Playing Outside

**Vladan** · 08-10-2016, 11:39 AM

Out sounds good only if overal it sounds as if it was in, with the rest of the music. Even if in sound on sound manner. No ammount of tone, attitude and learned tricks will help your personal lack of musicalty. Not for any extended period, at least.

There's no point in playing out and not sounding good, or not soundibg bad. Not sounding bad is equal to not sounding good. First you have to sound good, even if you play out, but good must be the music you produce. Tone and attitude are not music. They can only add to the charm. They can not cover for sounding bad, out of key, being repetitive, unimaginative and calculated.

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**Boston Joe** · 08-10-2016, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Vladan

Out sounds good only if overal it sounds as if it was in, with the rest of the music. Even if in sound on sound manner. No ammount of tone, attitude and learned tricks will help your personal lack of musicalty. Not for any extended period, at least.

No, but the attitude is crucial for out stuff to sound good, and the "tricks" can get you thinking in new ways.

**Vladan** · 08-10-2016, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

No, but the attitude is crucial for out stuff to sound good, ...

It is is only crucial for delusional valuation of own playing.

**wolflen** · 08-10-2016, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

No, but the attitude is crucial for out stuff to sound good, and the "tricks" can get you thinking in new ways.

joe..vey good point..when I'm in a fusion setting..its far more important to have that "feel" .. playing "out" is far more than just playing a "half step up"..

In studying the lines of Joe Diorio and John Scofield..and just playing them..it sounds not only dull..but mechanical..but add the "punch" and mean it..it becomes alive and vibrant .. instead of long winded and boring...I have walked out of 15 min "fusion solos" that try to impress the listener.."wow dig this far out line"..instead of something melodic..and yes fusion can be very melodic..even with lines drawn for diminished and augmented scales..and there are many points of resolution and substitution opportunities that are very diatonic within those two scale structures..the augmented scale in particular...

**gator811** · 08-11-2016, 02:38 AM

No one has mentioned the LCC!
Maybe it has a similar effect here as it has on other forums (except the LCC forum)....the effect of mass eyes glazing over...

But seriously if the OP or anyone else needs a theoretical framework then I think it's worth investigating for the organisation of consonance and dissonance against common chords. You may need a translator.

Also another great contribution is John O'Gallagher's Book on 12 tone improvisation. He can talk it and walk it.
I have the book and am staring down the barrel of more years of study than I have left on the clock to really engage with the material...but its still really well put together.

stworzenie · 08-11-2016, 05:44 AM

John O'Gallagher's Book on 12 tone improvisation

I must have it!!

**AlteredDave** · 08-11-2016, 11:30 PM

Outside playing has to do more about how you resolve inside rather than what you actually play when outside, theoretically anything goes since outside notes are no longer theoretically correct, pun intended lol.

In Outside playing you could use any chromatic notes, superimposed scales-arpeggios of your choice to solo over any chord as long as you employ a more creative rhythmic approach to such outside passages while soloing. Scofield rhythmic approach to his outside lines is a good example that outside it doesn't have to be super cerebral about it use some substitutions here and there and keep an interesting rhythms and most important, the attitude. Obviously some notes sound better than others in certain situations. Listening to records and transcribing is the only way.

Jean-Marc Belkadi, another great "outside player" has a good book 'Outside Soloing For Guitar' from Musicians Institute. It has lots of licks and theory behind every note played and divides the outside approach in 4 main categories but I only remember 3 of them:

Chromatic
Superimposition
Symmetric

**pingu** · 08-12-2016, 09:25 AM

How long you stay out is important ...
(I only like a second or so of out myself)

How you you land back 'in' is
crucial ....

The only out I really can't dig is the major
Third note on a minor tonality
(Although it can be done apparently ...
As part of a chromatic line I guess it works)

One players out is
Another players in ... And vice versa

Pingu out

stworzenie · 08-12-2016, 01:29 PM

Gustavo Assis Brasil

1.

Gee 03:53

Jean-Marc Belkadi, another great "outside player" has a good book 'Outside Soloing For Guitar' from Musicians Institute.

Could You show here book cover?I can not find this title anywhere
only this:

**Guitarzen** · 08-13-2016, 03:01 PM

As far as I can tell there is no rules for playing "outside". The moving up or back a half-step trick is just one of many. From what I can tell, the best "outside" players are those who are masters of playing inside. And same goes for atonal music in general - the best atonal compositions were written by masters of tonality i.e. Schoenberg. I've heard people playing "outside" or performing their "atonal" compositions, and it was clear (to me) that they had very little understanding of how music works. In some cases people will use the label "atonal" or "outside" as an excuse for the fact that they just can't make a good melody or know how to harmonize something properly. Anyways, I've been messing around a lot lately with atonal / semi-atonal music and having a lot of fun with it. One thing I am finding is that the best ideas I am coming up with (as far as I can tell) are the ones I simply come up with by ear. It's almost like coming full circle - I started out playing mainly by ear, then I obsessed on theory for the next 20 years, and now I am going back to just playing by ear, and starting to get better results, I think. It just so happens that many of the ideas I am coming up with are very outside and semi-atonal.

