do you believe they improvise spontenaeously?

rafapak

hi guys

if you think about mclaughlin or di meola, all their improvisations are prepared at home before gigs. Stuff that will be played during a gig is learnt by heart first. It is not possible to think about fingerings while improvising. Do you think the same applies to gypsy jazz players?

slicker37

every guitar player learns licks first,then they develop into longer lines like words and sentences......then outlining chords etc. Now,if youve got a good ear you can change these licks and phrases almost instantly,but what you have memorised previously is kinda your default position.The thing what makes players like django so great is the fact they come up with almost endless amounts of ideas and they also throw in a shocker from time to time.A shocker to me is something totally unexpected,then they seem to do it all again and again.So having a good knowledge of chords and voicings and learning to outline them is vital to being a good improviser.Outling is like when you play melodic lines/solos and you can understand the chord progression from the lines played.
so basically improv is generally done like this.
regards
mike

matty42

I think you could say its half and half. Every player has licks and phrases they like to use. But once you reach a certain level you're not really going to be thinking about fingerings and such, the playing just more natural. Plus you're influenced by things like you mood, the energy of the other players, the energy of the audience... things like that.

tacosandbeer

rafapak wrote:

hi guys

if you think about mclaughlin or di meola, all their improvisations are prepared at home before gigs. Stuff that will be played during a gig is learnt by heart first. It is not possible to think about fingerings while improvising. Do you think the same applies to gypsy jazz players?

For sure it does. Stochelo is just one example. You can hear it note for note on different recordings of the same songs.

crookedpinky

It seems to me if something's prepared beforehand then it's no longer improvisation. I think there are few people who can improvise completely from scratch and come up with something that's musically valid and interesting rather than technically amazing.

I think that the arps and licks we learn on gypsy guitar are the reference points to hang thing round and to that extent they are the bits we prepare beforehand. They are also a safety net for those of us lesser mortals who get a bit lost when improvising. I know that I cant really improvise and I get frustrated when I end up playing the same old lines over the same old standards.

I suppose like all things it's about getting to a technically proficient level where the concsious and deliberate effort needed to play is no longer the foremost thought in our minds. As Zappa once said "shut up and play yer guitar"....apologies if I've mis-quoted the man, but you get the drift.

Teddy Dupont

Django certainly worked out little phrases which he used when he thought appropriate but in a spontaneous way. Having spent some time messing around with a particular phrase, he once told his driver "That's it. I'll use that somewhere".

However, several people who recorded with him said he was often amazed at what he had done when he heard the playbacks and could not believe he had played it or how he had thought of it spontaneously.