Originally Posted by
matt.guitarteacher
Don't think it matters too much how many changes you play through necessarily, especially if you outline them in the line pretty well. I'm just a hobbyist, myself, and don't play anything too complex, but I've really worked on the chord/line integration thing.
Below is my "practicing" through the tune they're doing for the practical standards thread this month on the forum, I Wish You Love. I'm reading this out of a real book. Didn't really play it before today, and it's rough. But it does show what you can do with things on an improvisational level once you get the fingering concept together. I'm not a great soloist, but I did some improv on this just to illustrate where I'm trying to get to eventually. I'd have to practice this tune a good bit more to really do it, even on this pretty simple tune. It kind of tanks at the end. :-)
Anyway, my point is, as amateur as the solo and the playing are, I don't really play a lot better without the chords. It's not like I'm a lot better with a backing track, and only this good playing solo. I've just mostly improvised with chords the last couple of years.
Anyway, the melody of this tune is particularly suited to leading with the melody first, like I was talking about earlier. As a kind of exercise I tried to play the melody note first most of the time, and then the chord after. My fingering is occasionally weirdo, but again, some of that's because (in addition to the tune being unfamiliar) I'm fingering the end of the line with the destination chord in mind, instead of the other way around.
I'm really trying to comp behind my "inner saxophone" (the melody I'm playing). I want them to sound like separate entities, even though it's largely based on an actual fixed chord. I'm trying to not compromise anything about the melody's phrasing itself, just to suit the chord, or to set up a new position. I hope that comes across, and I hope to soon have a little better vocabulary and actual improvisation skills to use with this stuff. But the technical concept of what I'm talking about is there and should work with whatever lines/chord voicings I add to my playing in the future.
Sorry to be long.
Improvised duo
Today, 10:56 AM in Improvisation