**Jonah** · 08-15-2016, 11:12 AM

As far as I can tell there is no rules for playing "outside".

of course because 'outside' is exceptional notion... that means to be 'out of something' and understanding of limits of this something can be very different individual and obscure

**AlteredDave** · 08-18-2016, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by stworzenie

Gustavo Assis Brasil

1.

Gee 03:53

Jean-Marc Belkadi, another great "outside player" has a good book 'Outside Soloing For Guitar' from Musicians Institute.

Could You show here book cover?I can not find this title anywhere
only this:

My bad, that's the book I was talking about but I had the wrong title in mind. More than a method It's a collection of outside licks using all the modes and includes altered chords.
For the record, the musical examples in the accompanying cd are more in a fusion context than pure jazz but of course they can be translated to any style.

stworzenie · 08-21-2016, 02:12 PM

John O'Gallagher's Book on 12 tone improvisation - looted
comprehension - excessively anglophone

fortunately, notes are a universal language

George Garzone - Triadic Chromatic Approach - is on the way
I have to wait until November...but I hope that I will live to see
USA organizes for us Slavo-Slavonic war (Poles vs. Russians)...anyway
I try to be of good cheer and I can not wait for DVD...

signed by George :>

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 08-22-2016, 10:44 AM

I did not see that last post coming.

**christianm77** · 08-22-2016, 03:26 PM

John O'Gallagher's Book on 12 tone improvisation - looted
comprehension - excessively anglophone

fortunately, notes are a universal language

I have that on my shelf collecting dust, but it looks interesting.

I'm thinking 12-tone music doesn't count as outside, because in order to be outside something has to be defined as inside. Outside playing is outside because eventually it comes inside. Dissonance and resolution.

12-tone stuff is all about organising music in a way that doesn't reference tonal harmony, although Webern IIRC did make a conscious effort to avoid consonant intervals and harmony, so I suppose in a weird way his inside was our outside.

I have an ex who was into that shit at music college (she's a trained composer with perfect pitch, which I understand helps with Webern).

These days she plays whimsical ukelele songs.

**Boston Joe** · 08-22-2016, 03:44 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

12-tone stuff is all about organising music in a way that doesn't reference tonal harmony,

True, but if you take a tone row and play it over some "inside" chords, and frame it with inside stuff, you can get some good outside lines.

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 08-22-2016, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I have an ex who was into that shit at music college (she's a trained composer with perfect pitch, which I understand helps with Webern).

These days she plays whimsical ukelele songs.

Yes but I bet she slips in a little Klangfarbenmelodie.

**christianm77** · 08-22-2016, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

True, but if you take a tone row and play it over some "inside" chords, and frame it with inside stuff, you can get some good outside lines.

Sure. I think the John O'Gallagher book is a bit more hardcore than that.

**Boston Joe** · 08-22-2016, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Sure. I think the John O'Gallagher book is a bit more hardcore than that.

Probably. Just saying you can use material in ways that it wasn't originally intended to be used. So it might be worth working on just for that kind of thing.

**christianm77** · 08-22-2016, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

Probably. Just saying you can use material in ways that it wasn't originally intended to be used. So it might be worth working on just for that kind of thing.

Sure, from my initial try out of some of the ideas, I think the 12-tone book is very much about using the system as it was originally intended, generating all your music by permutating intervallic cells and doing serial transformations etc on the fly. It's potentially really deep with many ramifications for improvisation in general, not just in an non-tonal context.

I suspect it would take at least a year or two to get grips with it with regular practice - anyone had any direct experience working with this book?

That's kind of why I haven't gone into it - I can see it's going to be a rabbit hole. At the moment I have enough rabbit hole-ness going on with the Partimento thing...

In terms of the basic idea of improvising 12-tone style ideas - as in not playing the same note twice until you've gone through all 12 - well it's not that hard. It's quite a fun exercise. And it certainly sounds outside!.

**bako** · 08-22-2016, 10:17 PM

Tonal or Atonal?

CEG# FAC# BbDF# EbGB

CF# FB EBb D#A DG# C#G

CB BbA AbG GbF ED# DC#

CFBbEb EADG AbDbGbCb

CEbGbA BDFAb BbDbEG

CDE GAB DbEbF GbAbBb

**Thumpalumpacus** · 08-23-2016, 01:29 AM

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

I did not see that last post coming.

Yeah, makes left-field look like home plate.

stworzenie · 08-24-2016, 06:16 AM

I may be wrong but this country lick 9:06 (and few other) includes out notes
So we can say that in country are used bebop scales or just chromatics or what?

**gator811** · 08-24-2016, 06:20 PM

hmmmm I dont see John's book as an exploration of 12 tone music "writ large" at all. Its about using various tone row organisations to improvise. John can play "There will be another you" using this stuff and it sounds hip.