LearnJazzPiano.com archives: Help to start improvising am i practicing the right think ?
JPez -- 04/03/2007, 06:24:28 -- #34356
Hi all,

i want to start learning some things for basic improvisation on themes i already play. I want to start with Thelonious "Blue monk" i already play the chord progression and the melody of the song.

Now, to learn how to improvise i'm first playing just the notes of the major scale:

- from rooth to 4th (1 note per beat) or
- from rooth to 8th (2 notes per beat).

this way i hope to learn how to follow the song without getting lost playing other thing than the mellody and the notes of a scale to improvise with.

Is it a good method to start ?
Should i learn to improvise starting with other scale ?  major scale sounds a little flat.


Any advice will be apreciated.
thx in advance.

7 -- 04/03/2007, 23:42:25 -- #34356
I'd hate to think that you get the impression that you're being ignored.

Try to ask questions of a more specific nature, you'll likely get more repsonse.

Wynton Marsalis once said something to the effect of "In order to really master Jazz you have to first master the Blues".

While not everyone agrees with Wynton's opinions, the Blues (including "Blue Monk") is not a bad departure point.

Brotherdavies -- 04/04/2007, 00:50:20 -- #34356
I started with the blues. Studying jazz has explained how and why I can play a flat 5, flat 9, flat 7, sharp 9, sharp 5 on certain chords.

But I did all this playing the blues anyway - just didn't ask why!

I have been doing the modal thing recently and the modes are inspiring me to pay new patterns and achieve modern sounds - but its the same old notes!

Some days I just think - you have 12 notes in an Octave to use - you have a stack of CDs crammed full of ideas and inspiration - what more do you need to know?

Bro'

Whacky -- 04/04/2007, 06:58:55 -- #34356
Excellent Bro!  You nailed it!

Scot -- 04/04/2007, 12:17:12 -- #34356
Learning to improvise is like learning to talk. You listen to people and copy what they say. You did that as a child, and you do it when learning a new spoken language. Jazz is no different- it's a language, but you play it on the keys instead of through the mouth (unless you sing too).

So, listen to your CDs, learn as many songs off your cds as possible, and then when you're up to it, transcribe some solos.  

That is ALL IT TAKES.

Spice it up with some books about theory, and you're right there.

Remember- the spoken language is all about how it sounds, not what is correct.  Same with music. Play what sounds good, don't worry about the theory. Get those ears developed and you'll be way ahead of the game.

Jazz+ -- 04/04/2007, 12:35:56 -- #34356
As an adult learning Japanese by just listening to it spoken would take a long time. The brain of a yound child is wired differently and is more receptive to learning a language by ear. Kids also take  classes in school to help master their language. As an adult learning Japanese I would want a grammer - vocabulary book and a patient, methodical instructor. It think it's a somewhat similar with jazz.

knotty -- 04/04/2007, 13:21:31 -- #34356
I like the comparison to learning a language.

Here's my story. I studied English in a French school from the age of  10 to about 25. My English was really bad if you judge by the grades I got. (I was also getting bad grades in French, probably a sign I wouldn't end up a writer.)
Anyway, my accent and vocabulary was horrible. My grammar was ok, I knew all the irregular verbs and stuff.

At 25, I moved to Washington DC with my wife. Before I left Paris, I decided  I'd watch a movie I had at home. Wall Street, with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. A few minutes in the movie, one of Charlie's co-workers comes and shows some tickets. Charlie says he can't make it, the other guy replies. "You got the knicks, and you got the chicks". I asked my wife what Knicks were and what chicks were. She told me. And that about did it. I learned every single line from that movie like an actor would. Repeating every word with the same intonation they would.

Now my accent still shows a bit, but still many people at work think I grew up here.

If I didn't have good grammar to begin with, my English would probably still be bad.
Anyone who lives in a country for 10 years finally picks up the vocabulary.
The accent however is something you gotta work on. Maybe you can't quite get to perfect, but you get close enough.

My 2 cents (unfortunately, I still can't speak jazz :)

Scot -- 04/04/2007, 18:15:38 -- #34356
Learning Japanese would be difficult just by listening, that's why music is so much easier- you CAN just listen and learn as long as you listen with some intelligence.  Try to hear the patterns, understand why things are happening, but that's getting ahead.  It doesn't matter if you know what you're "saying" in music, just that you can.

