Beginner Improvise for real

[flukeyluke]

Has anyone tried this course? Looks interesting and think I may try it, would be good to hear what others opinion of it is if they have tried it.

Thanks

Luke

 

[Wade Cornell]

I haven't, yet would recommend scrutinizing any formulated "method" by asking oneself if the course is based on the following:

• Visual references
• Practicing licks that simply follow the chord changes
• A particular style of jazz rather than general improvisation

Improvisation is literally your playing ideas that come from YOU! That (obviously) takes conceiving of those ideas either through your own creative processes, or having a lot of ideas that you can recall from your mental library which fit a situation. The hard part, which is difficult to teach, is coordinating the ability to instantly transfer your mental musical imagery into your hands to make the music you hear in your head REAL.

Most academic or online "methods" concentrate on visual clues and simply practicing a number of overly worn riffs and arpeggios from 1950s jazz. These are strung together in a cut and paste fashion according to the chord changes in the tune. It's about as far away from improvisation as you can get as none of it is coming from you and you can't hear what you're playing until it comes out of the horn!

If you can sing along with a tune, and more importantly sing variations, harmonies, and add rhythmic ideas, then you're improvising! Practicing playing what you would sing and making it come from your horn is real instrumental improvisation. Practicing playing something that you hear without a visual reference (written music or chord charts), can help with making the connection between hearing notes and playing them without any other reference. I've seen a Youtube video of this as an exercise (you hear a line,then try to repeat it immediately). It's a good exercise for developing your ear to hands coordination, rather than eye to hands coordination. However that's only half of what's required. You are still trying to play something that's coming from you, and not just a rote 1950s riff. That goes back to whether you can sing a creative line then transfer it to your instrument.

There is no easy (pay money and get instant results) path to true improvisation. It takes years to develop the ability to play what you would sing, and (to be honest) not everybody can sing/create music in their heads! For those who have no musical ideas of their own and can't hear musical ideas, the only avenue may be what's commonly taught as a visual means of playing something that's not from you and definitely not creative.. but you're playing something that may satisfy you.

Know what you want, and better still have some idea of what your creative abilities may be! Way too many who have "talent" are taken down the academic (visual) path and wind up playing an archaic style of jazz (maybe even fluently!), but have no future playing that style of music and have spent years just practicing in that single vein. You are (or become) what you practice! Make wise decisions and don't be led by promises of instant anything, or going in a direction that is a dead end because that's where others have gone.

 

[Wade Cornell]

I've taken a brief look at the Improvise for Real site (should have done that first?) but find it unfortunately fits the visual style of teaching and doesn't concentrate on coordinating what's obviously and audio idea into playing physically. The section on "Ear Training" uses numbers to represent notes. This is a VERY BAD idea IMHO! Anytime you are being encouraged to be "translating" sounds to a different concept means that you are not learning to make a direct connection. How does one do this when trying to improvise spontaneously? Well, you can't!

It may be that after years of playing through the "modules" you become familiar enough with your instrument that you get to a point where you can improvise, yet it's a very indirect route. It's likely that one could learn a lot about music through those modules, which is good, but that information is also otherwise freely available. Sometimes by paying for a course one practices more (you want to get your money's worth), so it can be a good stimulus.

If having a system of modules to work through suits your style of learning, then this may be as good as any other programme, yet it isn't necessarily going to give you the direct experience/practice and instead puts emphasis on an academic understanding of music and "round-a-bout" ways of approaching improvisation.

Once again, up to you to know what works for you and where your strengths/weaknesses lie.

​

 

[flukeyluke]

Thanks for the input, from what I know of the course the people that have used it have found it beneficial, I do need a structure to learn and the course does incourage using your ear more than many I've seen and how to approach improvising over cord changes.

Will have to look deeper into it before I commit, it dosnt give you licks to learn as such and mostly focuses on you being able to develope your own to the music.

Think I'm going to start off going through my book when it arrives and while I'm doing that look more into this.

