Improvising?

[trombinstharry]

Hello all, I was wondering what I could do to practice improvising. When you as a player are improvising, what are you thinking? Are you thinking about the notes at all? I know there are different styles of jazz too, but I was thinking just about improvising in general. Thank you

[BGuttman]

You have to start simple. Play the melody with a couple of "improvements". Add things like extra notes, flips, turns, etc. As you get better you can try more adventurous things.

When I'm improvising I always try to keep the tune in my head so wherever I may stray I can always come "home" again.

[imsevimse]

Hello all, I was wondering what I could do to practice improvising. When you as a player are improvising, what are you thinking? Are you thinking about the notes at all? I know there are different styles of jazz too, but I was thinking just about improvising in general. Thank you

A great question.

I have practiced improvison for years. I started in a small swing band in my teens on my own in my hometown. We had lots of gigs so it became a lot of solos through the years. In the beginning I just listened to the chords and played. I did not have a teacher in improvisation. Later I bought Aebersold records and a few David N. Baker books and just started to study those books and practice. I got encouraged by others who heard me play but I have never got really confident with my improvisation skills.

I've just continued to take my chances, and It's not different today. Before I start I have no clue what I'm going to do, but It just solves as I start to play.

I have only had one real lesson in improvisation. It was a private lesson with a saxophone player who also was a professor at the Royal Academy of music in Stockholm. This lesson I took years after I had graduated. He gave me a few tip, but basically he said I should just continue to do what I'm doing. It was great to know he liked what I was doing but it did not help me very much, at best it gave me confidence to continue.

I know to explain what and how I approach an improvisation but it is not very interesting. I think it should be more interesting to know how a person like Doug Elliot looks at this topic since he is a very fine trombone player and a very good improviser

I have put the exact same question you asked to great improvisers over here and all of them have great suggestions on what to practice, but when they get the question what they think in the exact moment while they are improvising they all get very quiet. I have not got any good answer to that question and the people I've questioned are people who are really great improvisers here.

I'm looking forward to answers in this thread.

You can hear me improvise on my webpage. Most clips are more than ten years old but I think I have not changed much. Any tip?

/Tom

[hyperbolica]

I'm a 50+ year old player who went to conservatory, but never learned to improvise. I've been trying to correct that recently, by fiddling around on the last note of tunes, embellishing, trying to play walking bass lines, and just goofing around in general. It's kind of embarrassing because people who are technically not as good players as I am can improvise circles around me. I've tried to ask the advice of people who do improvise, and it has all been zero help ("play something like the tune", or "just play what comes to mind"). I know that I'm intellectualizing too much, but somehow just can't back off from that. I see the changes, and I know all the chords and scales, I'm just intimidated and "Can't Get Started".

Plus, this topic is very timely for me. My wife bought me a book for Christmas called Improvise For Real https://improviseforreal.com/, which sounds stupid and amateurish to a "serious" musician, but 15 pages in, I'm hopeful. So I'll be reading the book and following this thread, because I want to loosen up a little and be able to just doodle. The book has me pinned as someone who has followed the US musical educational system, and has come away with all of the faults that sets you up for - primarily music must be read, and you must play everything perfectly. We have yet to see if the book can help me correct the problems.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but has anyone else used this book?

[Bach5G]

Download IReal Pro (~$2), dial up F blues at a slow tempo. Set it to a billion choruses.

Play in F but with a lot of Abs and EBs. Let your ear tell you when and where. Play arpeggios, blues riffs, scale patterns, whatever sounds good to you.

Then try key of Bb. Flat the 3rd (Db) and 7th (Ab).

After a few billion choruses, dial in “jazzy blues” and repeat the process. Keep an eye out for iim7-V7 chord changes. Play in tune, in time, nice sound.

Somewhere in this process listen to a bit of Jack T.

[AndrewMeronek]

The secret to learning to improvise isn't really a secret, because every great improviser will tell you the same thing:

Learn lots of recordings.

Improvising isn't a blank canvas. You need a well-learned vocabulary to improvise. There's only one way to get that. In the course of learning lots (I mean, hundreds or thousands) of recordings, you will learn how to shape melodies, how to follow musical forms, and all the other nuts and bolts of improvising. Then, it's a matter of letting loose.

