Members postalservice14 Posted December 14, 2002 Members Share Posted December 14, 2002 What is the best way in your opinion to learn how to improvize, other than taking lessons? Is there a book that you would suggest? Do you suggest just playing alot and learning scales and that's it? What? John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members evan_02 Posted December 14, 2002 Members Share Posted December 14, 2002 go to jazzbooks.com and get the jamey aebersold "anyone can improvise" video. 2hours of great tips and explanations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members postalservice14 Posted December 14, 2002 Author Members Share Posted December 14, 2002 But what if I don't like Jazz? John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members evan_02 Posted December 14, 2002 Members Share Posted December 14, 2002 Originally posted by postalservice14 But what if I don't like Jazz?John the video is geared towards jazz players, but it is all about improvising! it discusses things like scale usage, building your improvisations, and how to create/keep the interest of the listeners.i think you will still learn tons from it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpoonyJank Posted December 15, 2002 Members Share Posted December 15, 2002 how come the answer is always some lesson? I think it would be a hard subject to teach. Is it like "uhh, play this so i can teach you how improvise with THIS"... I just don't see how improvisation CAN'T be interactive. Its alot easier to improvise when you are playing with others. You can learn pretty darn fast by the examples they give, and then you can throw something in and they can incorporate it into a somewhat interactive process, it's a lot easier to learn when its fun and I can't think of anything more fun... or if you don't feel up to it you can just watch them. Its not like you can learn alone without a few other instruments to fill the void... you hear yourself alone and hate it and get frustrated and give up... improvisation is a lot easier with others and when you feel uninhibited (whatever it takes to get you "uninhibited"). Yes, knowing scales and intervals will help a lot too. The hard part is finding people that aren't too far above you to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpoonyJank Posted December 15, 2002 Members Share Posted December 15, 2002 when you consider how good an individual is at improvisation, it comes down to a combination of skills, knowledge, and freedom of mind (as cheesy as it sounds) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpoonyJank Posted December 15, 2002 Members Share Posted December 15, 2002 (sorry about all the seperate posts) Don't let me downplay the fact that you gotta know what your doing first. You can't just jump in at the very begining, you should know your scales and intervals (whether you know them by experience or just plain know it) before you even try to jump in. You should be able to recognize what key a song is in pretty damn fast by looking at someone's hands. If your not talking about jazz, I assume your talking about just improvised rock and whatever crazy influence a certain band might have, whether its bluegrass or funk or whatever. You can't expect immediate chemistry to occur (although they might). Just inform them about your level of experience or lack thereof and they cant get too upset and just because you play with someone doesnt mean its a band by any means. It's like swinging sometimes, so don't consider it cheating. (they'd probably be the ones "cheating") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratKat Posted December 16, 2002 Members Share Posted December 16, 2002 Hi Spoon...There are four laws that apply to improv that cant be changed because improv relies on them heavily.1- Your ear has to be able to identify WHAT is going on around you (chords, scales, tones, something that you can id easily as unique to something else).2- Your mind has to have enough knowledge or exposure to melody to understand what works and what doesnt tonally while making something up, and then choose variations of it as needs be. This takes alot of time to accumulate. Years sometimes...3- Your hands have to be capable of performing whatever your ear hears and your mind sings. Again, this takes time...4- The fastest way to accumulate this knowedge comes in one of two methods. You either copy songs from records until your mind has heard and understand enough to mimic the melodies and then draw from them for your own creation. OR, you learn scales and tons of chords and differing voicings of chords which does the same thing but faster.The reason we suggest scales and chords is that there is no shortcut in learning how to play lead. And scales and chords are the basic mechanics your mind needs to draw from in your mental tool box when constructing a solo on the spot.Its akin to a wood craftsmen who has tons of special tools in his box. He can THINK of what he wants to create but he has to have special tools to actually physically create the original masterpeice.Everyone wants to be good, and be good fast. It just doesnt happen that way. Even without learning the formal scales you still need a ton of chords in your vocabulary or else everything you create will always sound the same to other people.It all goes back to a horn player i knew years ago who said "The more ya know, the better ya blow!"For my own experience learning lead i went nuts.I couldnt find anyone who would help me at all. Everyone said, I learned it the hard way, so you gots to learn it the hard way". Or they just blew me off with some dumb excuse like "Well man, just fool around and try to make up