Thanks again

Luke

 

[Wade Cornell]

Good that you're taking initiative. I'd still be wary about strictly using the chord structure for improvisation as this is the antithesis of playing melodically, yet the most often taught means of getting people to play along. I'd suggest giving at least equal attention to listening, then coming up with your own lines to fit. Don't be afraid to first sing everything you are attempting to play. The ultimate object is to be able to play what you would otherwise sing. Almost all courses are based on visualization instead of auditory learning. If you're strictly a visual learner that's OK. If you're an auditory learner (the minority), then forcing yourself to translate an auditory medium into a visual, then back again to a sound, is a horrible and unnecessary impediment. Know yourself in the process and get out of it what works for you.

Best of luck!

 

[mizmar]

@flukeyluke your previous thread was about begginers material and, as I've not read you talking about other instruments, I assume you are Indeed a beginner both on sax and music playing in general? If I'm wrong, please stop reading now!

If so.. I'd suggest you park the idea of leaning to improvise from some course or other for now. I tried that. It was fun, did no harm; But actually I was too close to the music playing starting blocks to really make it work.
I'm not a music teacher, but I'd still suggest you commit to making good progress through something like your omnibus book first. And by good progress I mean; learn and memories stuff; from the page and by ear, with good timing etc. tunes, scales, patterns etc. I'm not saying don't improvise! I think there's value in noodling with the material you are leaning.

2¢

 

[skeller047]

Rather than tell you whether this course or that method is any good or not, I will tell you what I did as a 13 year old kid learning to play jazz. Back then they had this thing called radio, and there was a station that played jazz 24 x 7, and I listened to it. And every day I would get my horn out and practice my scales and arpeggios and etudes, and whatever I needed to practice for school, and then I would turn on the radio and play along with it. I was also playing clarinet, I had started playing clarinet a few years earlier, so I practiced that too. But I didn’t play along with the radio on clarinet too much.

My first paying gig was about a year later, still in Jr. High School, I got $5 for playing Acker Bilk’s big hit, “Stranger on the Shore”, at a school dance. On clarinet . Funny…. I learned it from the radio, not the jazz station though. By the time I was old enough to drive, I was in a funk band horn section, and we played almost every weekend somewhere. We learned all our material by what we called “copping it from the record”. Today that’s called “transcribing”.

Of course I was playing in the school big band too, and I knew what chord changes were, so if I learned that this song had a Dm7 in it, I could figure out the notes. But I knew nothing about music theory until I went to college and they made us study Bach. And we used Walter Piston’s theory book. That helped me to cement my knowledge, and I learned why All The Things You Are had its changes set up the way they were.

The point of this is twofold - First, it’s important… scratch that, it’s crucial to learn stuff by ear with no written material. Or videos either. Second, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - there are many aspects to everything in music, there isn’t just one way to think of things, and there isn’t just one way to learn things either.

The last thing I will say is that many improvisation courses use the idea of “chord scales”. This scale goes with that chord. That’s an easy way to develop formulas and ideas, but I personally don’t think it’s useful. But you will run into it, so please remember that there are different ways to think of how chord changes work. So keep your mind open and try to allow your mental synapses to make new connections.

 

[mizmar]

The point of this is ...

I was also playing clarinet, I had started playing clarinet a few years earlier

Of course I was playing in the school big band too, and I knew what chord changes were

Surely another point is that you already had a solid base of playing (by age 13! Fantastic) by the time you cop'd it by ear etc?

 

[flukeyluke]

Thanks for reply, yes, I am defo going to go through my book before I think of any courses etc, I have played drums and trumpet a little YEARS ago although was better on drums lol I've also played saxophone before albeit not for long and 10 years ago now so I have to start right from the beginning again.

I'm already working out tunes in my practice like starwars and a few others by singing it in my head and finding where it is in my scale.

Thanks again for comment's

Luke

 

[Nick Wyver]

I'm just popping in to remind folk that 'improvising' and 'jazz' are not synonyms.