[Grah]

I was very lucky as a youngster to have originally been a drummer. That takes care of the rhythmic approach and the structure of tunes.

Also, I was attending jazz evening classes (workshop style) under Owen Bryce in the UK when I made the switch from drums to trombone. I have to say that Owen was one of the very first jazz teachers and definitely one of the best! He was a British jazz pioneer. That took care of the theory.

Of course, I had a very big collection of jazz recordings and had been going to jazz clubs around London for a few years. So I knew how I wanted to play. At first, I was a big Chris Barber copyist but I soon got interested in other more mainstream players.

I have now been playing Dixieland, Mainstream and Big Band Swing for over sixty years and have always tried to improve my improvising, purchasing many good books along the way. But you know what? There is one excellent book which is free of charge and it is an excellent summary of all the things you need to know: "Jazz Handbook - 50 Years of Jazz Education" by Jamey Aebersold.

So listen, listen, listen! Get out and practice with your mates! As Jamey says, "A good musician has a large repertoire in his head - he doesn't rely heavily on books." Very telling words from the guy who owns a company that sells most of the good jazz books.

[Doug Elliott]

I guess I could be a good person to answer this, partly by the fact that I distinctly remember when I had no idea what to play. I was about 16 when my teacher gave me a fake book and told me to memorize the chords of a song. I didn't get very far with that.

First of all, improvising does not mean jazz and shouldn't be limited to that. You can improvise in any style. Maybe the best way to start is with whatever you're most familiar with. Work on Rochut Melodious Etudes? Make up something in the style of one. Play phrases, just go one note after another and try to make it make sense.

Another great place to start is by playing anything you know, by ear. When you are successful getting through a song or just a phrase, try it in a different key. Just keep track of where you are, don't forget what note you're on.

When you get comfortable "messing around" like this, you can move on to more structure.

"Are you thinking about the notes at all?"

It depends... at a very beginning level I would say yes, ALWAYS think about the notes because you don't want to get lost on the horn and not know where you are.

[imsevimse]

I guess I could be a good person to answer this, partly by the fact that I distinctly remember when I had no idea what to play. I was about 16 when my teacher gave me a fake book and told me to memorize the chords of a song. I didn't get very far with that.

I have wondered about that metod. Do people acctually know all the chords by memory of the songs, and know ahead all the alterations and plan what to do or is it more intuitive as in "they know what to come when they get there"

First of all, improvising does not mean jazz and shouldn't be limited to that. You can improvise in any style. Maybe the best way to start is with whatever you're most familiar with. Work on Rochut Melodious Etudes? Make up something in the style of one. Play phrases, just go one note after another and try to make it make sense.

That was a new approach to me. A lot of old music expects improvisations too. I think I will start doing "non jazz" improvisations and see if that opens my mind a bit. I could take one of my folk songs, and just let it take off and wonder away. A good interesting idea.

Another great place to start is by playing anything you know, by ear. When you are successful getting through a song or just a phrase, try it in a different key. Just keep track of where you are, don't forget what note you're on.

When you get comfortable "messing around" like this, you can move on to more structure

I believe this is very important as it helps to know the instrument by heart. It is a good foundation. To be able to play the instrument in the same way you sing a song. You never think of the music or the key when you sing in the shower, at least I don't.

"Are you thinking about the notes at all?"

It depends... at a very beginning level I would say yes, ALWAYS think about the notes because you don't want to get lost on the horn and not know where you are.

Yes, this is the remaining question. What goes on in the head at the actual moment when playing a phrase?

/Tom

[StefanHaller]

This is a very interesting topic to me, I'm also wondering what goes on in the head of great improvisers. I'm not one, I'm an amateur who is barely past beginner level.