All the great players completely copied other great players at first. Charlie Parker did Lester Young, a host of piano players copied as best they could Art Tatum, modern players copy Oscar and Bill Evans (among others).

Copying what you hear and playing it exactly is a very very good way to sew the seeds of jazz.

loveforJAZZ -- 04/05/2007, 05:59:50 -- #34356
I haven't done much improvising since I started playing jazz & blues on the piano. If I try improvising, my melodies would end up not melodic or my baselines would just be totally screwed up. I am not an improviser now, but I will be when I master the language of jazz. That's why I have gone to copying what ever I heard that sounded good to me.

Now, I know enough licks and phrases to help me compose what ever I'd like. I think composing adds to my own repertoire and helps me progress in my studies of jazz. Do you think my focus should be on composing as well as transcribing solos?

I haven't yet transposed what I have learned. I think when I transpose everything to all 12 keys, I will be more fluent in jazz. Therefore, I think I will begin to improvise more fluently too. Is the key to improvising transposing what ever you hear?

jaledin -- 04/05/2007, 07:08:04 -- #34356
If you're talking about composing solos, loveforJAZZ, I agree with you.  If you can *write* a good solo, then you can improvise one, de facto -- it's just a question of doing both forms long enough for it to sink in.

My experience has been that transposing is something which comes pretty naturally -- therefore I don't feel the need to work on it very much explicitly.  If you can play a great melody in C, then you already can play it in any other key -- provided you're really hearing the melody you're creating, and not consciously using licks or patterns.  At least that's been my experience.

Whacky -- 04/05/2007, 13:15:39 -- #34356
Jazz improv is about spontaneity so to get good at it you have to practice being spontaneous.  While learning to write a good solo can help you build ideas, it won't help you develop spontaneity  - ya just gotta do it.  The fun part is when you surprise yourself by playing  something you've never practiced before...now that's improvising!

loveforJAZZ -- 04/05/2007, 15:42:25 -- #34356
Just like 7 said earlier, I would put more focus on blues & boogie woogie when you first learn to improvise. In addition to learning first the blues, I would also recommend listening and trascribing stride and ragtime piano solos. Stride piano incorporates many of the blues and boogie woogie patters that were used in the 30,s.

If you can master the blues, stride & ragtime piano, you can master later jazz. Mastering the blues, stride & ragtime has many advantages:

1. It's a terrific jump off point. It builds the basics for improvisation.
2. It prepares you for later improvisation(jazz improvisation)
3. You learn many licks, blues devices, boogie woogie bass patterns, walking 10's, maybe stride oom pah rhythyms. These all add to your jazz vocabulary.
4. You start to begin composing + making up your own blues, stride + ragtime songs

It does not make any sense to go straight into listening and transcribing the modern jazz pianists of the 20th century. You should not begin going directly to Bill Evans, Keith Jarret, Herbie Hancock, Chick Chorea etc. Going directly to modern jazz pianists is like diving into material that is 50 to 60 years ahead of your time. It is very important to start with the basics and work on up from there.

I would have to recommend listening to all these blues and stride  players:

Pete Johnson, Albert Almons, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, James P Johnson, Luckey Roberts, Willie the Lion Smith, Thelonious Monk, Meade Lux Louis, Big Joe Turner

All these players someway or another mastered the blues. When you're finally done with listening and transcribing those players that you like, move on to best of swing piano: Teddy Wilson + Art Tatum. There you will get all your swing and bebop melodic lines and all the blues, stride + ragtime you have mastered in the past.

loveforJAZZ -- 04/05/2007, 15:47:09 -- #34356
You may also want to listen to Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb, and James Scott. Those were the 3 big ragtime players of the 1890's.

JerryG -- 04/06/2007, 12:59:15 -- #34356
What books do you recommend for learning Blues, Stride, Boogie and Ragtime, aside from trying to play tunes in each of the genre.

Paul -- 04/06/2007, 13:27:43 -- #34356
Tim Richards's book "Improvising Blues Piano" is good. Scott has a review of it in the book section.

hag -- 04/06/2007, 15:14:46 -- #34356
Where is the books section?

loveforJAZZ -- 04/07/2007, 10:57:40 -- #34356
Does anybody suggest listening to Charlie Parker solos?

jaledin -- 04/07/2007, 12:55:59 -- #34356
The Charlie Parker sound is out-of-date, and listen to such music would be of little benefit for anyone who wants to play modern music or hang in a real jam session.  

