Gypsy improvisation

NylonDave

Weird thing about improvisation is you want to spend as little time as possible in the 'sea of infinite creative possibility'.

If you work on a right hand pattern without fretting at all and get it to where you don't need to think about it a couple of things might happen. One you wont be confused by a problem that is actually in the left hand and blame the right and when you bring the left in and it drags you can be secure as to where the problem lies. Two you can change the tonality by choosing to use the same RH pattern in position for the next chord and that will force you to be creative but will quickly move you out of the sea of infinite possiblilty.

So rather than just one lick you might end up with a system for coming up with licks based on a set RH pattern.

And that might be something that addresses the title of this thread.

A related point. Studies were carried out with children throwing bean bags at a target. One group threw at a fixed distance and another threw from a variety. At the end the kids were tested all at the distance of the fixed group.

You have probably guessed that, counter intuitively, the group who had dedicated all their time to the fixed target actually did worse. And that is because the brain is better at solving general problems than specific ones and absolutely abhors boredom and is less likely to get turned off by a variety of failure than the persistence of a particular flavour of failure.



D.

Jazzaferri

Bones wrote: »

Hemert, how long per day do you recommend spending on each exercise?

For example, how long to play the triplet run without stopping. Then how long to spend on it total (with breaks to rest the muscles)? Thanks

You could take advice from Bill Evans and Kenny Werner....practice the minimum amount of material and work on one thing til you can play it with effortless mastery. Seems at first to take longer but in fact, it is the shortest path to getting there. When you can play it while having a conversation with someone you have it.

NylonDave

Jazzaferri wrote: »

Bones wrote: »

Hemert, how long per day do you recommend spending on each exercise?

For example, how long to play the triplet run without stopping. Then how long to spend on it total (with breaks to rest the muscles)? Thanks

You could take advice from Bill Evans and Kenny Werner....practice the minimum amount of material and work on one thing til you can play it with effortless mastery. Seems at first to take longer but in fact, it is the shortest path to getting there. When you can play it while having a conversation with someone you have it.

I am not sure that that was really Kenny's point. I think he was to referring to the procedure of manipulating a lick to produce improvisational material and that it was better to have control over a small amount of material rather than lots of material that could not be controlled. And I am not sure but I did hear someone talk about that fact that Bill Evans used very few licks, or lets call them extended motifs, for the basis of improvisation it might have been Kenny.

The thing about Kenny Werner is that he is a motivational speaker. I don't doubt that he is a great pianist but he is also a confidence man.

I am going to go back to the bean bag study again. In the study the bags were the same weight the target was the same size the children did not grow significantly during the study the only factor that changed was the distance of the target.

You just need to change on factor to keep interest alive. But there is value in consciously keeping lots of other factors fixed.

So if you are practicing a lick for more than say twenty minutes and you cant get it to a respectable speed then you need to find some different ways to work on it for three reasons.

1. You are building up the belief that it is going to take a long time to get access to you high end technique and that will make you anxious at the start of a gig.
2. After twenty minutes you don't get it you are missing something important because you aren't really present because your brain has switched off.
3. You will be spending a lot of time one lick and that will leave you with only one lick to play.

Now that last is OK if you are practicing varying the rhythmic placement as Hemert demonstrates in his video. And it is OK if you are maybe moving the lick up a or down a step of the parent scale or playing it on a different string set or playing it in a different time signature or systematically doubling notes or any number of different approaches. Because then you are working on improvisation and will constantly being creative and making aesthetic choices and let me assure you the variety will be good for your technique.

It is maybe like all you have to eat for the week is cheese, no meat. Make pasta one day, an omelette the next, risotto the next ..... erm have some fresh chillies with with the pasta the next. At least that way you will learn to improvise.

D.

Jazzaferri

I think you have missed Kenny's point....and mine. If one practices a number of things and slowly keeps advancing that group it will take you longer to be able to truly improvise using those,phrases than if you master one at a time.


Hal Galper went one further, memorize the piece, solo, phrase, etc. Without an instrument. When you can sing it correctly without backing....then play it on your instrument.


While it is scientifically impossible to prove, everything I have read and my own experience lead me to agree with them, that working one thing at a time, and achieving effortless mastery of it will over say 1000 hours of practice get you much further down the road than trying to move a ton of material a little at a time.

And by the way, the last thing I would say about Kenny is that he is a con man. The last time the KW trio was in town, every jazz player in town who could by hook or crook be there, was there. Phenomenal experience, complete mastery of groove.

NylonDave

I don't doubt Kenny's credentials. But he does focus on confidence and sometimes his advice is a little on the simplistic side of egalitarian. But I don't doubt his integrity, I just think that a lot of people might leave his seminars feeling great and wake up the next day still not really knowing how to do things differently and maybe think that what they need is another seminar.

I know from my own past that the periods where I practice my technique with too little variety the results took a long time and needed a lot of work to sustain and weren't very flexible.

Of course Kenny wasn't suggesting that but it is real easy for we lazy hopeful humans to read in an easy answer even when that misses the point of the advice. And of course that includes me.

kevingcox

NylonDave wrote: »

I don't doubt Kenny's credentials... I don't doubt his integrity

For someone who was recently such a stickler about the meaning of the word "instinctive" you play pretty fast and loose with the long and well established meaning of "confidence man".

richter4208

Where are the question and answer videos Hemert talks about in this thread, can anyone point me in that direction?

pickitjohn

@richter4208
I'm only guessing here but I believe when he posted the first video he mentioned that they were from questions asked at rosenbergacademy.

>-

kevingcox

https://www.youtube.com/user/ChristiaanvanHemert

Bones

Hey Jazza, yes I know what you are saying. The flip side is that say I concentrate on Hemert's triplet exercise from the video #2 there seems to be a point where my playing gets sloppy maybe from muscle fatigue or lack of mental concentration and I need to stop. I was wondering how long I should be able to play that exercise (for example) straight without stopping (say 5 minutes???) then take a break and do another 5 minutes or what is recommended. Then how long should I spend per day on that one exercise (1/2 hr, 1 hr)? Thanks