I’ve been to parties where there were jazz musicians, and they would pick up an instrument, enter the circle, and play variations of what the last person did, passing things around; that was interesting, as it was clearly improvised. It sounds like good training?
3 Likes
To get better at improvising I would transcribe your favourite improvisers, analyse what they’re doing to find out how what they do ticks, then write some music based on similar concepts. This is all a bit abstract because some forms of improvisation are more idiomatic than others - but for jazz, or at least many forms thereof, it is important to sound somewhat idiomatic, so the emphasis must be on doing that which means acquiring vocabulary, licks and ideas, and work on varying them.
2 Likes
It takes a lot of practice to improvise. The jazz dudes practiced so much that it became second nature and it is this second nature that was what improvisation is. It also takes ear training because you will want to know what you want to hear. That’s why singing and trying to play what you sang is a really good tool.
You will want to know what chords you are playing over and what the next chord is so that the lines become tied to the chord they are on or going to. One way is doing lines that are strictly arpeggio-based that follow the chords. This is one step. the next is to play they scale but have target notes that are part of the chord that you are going to in the 4th beat or resolve on the one as well as notes of the chord you are over. This will flow. Use 8th notes to do this. Some things to try may be to target the root or the 3rd. You may want to chart out the chord progression then write out the notes of each and see if you can find where one chord changes to the other with half-step approaches or no more than a whole step which isn’t as good as a resolution. I know it seems like a lot but take it one thing at a time and build on it. It does not happen overnight.
3 Likes
Or copping a singer’s melody
Any excuse I get to post this clip I will, the end climax trade off is awesome.
This is a good example of how phrasing like vocals is amazing.
3 Likes
Absolutely, I’ve noticed that that’s a really good way of building licks and stumbling upon cool sounds. The added benefit of doing things this way is that the new phrases will automatically be available to you while improvising; you won’t have to go through the extra step of integrating the new lick.
1 Like
I agree completely. Sometimes I notice that I overplay. There’s a time and place for playing fast, but a great solo only earns that right when it is also slow and melodic.
I’m still really struggling with the “brain to fingers” translation too, and was considering making a whole new post about it. I can’t sing because of a throat condition, so I’m finding it tough to visualize the correct sound before I play it. I’m not quite sure how to train that ability without singing…
1 Like
Thank you, yes I think if I could improve the average level of my improv to something like that I would be pretty happy. The funny thing is that I don’t think I was more “keyed in” or anything during that section compared to the first half, and yet it sounds way better. I think some of the main reasons out sounded good is that my phrases outlined the chord changes, everything was in time, and most importantly there was a rhythmic motif established right when the chorus started. The following lines reinforced the motif while also expanding on it, and then it all culminated in that fast bluesy pentatonic stuff. Again though, I’m hard pressed to explain how I did that, it just sort of happened; I don’t really know how to practice that.
This is exactly the kind of practice I’ve been doing the past year. I feel like I have a reasonable solid handle on being able to find chord tones, or at least I know how to practice that to get better. I feel like the next step is to be more intentional with what you play in between landing on the chord tones, and this comes down to ear training; i.e. singing what you play. This I’m not too sure how to develop, especially since I can’t sing due to a throat condition.
Can you whistle? Probably more difficult than singing/humming but it might work about as well for this purpose. Or even just a half-assed whistle, where you’re just making an airy tone through your teeth (there’s probably a name for this but I don’t know it).
Years ago I was working on my laptop in a coffee shop and this guy came in for maybe 10 minutes and… he was whistling the entire time with the most incredible vibrato. I didn’t even know that was a thing with whistling. It was so inspiring that I obsessively tried to replicate it myself over the next few months. I never figured out just how he got the vibrato so smooth and consistent but I got a hell of a lot better at hitting notes consistently and articulating. Nowadays I can whistle just about whatever comes to mind with ease. So, it may take a bit of extra work if you’re not already good at whistling but with a bit of practice it could be an alternative option to singing.
3 Likes
That’s a great suggestion. I’ve always been jealous of people who could whistle, I could never do it myself. Is everyone capable of whistling? If I could manage to get it down though I think it would be a workable alternative to singing. Time to hit YouTube and check out some whistling tutorials lol
2 Likes
I don’t improvise much and usually like to write my own solos in advance.
However, I can definitely tell you how to NOT improvise, which ironically is the way I (and many others) were taught: the chord-scale method, where they tell you chord X goes well with scale Y etc. etc. That’s way too much maths to do in your head while playing.
How I would do it now is by first learning a ton of vocabulary (i.e. beautiful phrases / solos / melodies from accomplished musicians in the genre). You can keep scales, arpeggios etc. in mind as you do that, in the same way as you can think of grammar when reading a book in a foreign language you are trying to learn. But at the end of the day, when you speak a language fluently you’ll stop thinking of the grammar and will just think in terms of longer phrases and patterns.