I can describe what goes on in my head, not sure how relevant this is for the discussion, but it might be interesting anyway. For context: I have a strong music theory background, with a focus on harmony. I find it much easier to improvise over tunes that have interesting harmonic progressions than pieces that have one chord for 8 bars. Contrary to Bruce's advice, I don't start with the melody; I start with just the changes, and try to invent new melodic material that fits the changes. I'm not trying to play scales and arpeggios that work over the changes (I'm not good at that, but I also find it boring); really melodic stuff. If I had to name one jazz player who I admire who played in this way, I guess it would be Gerry Mulligan.

So, what goes on in my head when I'm doing it is a very inefficient (CPU-intensive) process: I invent the notes to play in real time (just how they sound), then I transcribe this in real time in my head, and then I sight-read what I transcribed. The third step is the easiest, I'm good at sight-reading in general. The first step can be a problem because sometimes I'm just not inspired and can't think of melodies that I find interesting enough (and then I often fall back to playing small snippets from my "vocabulary" that I know work well). The second step is the trickiest because sometimes I'm not fast enough at "transcribing" what I hear in my head, especially at higher tempos.

I have played in this manner on stage with an amateur big band and have been reasonably happy with the results. However, for me this only works for pieces up to a tempo of, say, 120 or 124 at most. There are many Nestico tunes in this tempo that have interesting harmonies and work well for me in this way (e.g. "A Warm Breeze"). Anything faster though, and the whole thing breaks down because my brain can't keep up.

[hyperbolica]

...

This is probably the most helpful thing I've read here. I think I see the problem. I've never been very good at memorizing stuff.

[Doug Elliott]

Think of it as talking about a subject you know.

First you need to know the vocabulary and the subject. You can make it boring by reciting lists and facts (scales and arpeggios) or you can make it interesting by telling a story about it (making up melodies).

Tell the story. It's OK to throw in a few facts, but weave in and out of the story. Feel free to make mistakes and then correct them (color tones resolving) because that's exactly what makes it interesting and keeps the story going.

[hyperbolica]

Think of it as talking about a subject you know. ...

Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. I've got all the pieces, I just need to put them together in a way that makes sense.

There's a guy here locally who improvises on public gigs, but it always sounds awful. My fear is that I'm going to sound like him. I'm sure that fear is not helping me.

[Doug Elliott]

Somebody who sounds bad doesn't know the vocabulary, doesn't know the subject, and is just making things up that make no sense. Don't be that guy - learn the vocabulary and the subject so you can make sense and tell a good story.

[imsevimse]

Think of it as talking about a subject you know.

First you need to know the vocabulary and the subject. You can make it boring by reciting lists and facts (scales and arpeggios) or you can make it interesting by telling a story about it (making up melodies).

Tell the story. It's OK to throw in a few facts, but weave in and out of the story. Feel free to make mistakes and then correct them (color tones resolving) because that's exactly what makes it interesting and keeps the story going.

That makes sense. So do you hear the melody just before you play or is It at that exact instant moment as you are playing? I'm asking because my improvisations have always been in realtime. I mean I have absolutely no consious planning ahead what to play, no melody in mind, no phrases, just what comes up in my mind in absolute realtime. The result that comes out are fragments, but still not pointless to a listener, probably it is things I've played before or heard before but I wouldn't know because I'm in another place, and not very consious of the result. Afterwords I'm totally blank. The inspiration is either the symbols on the paper, it can be chords, it can be the melody in print, it can be what ever I hear, it can be what ever I see on the stage or all of it at the same time. In short not possible to analyse, just a lot of impressions.

Recently I have tried to change my approach to what I'm doing. After hearing myself on recordings I naturally want to take my improvisation to the next level. To me the next level must be to be more conscious of what I'm doing.

The new approach is I try to hear what to play just before I play it. When I manage to get into that flow my brain seems to find and use a (hard to find) preprocessor that is one step ahead. Two things happen one is I begin to play things "I can't play" which leads to a total meltdown but the other thing that happens is I also find myself in more control, and of course not everything is a failure. What comes out is a lot less, which might be a good thing. I dont really know? The impressions are also more from inside than from outside and it seems to help to close my eyes. Is this preprocessing something anyone have explored?

/Tom

[Doug Elliott]

Exactly.
Keep trying your "new approach" and fall back to the "in the moment" way when it melts down. They're both valid and that is an accurate description of what I do.