Improvisation - major / minor keys

Jim Kaznosky

Licks are great means to an end. I think stuart hits the nail on the head. There are two main things I get out of learning licks and solos by established players which are kind of related to what stuart was saying:

First, getting a sense of the geography (great way of putting it, stuart) of the guitar in a position or positions. Why does it work? Are there tension notes that draw you in? Do these tensions have the same effect if you try to use a minor lick over a major or dominant chord?
Second, learning solos can help to establish your own system for approaching the instrument. This second point was taught to me by a local jazz player I took a few lessons from in talking about how to improvise in general. What is your system for organizing the neck?

Good discussion in general.

toph

Maybe a theory buff can tell me if I'm on the right track here: If I play a Gm lick over C7, would I use the G melodic minor scale? And if so would I then, effectively, be playing a C lydian dominant scale? What about G harmonic minor or natural minor? Are they considered good form over a C7? What other melodic minor scales would you play over a C7?

Jazzaferri

It would depend on how inside or outside you wanted and what notes from the scale you use as passing tones what ones you want to hit on the downbeat, the context of the C7 and a number of other things.

If the C7 is functioning as the V chord then one would be playing in F and G minor would be the II chord so to be inside and minor one would be better off with the Dorian mode as it is the relative minor of the V. G harmonic minor has a D# and an F#, both bluesy notes on a C7 (but better stated as Eb, flat 3 and Gb, flat 5. In the context of C7 being several bars long, could have some pretty good fun with that bag of notes.

Just my humble opinion, and remember that Bird said there are no wrong notes(unless you think them so).

Bones

Stuart, I can't speak for Gonzalo and I'm certainly not a great solo player but I think that you are misinterpreting the idea that Buco was referring to. G is a very melodic player and certainly does not rely entirely or even mostly on licks. I think what he is saying is that it is better to play a few ideas really well than a lot of ideas poorly. Also, I think that everyone has an arsenal of pre-practiced licks or patterns that they can throw in for "flash" here and there. The master certainly had many ideas/positions that he would use over and over with slight rhythmic/melodic/harmonic variations as one can see in the many transcriptions that are available. It's all good.

Lango-Django

Toph, when I use a Gm like that, it's simply because I like those G, Bb, and D notes (which are a partial C9 chord) which will sound good over a C7 chord, even if they lack the root and the third.

Then when I'm in position with those notes, I can easily find neighbouring tones that I like by ear, without thinking about theoretical stuff like different kinds of minor scales.

Because I don't really want my playing to sound like a bunch of chords or scales.

I want it to sound like me playing whatever pops into my silly head at the moment.

wim

dennis wrote: »

One can even build an entire career on mainly licks and be very successful at it.

*cough* tchawolo *cough*
he plays mostly a subset of django's licks! but he plays them well with such a strong sound and powerful execution that it sounds great.
I always amuse myself when I hear the familiar sound of a tchavolo lick in a django recording, really have to catch myself and remember that the django recording is decades earlier than tchav

toph

Thanks Jazzaferri and Lango Django. Both are excellent ways to think about the situation. Over a C7 I do of course go for the G, Bb, and D but I hadn't until now considered that I was playing a Gm arpeggio. Usually an E would be a go to over the C7 as well so I'd be playing a Gm6 arpeggio, which is what got me thinking about melodic minor. But I guess that Gm6 arpeggio works even if we're sticking inside the key of F (since we're now simply playing a rootless C9 arpeggio) . And then the other notes in between the G, Bb, D, and E can be thrown in as whim and fancy dictate. Now I'm singing Swing 39 in my head, an excellent testing site for all these theories, what with its back and forths between Gm and C7.

Jazzaferri

Just to add a little confusion, my current philosophy of practicing, (as if I think when I play I suck) is to use the chromatic scale as my palette and emphasize in some way or another, what notes I want to highlight in order to infer or express a tonality or a chord.

I have spent a fair few hours on scales and arps over the past 50 years and still do most days, so perhaps that may alter my way of doing things, but I do find a sense of freedom in not having to think on a scale or scales.

And yes I do still hit the odd clam ROFL or two

AmundLauritzen

If you have a lot of time to practice, and you are able to focus and discipline yourself, then I think what you are going to get the most out of is to learn entire solos and use them first as technique practice, getting them up to speed and be able to play them without mistakes.

Then you separate each phrase of the solo and look at what is happening. This is where theory can be useful, but it's not a must. If you know what chord the phrase is being played over, you can just visualize the lick over a chord inversion to make that association.

Like in "After You've Gone". If you take the first four bars of a solo. How does the player treat the major and minor chords differently in their playing? What changes in the line?
"I'll see you in my dreams" is excellent for this purpose, because Django plays around chord forms a lot and changes a note or two in the idea to adapt to the next chord.

Things like that, being able to recognize and understand what's going on is going to help you think like that when you're playing. When you isolate and explore each phrase of a solo like that, you are building a vocabulary. Then when you know two solos, you can take ideas from them and interchange, create your own "Frankenstein solo" by composing a chorus consisting of phrases from the different songs. This is where theory comes in handy, but if you know what chord each phrase goes over, then that's all the categorization you need in order to start building a vocabulary.

Fast forward 10 solos and working like this all along the way and you will see dramatic results. Your technique will also increase from having practiced the solos in their entirety and working them up to speed.

So if you worked on "Minor Blues", you can learn solos over "Minor Swing", "Les Yeux Noirs", "Douce Ambiance", "Swing Gitane", "Anniversary Song" and "Si tu Savais" to take a few examples. These have similar changes, and there are many opportunities to take licks from those to use the "Frankenstein method" I described above.

Jazzaferri

IMO learning a few solos a year by heart can provide a good insight into how to build a solo. Particularly if they are the ones that speak loudest to you.

As far as learning TO SOLO however I believe that learning mostly phrases, long and short, learning where to use them and how to change them up, as well as the scales and arps, will get you closer to having your own sound sooner.

Learning by memorizing say all of Stochelo's solos by heart will get you sounding sorta like him, but I beleive that it will take a student longer to find their own voice via this course of action. It takes a lot of time to do this.

Both are effective ways to learn how to play, the goals are just somewhat different.

FWIW for perspective, over the past 8 years I learned 4 solos for my jazz diploma. Desmond's Take 5, Bird's Parker's Mood ad KC Blues, and Sonny Stitts Au Privave., plus on guitar, Django's Blues Clair on guitar and a fair bit of SR's For Sephora(first one I did and had to transcribe for myself) Plus Mont. Ste Genevieve (DC's Transcription).