TLDR: if you want to improvise in a style, learn a ton of great solos in that style :), e.g. if you want to improvise Gipsy Jazz, learn a lot of Django solos.
At first I thought I had written this post and a server error somehow made it look like it was Tommo’s. 1000% (yes, one thousand) agreement. Because…
That was how I did it. I knew all the “rules” too but I always felt like I was chasing the chords when I did this in Jazz. It never really sounded like “lines” either, even though all the notes I was playing “worked”.
In a rock/blues context I still was far from a great improvisor but I was considerably more convincing than what I tried in Jazz. I think it’s because I had much more of a lick/pattern type of approach. Maybe one of these years if I ever get my technique down I’ll try improvising again. I’d like to think I’m more informed on things in general (much thanks to CtC, but also just the generall “I’m older now” thing that happens to all of us). Maybe I could kill 2 birds with one stone and work on the technique while improvising 
1 Like
Hehe 
Same here! I think that the biggest problem with the chord-scale method is that it doesn’t really teach you how to play lines that connect one chord to another. It’s more: chord 1 - some random notes from scale 1, chord 2 - some other notes from scale 2 etc.
1 Like
Is this not modal jazz?
This is how I was taught back in college, a couple of lifetimes ago. Unfortunately, for some reason, I felt like that wasn’t improv, and I would think of scales and modes over chords… Try thinking that much over a fast bebop tune and your head might explode.
So yeah, do what I was told to do but never did 
2 Likes
In addition to what I said before. Do not forget to breath, its very important to leave space. so Maybe perhaps instead of playing through all 4 bars you just play thru 2 or 3 and leave some room some where. This is where some short licks or phrases may work and actually sound better overall. Call and response is a big thing too. This is where singers or horn players have us beat because they actually have to breath.
2 Likes
Is this a hint from George?
2 Likes
I mean, I’m still not especially good at this, largely because I don’t do it very much at all, haha… but I think the answer here is thinking about how those scales/chords fit together and looking for ways to resolve from one tonality to the other; thinking about the differences between scale/arpeggio A and scale/arpeggio B, rather than just what those tonalities are.
For general improvization (rather than improvising extremely fast lines, which gets a little more regimented in what is and is not possible for you personally to play efficiently) really all you’re doing is making up melodies on the spot. The idea of just listening and trying to sing or hum (even just mentally) a melody line and then just playing that is a good one here, as others have suggested.
And the other good suggestion here is it’s VERY easy, especially for more technical playing, to let your fingers take the lead. You sometimes have to, for fast lines, but think about speed as a texture and it’s kind of how you come into and out of the faster stuff that matters…
…and then i’s just songwriting in general - tension and release, across as many axes as you can think of (fast/slow, resolved/unresolved notes, bent vs fretted, high vs low notes, whatever), and just trying to think about “constructing” a solo with a sense of development as it goes along.
I’ve gotten into the habit of practiing improvising jamming along to YouTube backing tracks… and honestly increasingly I’m thinking this is bad practice. Jamming along on a 7 minute backing track in your bedroom, you’re just sort of tossing out ideas, seeing what works, what doesn’t, workshopping technique, seeing what can flow at speed and what won’t… and you’re not really working on your improvisation beyond simply playing something made up on the spot. It’s a very different process than coming up with an improvised solo over a tight 45 second lead break in a song - the former is very free flow and kind of abstract, the latter is much more thoughtful since you have a clear starting point and ending point, so you tend to be a bit more disciplined about how you get from one to the other.
…which I guess points to another thing - sometimes giving yourself limits can really foster creativity. If you want a fun improvisational challenge, give yourself arbitrary constraints - “for this solo, I will only play on the B and D strings, nothing else” or “for this solo, I’ll alternate between two bars where I play NO chord tones, and two bars where I resolve every line on a chord tone.” That kind of stuff.
1 Like
BTW, I went home and ended up doing just that, unaccompanied, for a while, after work last night. It was actually surprisingly fun, and a very cool way to add some structure to solo improvisation.
I’ll again stress a general recommendation to think about tension and resolution in as many ways as possible - I’d also add stacatto vs sustained, pentatonic/arpeggio/wider interval vs tighter interval, upper vs lower register, atonal vs melodic, etc to that initial list - but however you define “tension” and however you then resolve it, not only does this help add a sense of direction to your solo, this is really kind of how music in general functions.
But, this thread got me thinking, which got me playing, and that’s cool.
1 Like
Sing improvisations away from the instrument. Do this a LOT. Over time, it will help you decide how you want to sound. Then start to learn what you sing.
2 Likes