, that you should maybe expect from s/o going to Berklee :-) ). "How is my time? Am I rushing or dragging?". "How is my phrasing?". "Am I groving with the others?" when playing with others. "Am I using the same clichés over and over?".

I meant such simple things, being or better becoming aware of what you are doing instead of simply letting your fingers move around mechanically on the fretboard after muscle memory learned by rote*). Before being aware of who you are and what has to be worked on (in life and in music) comes becoming aware what is happening at the moment.

*) Of course muscle memory is important, but it makes only sense musically being connected to the auditory senses.

Listening to one’s self takes lots of focus and plain old work, but yeah, you have to actually see its importance and set your priorities to do it. Lots of ways to listen, but for me it’s always super helpful to make recordings. Lots and lots of recordings.

[Christian Miller]

Is Berklee to blame for John Mayer?

[Jimmy blue note]

Is Berklee to blame for John Mayer?

That's the fault of mass market appeal and the general public that is addicted to the "relatable common denominator". Don't blame Berklee for a taste for market offerings. But you can kinda blame them for putting it in a can and selling it.

[Jimmy blue note]

My question was meant much simpler: Things like: "Is my instrument still tuned properly?" (well, that you should maybe expect from s/o going to Berklee :-) ). "How is my time? Am I rushing or dragging?". "How is my phrasing?". "Am I grooving with the others?" when playing with others. "Am I using the same clichés over and over?".

I meant such simple things, being or better becoming aware of what you are doing instead of simply letting your fingers move around mechanically on the fretboard after muscle memory learned by rote*). Before being aware of who you are and what has to be worked on (in life and in music) comes becoming aware what is happening at the moment.

*) Of course muscle memory is important, but it makes only sense musically being connected to the auditory senses.

The fact that you're aware of these things, enough to care and ask about them for your own playing says your priorities are right.
All the things you mentioned are things nobody except yourself can perfect. The biggest secret of musical mastery: You are your own teacher. The best mentor you can find can guide you as you come up against the good questions.
Mark's advice on recording yourself-spot on. Listen mindfully and find your own weaknesses. It takes time. Patience.
No school can give you what you can't give yourself when it comes to being your best.

[Christian Miller]

That's the fault of mass market appeal and the general public that is addicted to the "relatable common denominator". Don't blame Berklee for a taste for market offerings. But you can kinda blame them for putting it in a can and selling it.

I’ll take that! ;-)

[pamosmusic]

Here’s something Patrick Bartley posted on his Instagram that is cool and sounds like something Christian’s brought up here a few times:

LP | MELODIC W?RRIOR on Instagram: "The biggest lie I've ever seen misconstrued in jazz is that improvisation means to "make something up", or to "create something never heard before". No one ever does that. I don't know a single great jazz improviser in history who focuses on being "new".

There are only 12 (chromatic) notes. Hundreds of thousands of incredible improvisers have come before us, and so many have laid down incredible recordings for us to listen to (and study). What's actually NEW? When you pick up your instrument and improvise, you aren't trying to make up new lines on the spot constantly; your goal is to simply play what you like, what you love, what inspires you. ANY lag or delay in this process removes you from the flow state, and prevents that "natural" almost "rehearsed" flow that you look for when you listen to or play an improvisation. This is why so many players in history figured out and wrote down their solos before the session, because improvising EXACTLY what you like is HARD!

It's always hard. It's always been hard, and will forever be hard.

If you want to capture that essence of what it means to be "in the moment" and grab the inspiration as it hits you, you need to do one crucial thing: LISTEN TO YOUR VOICE.

It's in there. Everything you've ever loved about music is there in your head. But YOU constantly reject it because you don't think it's good enough. You want to be "original". You don't want to "copy other players". The weird thing about this is that you can't create music if you don't know music. It's not about trying to be someone else - it's about expressing to the world, "I love this. This is my joint. This is everything I've ever loved, and these chords, rhythms, melodies, etc. all remind me of this one recording with Trane and McCoy in 1963, but also for some reason the B section reminds me of Kool and the Gang, so I'm gonna play that, too." If you don't practice playing the things that you like when you hear it, YOU WILL NOT IMPROVISE IN THE MOMENT - because you have NOTHING to play yet!

Improvisation is such a beautiful opportunity to show people who you are. Who you are is what you like. Let that be your guide! ??"

[Christian Miller]

That’s a lovely way of putting it. “Everything you’ve ever loved”.

[Cunamara]

Is Berklee to blame for John Mayer?

Mayer did a credible job with Dead and Company, displaying musicianship far beyond what I expected (based on his work under his own name) and being downright compelling at times.