 

[Colin the Bear]

N.B. Learn to ride bicycle before going off road.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I have no idea about that course, but this is a good to me to mention our very own beginners improvisation book/audio course

The best tutorial books and video - Taming The Saxophone

Saxophone tutorials for all aspects of your technique: Tone, fingering, jazz and blues phrases, licks and riffs. beginners to Advanced

tamingthesaxophone.com

The impro course is not standard jazz improv, it's aimed at learning to improvise in general.

However I agree with what is said above, if you are a beginner at saxophone this is not for you - even though it starts at the very beginning of improvising it is not ideal if you are still getting to grips with saxophone playing itself. It's best to concentrate on that - learn to get a decent sound and the ability to all play the notes fluently first.

But also just learn to have fun with the instrument - play random stuff that comes into your head and play along with music tracks without worrying about what you are doing apart from having fun.

 

[skeller047]

Surely another point is that you already had a solid base of playing (by age 13! Fantastic) by the time you cop'd it by ear etc?

Yes I was very lucky to have come up in a time and place where music in the public schools was flourishing. In high school I played in concert band (we were marching band during football season…), orchestra and jazz band. As well as a community youth orchestra that met once a week, and a community youth jazz band that met on Saturdays. During the summer there was a wonderful music camp. I was an assistant counselor there my last summer before I graduated high school, which meant I got to hang with my peeps for the whole summer.

And I had supportive parents who were able to find the budget to buy both me and my sister nice instruments. And pay for lessons. I know it was a struggle for them - when I was 14 my clarinet teacher sent me home with 3 (!) brand new Buffet clarinets and told me to choose one. I saw my parents gulp, but I got a very nice R13. I still have it, it’s a wonderful instrument.

Back to improvising - yes I studied jazz, but also pop and rock and R&B. Nobody had to tell me that the way to learn these skills was by listening and transcribing - it was obvious, everybody did it that way because it was the only way. There was no such thing as “jazz studies” in the 1960s. And frankly, it’s the best way.

 

[mizmar]

And frankly, it’s the best way.

Sure.

But some - maybe older, maybe in a different environment, maybe different strengths and weaknesses - people can't rebuild their lives from 10 year old, up.

 

[PiccoloPirate]

Transcriptions of saxophonists Jazzin were available since the late '40s.
Don't remember any actual method books for study, but this, from '61, helped this young reedboy.
That was an album I bought back then, age 14.
I then received "Ornette on Tenor", a gift with my subscription to Downbeat mag.
A wild ride for sure.

 

[skeller047]

I shouldn’t post when I’m feeling nostalgic. Sorry for the trips down my personal memory lane.

The point I want to make is that improvising is an art - like painting. Can a person create a beautiful painting without any experience or technique? What about an improvised piece of music? Asolutely, naive unskilled people can and have created stunning art.

What about paint-by-numbers? That can be beautiful too. But someone else has made a bunch of decisions about color and shading and form and…. The same is true of many (most?) improvisation methods.

The only real answer is pick up your horn and blow. And listen like crazy. For painting, it’s the same - get some paint and a brush and a canvas and then look at a bunch of stuff. You have to form your own ideas about what you are hearing (or seeing).

If you use an improv course to study with, work hard at getting the material internalized, and ask yourself all the time if you used a different way of thinking about the music in question, would you get different results? Because improvisation is about you and your aesthetic, not someone else’s.

 

[thomsax]

I'm just popping in to remind folk that 'improvising' and 'jazz' are not synonyms.

And is not only in music, art ..... most of us are improvising every day!!

A football and hockey player use to be good improvisers. A parent is often a good improviser as well. You never know what an unpredictable child can do!

I like Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. 60 min long video.

View: https://youtu.be/YZKefHuiiOo?si=O13KmTfauFxQ_atX


Around 24:00 - Athletics and music teach .....
Around 26:00 - Who has the final say in the creative process