Spontaneous Imrov vs. Playing Lines/Phrases

Ando · October 2008

"how does a musician reconcile the the ease/certainty/rigidity/linear of the first with open-ended/more options to deal with/more thoughts to juggle of the second? ... how do we achieve a sense of both certainty and freedom without having to either play rigid phrases or having to stick to the middle position and play vertically?"

By just doing it.

:-)

I'm serious. What good improvisers do is hold certainty and freedom in a creative tension. We all have the experience of playing one song so many times we get bored; when that kind of ennui sets in, my guess is that you're the kind of guy who will get frustrated and start monkeying with things. You'll start rebelling and becoming creative as a reaction.

That's your individuality asserting itself, and that's good. At that point, what probably happens is that you'll still be tethered by some residual structure -- chord progression, maybe a melodic or rhythmic motif, doesn't matter -- it's your creative playing around with this residual structure that will hold your chorus together. So you're not "reconciling" anything so much as creatively bashing against something stable.

You can't get better and more creative by thinking about it. Just get in there with others, play the same tunes, get bored, react against the boredom, record yourself, listen for bits that you want to say "sound like you," remember them, and work them into your improvisations. It will feel like you're repeating yourself, but that's how, I think, people break out of recitation and develop distinctive musical voices. Then move to new tunes.

Or, chuck the whole "repertoire" idea altogether and have fun with other kinds of organizational principles. Just make them discoverable, or we'll all be left scratching our heads.

Cheers,
A

a · October 2008

what do you mean by "'repertoire' idea?"

Ando · October 2008

By "repertoire" I just mean the whole approach of playing established "songs," one after another, like hanging paintings on a wall. The player's approach is to execute them, more or less, and the listener is supposed to consider and enjoy them individually. Nothing wrong with this at all.

However, Koen De Cauter and Marc Perrone have created "suites," which I also like. There, one melodic idea morphs into the next; it's more continuous. There's also the free improv approach, which would be just to start playing and have the rest of the group infer and build a structure as you go. I wonder if Tchavolo Schmitt was doing something like that on the soundtrack to "Latcho Drom" when he played with the oud player. Maybe it was a traditional melody, I don't know. Seemed freer, though.

Be creative! I'm sure you'll come up with something interesting!

Cheers,
A

jmcgann · November 2008

There are plenty who would argue that if you aren't improvising, you aren't playing jazz.
Jazz players across the diaspora of styles would agree.

Some bands perform in this idiom exactly the same worked out solos night after night. Amazing though it may be, is it really jazz? Does it matter if the audience is satisfied?

Django certainly had lots of ideas worked out (I wouldn't call them 'licks' exactly, because he would vary them and play them in different harmonic contexts, etc.)...to me, he is a true improviser with the heart of a composer; spontaneous composition. Often imitated, never equalled.

a · November 2008

I've noticed that there are some musical ideas that I've come up with on guitar that are sort hard to play. So, I've had to figure out more efficient ways to execute them. Often, this translation can take the thought part out of the phrase; often, the easily executable fingering looks nothing like the original idea. This is a problem because while the original fingering is harder to play, it is transparent- I can literally see the ideas, but the more efficient fingering often has nothing to with the original thought process. The new fingering contains the notes, but it doesn't allow for on the fly changes or manipulations at the level of the original thought.

To really be able to play with freedom, I'd like to be able to have original fingerings that are already the most efficiently executable.

Also, efficiency of a phrase is only relative to the context in which it is played. So, there might be a phrase that is really easy to play over one chord progression, but would be very hard to do over a different chord progression.

Any ideas on how to approach this problem?

Thanks,
Alex

jmcgann · November 2008

a wrote:

...The new fingering contains the notes, but it doesn't allow for on the fly changes or manipulations at the level of the original thought.

...
Also, efficiency of a phrase is only relative to the context in which it is played. So, there might be a phrase that is really easy to play over one chord progression, but would be very hard to do over a different chord progression.

Hi Alex-There are optimal fingerings and less optimal fingerings; it's good to figure out which is the easiest to do if you have to play the phrase at blazing tempos; in the practice room, it's good to explore alternate ways of playing...I think it depends on what you play before and after the phrase, if those parts link to the idea at hand.

Not sure about the second point; isn't a phrase a phrase regardless of the chord? i.e. if it's a line that you'd use over a variety of chords, what difference does it make what the chord is, especially if you practice unaccompanied? Or is it about context with surrounding phrases?

The other thing is melodic variation at fast speeds requires that you can HEAR that fast and that you can EXECUTE that fast.

Many of us can play faster than we can think, which leads to lick spewage and a disconnected guitaristic barrage of notes that are well practiced but not particularly musical. You need to be able to think and create variations/improvisations at slower tempos before you can gain command of manipulating ideas at faster speeds that isn't just 'finger wagging'.

I have nothing against fleet guitar playing, but it's usually easy to tell if there is a real musician behind the wheel, or an adept mechanic performing modular lick assemblage... IMHO.

a · November 2008

I'm not so sure that you have to hear what you think before you play it. In fact, what's the point of playing it if you can already hear it in someway? There have been times when I've played something that felt very intentional- it was exactly what I wanted to hear, even though I did not hear it in my head first.

Also, I believe that there are different types of intelligence involved in playing an instrument with your digits versus thinking/singing a melody.

There's a lot of subconscious hearing/organizing that's probably going on..

Stackabones · November 2008

jmcgann wrote:

Not sure about the second point; isn't a phrase a phrase regardless of the chord? i.e. if it's a line that you'd use over a variety of chords, what difference does it make what the chord is, especially if you practice unaccompanied? Or is it about context with surrounding phrases?

I think context has something to do with it even when playing unaccompanied (something which I do a lot of in my solo sets).

Take a Dm arpeggio (D-F-A). Natch, it can sound like Dm! But it can also work over an F6, G9, Bbmaj7, and other ways as well. One Dm lick based on the arp could work in many different contexts.