How do I get better at improvising?

[joebegly]

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…

@tommo

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.

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

[tommo]

Hehe

@joebegly

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”.

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.

[Dissonant_Timbres]

@tommo

It’s more: chord 1 - some random notes from scale 1, chord 2 - some other notes from scale 2 etc.

Is this not modal jazz?

[jptk]

@tommo

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.

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

[Judmeister]

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.

[kgk]

Is this a hint from George?

George Benson - Scat Singing - Solo - Monster Products 2017 Concert

[Drew]

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.

[Drew]

@Drew

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.”

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.

[4petimar]

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.

[bradejensen]

honestly i think i will always have this question. and i think it really boils down to not having a complete understanding of each note. sure i can use relative pitch, and the overall comprehension of a, scalular/tetrachord/modal/triad/‘added tone’ chord, sound concept within licks (even the basics like being able to hear common progressions, cadences, and modal cadences if we are going to get technical). but not knowing the exact note is like not knowing the letters in the alphabet. how would i be able to story tell without knowing my alphabet on the most fundamental level? i wouldn’t, that is life. prewrite out your solos is the only advice i can give you, and move on. if you have kids try to teach them perfect pitch as early as possible if they love music, if they don’t well then don’t force it upon them. and you guys can spin it however you want, but if you don’t have perfect pitch you don’t understand what it might can do for improvisation. as someone with it wouldn’t understand how those without would be severely hindered. i would prefer to not get into a discussion on it, but i have learned enough songs to see how gimped my ability is without being able to have some sense of pitch.

if you want to see more about the history on maybe where this might have started you need to look into italian solfeggio. find this book The Solfeggio Tradition: A Forgotten Art of Melody in the Long Eighteenth Century by Nicholas Baragwanath, Also find all the videos of him speaking about it on YouTube. It goes into the gamut, and guidonian hand using hexachord 6 syllable solfeggio. but even this i believe is only really perfect relative pitch, because keys that fall outside of the gamut are called musica ficta. but for my body, and brain this is the only thing that has any solid proof of what i would be capable of doing. this still isn’t perfect pitch, but i believe this was the starting point to cement in the notes of those keys of the gamut.

also i believe that having a more dominant mechanically inclined mindset will prevent you from improvising freely which would require a more creative mindset. you would need to be able to use both, as there is a mechanical step required to performing the proper picking, and fingering to the phrasing. but making it the dominant of the two will hinder the improvisation process which requires more of the creative side of the brain to be dominant.

i follow christiaan van hemert, and occasionally he will go into the thought process of what you should be doing for improvisation. but he also says you only do this during practice, and when you play don’t do this approach. you just play, and don’t think. but here is the catch he has perfect pitch, so he has to be careful how he approaches teaching it, and will always show the song, with the progression with exact chord note flow charts. here is a video on him kind of talking about flow. https://youtu.be/G0JUjELvVx0

because at the end of the day if you are performing a song, it happens in the moment, once. do you really believe being able to improvise on the spot is all that important to showcase your song once to an audience you may or may not know on a personal level?

i know i keep editing, but you might be better off analyzing the players you admire. how many of them really improvise versus playing prefabricated solos? and maybe improvising might not be something you should worry about trying to make progress on.

[steve506]

I really enjoyed your improv! No need to be so hard on yourself . It is noticeable that you have a nice sense of rhythm and melodic ideas, and the sporadic faster lines add tasty touch.

Regarding any suggestions to keep getting better at improvising, I’d devote some minutes to singing and playing rhythm, even simple campfire songs help, and singing (even if you don’t like your own voice) opens your ears sooo much. Perhaps it’s counterintuitive to expect to become a better soloist by not playing solos but improvisation has a lot more to do with listening and a sense of groove than technique or theory, in my opinion.