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I’ve seen some questions both here and on Voldemort’s Site (the VS forum…) about practicing improvisation. There is a kind of dichotomy...
So first off, I do practice improvising. Sometimes I use a backing of some sort, or maybe I use a metronome (swing, clicks on 2 and 4). But most of the time I just try to keep time internally, and listen for the harmony. I would say that improv practice is about 2/3 of my practice time, the other third being some kind of technical study (patterns and licks, sometimes scales, always a bit of time with long tones).
But what do I practice? It depends, partly on the tune I’m working on, partly on my mood of the moment. For a hard tune - I’m revisiting Moment’s Notice for a while, as I got my ass handed to me a couple weeks ago - I will take a lick or pattern and try to fit it in everywhere. Since this tune is full of ii-V’s, I just take a simple idea - for example, for Dm7-G7 I might play D-F-A-C-B, all eighth notes - and play it everywhere possible. In a given session I might do 2 or 3 patterns, and if I’m successful, the next time I practice I’ll choose others.
Moment’s Notice, I’ve spent 3 days on a single pattern, mostly because of the other thing I’m working on, which is to really get a handle on the structure of the piece. Plus it’s a hard tune that doesn’t follow a very standard progression. There is a larger pattern, sort of, but it took me a while to get it. Because I’m old and slow…
Structure or form is important in most improvised music today. In other words, regardless of what you play, you have to know where you are in the form. So I have found it helps me to have a bigger picture of the whole tune. On a simple tune, like a blues, the form is well known - 3 sections, the first two often similar, and a third. Statement, restatement, answer. This is how lyrics to blues are often structured, and great blues solos often follow it. Tunes like Moment’s Notice have many more complex sections, and often a larger overall structure.
So after I work on a pattern or 3 for a tune, I will also spend some time just playing over it, following the larger structures but not trying to be perfect. And really working on playing stylistically, and melodically, and thematically. If I don’t sweat a little by the end I didn’t do it right.
These last couple of weeks, I have spent between 15 and 20 minutes a day working on Moment’s Notice, and maybe another half hour or so on some other tunes - tunes I know well, tunes I haven’t played for a long time, tunes that came up at a jam recently, new tunes I heard somewhere, you get the idea. Usually 3 or 4 tunes. I try to be different each day, but there are some favorites I have - and I always play at least one blues. New tunes to me I’ll keep in rotation for a week or two. Note that Moment’s Notice will likely be in rotation for another 3 or 4 weeks. I thought I knew that tune, I learned it decades ago, but I was wrong. This might be Trane’s most compicated tune, from a structural standpoint.
Technical practice is sometimes informed by something from my improv practice. For example, a few weeks ago I played Bessie’s Blues in my practice as a warm up, and came up with a descending line of major triads, moving down by whole steps, going from the I to the IV. So going from Eb to Ab in the 3rd and 4th bar, I played major triads in eighth notes - Eb-Db | B-A | landing on Ab in the 5th bar.
That became an exercise I ran in all 12 keys, and while I did get a bit of speed over a couple weeks, I still often stumble on the first iteration and thus I repeat the exercise 8-16 times in each key, striving for relaxation, good tone, efficient fingering and just “feeling right”. My eventual goal is to be able to do it once per key, sequencing through all 12 keys, and through a full range of the horn (though this particular pattern is wide enough that for most iterations there is only one place to play it).
Well that’s quite enough for one post. I welcome comments, flames and thoughts. And maybe we’ll get to read some other interesting techniques of practicing improvisation.
- Some people feel that improvised music should be free from pre-conceived ideas and be spontaneous, in-the moment.
- Others feel that practicing licks and patterns (“all 12 keys!”) and doing transcribing is very important and is key to successful improvisation.
So first off, I do practice improvising. Sometimes I use a backing of some sort, or maybe I use a metronome (swing, clicks on 2 and 4). But most of the time I just try to keep time internally, and listen for the harmony. I would say that improv practice is about 2/3 of my practice time, the other third being some kind of technical study (patterns and licks, sometimes scales, always a bit of time with long tones).
But what do I practice? It depends, partly on the tune I’m working on, partly on my mood of the moment. For a hard tune - I’m revisiting Moment’s Notice for a while, as I got my ass handed to me a couple weeks ago - I will take a lick or pattern and try to fit it in everywhere. Since this tune is full of ii-V’s, I just take a simple idea - for example, for Dm7-G7 I might play D-F-A-C-B, all eighth notes - and play it everywhere possible. In a given session I might do 2 or 3 patterns, and if I’m successful, the next time I practice I’ll choose others.
Moment’s Notice, I’ve spent 3 days on a single pattern, mostly because of the other thing I’m working on, which is to really get a handle on the structure of the piece. Plus it’s a hard tune that doesn’t follow a very standard progression. There is a larger pattern, sort of, but it took me a while to get it. Because I’m old and slow…
Structure or form is important in most improvised music today. In other words, regardless of what you play, you have to know where you are in the form. So I have found it helps me to have a bigger picture of the whole tune. On a simple tune, like a blues, the form is well known - 3 sections, the first two often similar, and a third. Statement, restatement, answer. This is how lyrics to blues are often structured, and great blues solos often follow it. Tunes like Moment’s Notice have many more complex sections, and often a larger overall structure.
So after I work on a pattern or 3 for a tune, I will also spend some time just playing over it, following the larger structures but not trying to be perfect. And really working on playing stylistically, and melodically, and thematically. If I don’t sweat a little by the end I didn’t do it right.
These last couple of weeks, I have spent between 15 and 20 minutes a day working on Moment’s Notice, and maybe another half hour or so on some other tunes - tunes I know well, tunes I haven’t played for a long time, tunes that came up at a jam recently, new tunes I heard somewhere, you get the idea. Usually 3 or 4 tunes. I try to be different each day, but there are some favorites I have - and I always play at least one blues. New tunes to me I’ll keep in rotation for a week or two. Note that Moment’s Notice will likely be in rotation for another 3 or 4 weeks. I thought I knew that tune, I learned it decades ago, but I was wrong. This might be Trane’s most compicated tune, from a structural standpoint.
Technical practice is sometimes informed by something from my improv practice. For example, a few weeks ago I played Bessie’s Blues in my practice as a warm up, and came up with a descending line of major triads, moving down by whole steps, going from the I to the IV. So going from Eb to Ab in the 3rd and 4th bar, I played major triads in eighth notes - Eb-Db | B-A | landing on Ab in the 5th bar.
That became an exercise I ran in all 12 keys, and while I did get a bit of speed over a couple weeks, I still often stumble on the first iteration and thus I repeat the exercise 8-16 times in each key, striving for relaxation, good tone, efficient fingering and just “feeling right”. My eventual goal is to be able to do it once per key, sequencing through all 12 keys, and through a full range of the horn (though this particular pattern is wide enough that for most iterations there is only one place to play it).
Well that’s quite enough for one post. I welcome comments, flames and thoughts. And maybe we’ll get to read some other interesting techniques of practicing improvisation.
!