There's no need to reinvent the wheel -- just transcribe people like Eldar and the other younger pianists.  That way you get all of the knowledge of the past without having to listen to all of those old records.  People like Charlie Parker recorded so much that it's nearly impossible to buy all of their records without going broke -- yet another advantage to streamlining one's educational trajectory.

The old recordings are also very hard to hear -- it's nearly impossible to transcribe from them, given that the sound quality is so impossibly poor.

sdm -- 04/07/2007, 14:15:48 -- #34356
Wow, I couldn't disagree more, jaledin!  Parker, while some 20 or 30 years in the past remains vital and important to our music.  Learning from his phrasing is a serious recommendation both from my teacher and in the literature.  Perhaps that's why smooth jazzers sound the way they do -- because they don't understand the evolution and history of the music.  It seems to me this is like saying to the classical pianist that Beethoven or Chopin are "out of date."  After all, they are hundreds of years behind the times!  

Listen to Parker.  Listen to Coltrane.  Listen to Diz.  Listen to Lester Young.  Listen to them all!!

sdm -- 04/07/2007, 14:19:17 -- #34356
hag, on the left panel of this screen near the top it says Rooms: Show List.  "Show List" is a link.  Select it and scrool down to the section marked Root in the center near the bottom of the resulting screen.  This is a list of the rooms in the Root section.  Book reviews is a link in this list.

sdm -- 04/07/2007, 14:22:16 -- #34356
Oops -- should be, I guess, 60 or 70 years in the past for Parker.  Ah well, the heat of the moment.  Now, where's that edit feature...

loveforJAZZ -- 04/07/2007, 14:39:16 -- #34356
That is just YOUR opinion. People have different opinions about jazz.

I am not a big fan of modern jazz. I however, enjoy music from the 1890s to the late 1950s. I am not interested in learning today's jazz. The music back then was good music, but I have to agree with you that the sound quality sucks. Despite of the bad sound quality, I still try to transcribe some of the songs. Even though it is hard to transcribe the old recordings, it is ALWAYS possible to transcribe them.

I don't agree with you that if you transcribe modern jazz pianists, that you'll get all you need to know from past. An example is ragtime and stride. Do you hear modern jazz pianists play ragtime and stride during their jam performances? Rarely. Maybe Oscar Peterson, who hasn't thrown anything from the 1920s to the 1950s, but that's about it.  You do get the blues, and occasionally some boogie woogie woogie though.

jaledin -- 04/07/2007, 15:15:11 -- #34356
Whoosh!  Just making a little joke.  Of course, if someone didn't want to know anything about bebop, I wouldn't suggest that they spend a lot of time with the masters.  I would question their sanity, however.

For my tastes, the straight-ahead players inspired by the beboppers -- Jim Hall, Chet Baker, Jimmy Raney, Paul Desmond -- as well as the originals, like Bud Powell, Elmo Hope, and Al Haig, create some of the most compelling melodies when improvising.  

While this kind of emphasis on melody is enough to satisfy me and challenge me creatively, I certainly believe everyone should follow their own direction.

Back to the blues issue -- I wouldn't think much of a pianist who couldn't break out a Chicago-style shuffle if required.  Three-chord blues can be a lot of fun -- and a great way to learn about carving coherent melodies.  Pete Johnson, Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, Ray Charles, Charles Brown -- all great sources of inspiration.  Even though there are sometimes a lot of patterns which get repeated in a blues solo, good blues players can connect them in such a way as to create driving, complicated melodies which can evoke a wide range of passions in even a casual listener.

spfldpianist -- 04/10/2007, 11:37:47 -- #34356
Try singing scat over the chords and see what your mind tells you it should sound like.  If you get enough practice scatting the progression, you can take it immediately to the right hand as your skills develop.

JPez -- 04/12/2007, 08:35:31 -- #34356
that's a good idea spfldpianist, i sometimes sing improvising over the tunes. I'll try doing it while playing the chord progresion on my left hand and see if i don't get lost.

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