melodies". That doesnt work worth {censored}....When i started learning scales and increased my chords and voicings i found that the more i learned the easier it was to HEAR what other players were doing. And then i was able to pick the parts of scales that fit my own melodies and play them on the neck. The time i spent doing it the (cough) natural way of just fooling around was entirerly waisted. Two years or more waisted trying to figure out HOW to play melodies on the spot. A year after i was into scale work i was shredding.... Half the time, half the effort, half the frustration.All it took was some discipline to say "You have to do this to get better. So do it right and get it over with Rob!"When i finally broke down and did learn it it became easy to solo for long musical phrases.So if the idea of formal work sticks in your crawl you arnt alone my friend. It did mine too for along time. But there are reasons why classical guitarists and flamenco guitarists can run circles around informal rock players. And the key is discipline and patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratKat Posted December 16, 2002 Members Share Posted December 16, 2002 Spoony- there is another aspect of leadwork that you touched on thats important. And thats playign with other people on the spot. Some people are great at mimicing another persons lead on a record. Some are great at being able to play anything they are shown by someone else. But somtimes these people cant create a four bar phrase from scratch if their life depended on it. THEY are the ones who need to JAM onstage in front of people. Why? Because jamming is the cruelest teacher and straightens out even the laziest guitarist in short order. Jamming puts immediate pressure on you to get it right the first time with little time for thinking. If you have all the tools i mentioned above in the other post down pat and can play them instictlively, then onstage all you have to think about is the melody you want to play. And thats alot less to think about. I never think conciously of scales, chord voicings, modes, and stuff when soloing. There isnt time in my mind for all that. Its become instinctive to just KNOW from already having learned it previously what will fit as the progression unfolds. Jamming also gets you over the adrenaline rush of performing in front of people and being the ONE being scrutinized by others. If you do it often enough and long enough the adrenaline rush dissappears and you think alot clearer from the get go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dkitts2002 Posted December 16, 2002 Members Share Posted December 16, 2002 I agree with many of the previous posts here and add the following: 1. Try to constantly THINK improv out while listening to the radio in the car, elevator whereever. Improv is just...let me capitalize this...IMPROV IS AS MUCH A LISTENING SKILL AS IT IS A PLAYING SKILL!! 2. Know your chords and scales... 3. If you have a multitrack player, try laying out some basic chord progressions and then go back and improv over that....keep uping the difficulty of the progression...BUT 4. The best thing is to just play with other people, and step up the task..commit yourself to having some solos: It may try your band mates patience a tad, but explain to them you really want to make it work and I'll bet they will work with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpoonyJank Posted December 16, 2002 Members Share Posted December 16, 2002 I'm not quite as creative when the pressures on and lots people are watching, but they don't know the difference between something thats halfway improvised or completely improvised and I play primarily because its the funnest thing in the damn world to have an audible interaction between 4 people anyways, not the silence of dropped or undropped jaws. My ear never was that great. I mean I can tell you what kind of chord a chord is by the sound but the actual pitch I would guess would probably be wrong. I've actually improved a lot on recognizing a pitch lately since I've taken up a bit of slide. since I dont pay too much attention when i practice and its all about pitch, I just started to get a nice solid feel of it. Basically improvising comes down to knowing what you're doing, then just practicing at it (which is a pain if you do it by yourself). Just learn to be a really good guitarist and read up and learn how to put it all into action. that comment on playing along over recordings is a great idea, some of the less spacey less crazy pink floyd songs are great. You may have to force yourself to not play the same thing too much; by the time that seems impossible (it takes longer as you learn for it to seem impossible) just find another track. Someone on another thread like this said that they just had so much stuff they already made up that it all just kind of blended together eventually and they learned how to improvise that way. I'm sure they figured out all the scales and types of intervals along the way, whether it was formal or not... thats an ineffecient and somewhat flawed way to learn to improvise though, it leads eventually to a habitual way of playing things and it takes a lot longer... it may seem too much like homework, but a book or a teacher can be your best friend... especially books with a bunch of scales (charts of scales on a fretboard)... just pick one to begin with and work on it alone so your not overwhelmed in the beginning (like G major... everyone loooves G) expect to be bored... basically it just takes time but it helps in writing ANY kind of music, you'll only realize afterwards. The most comprehensive book of scales I've seen is the "Guitar Grimoire" (there are 2 of them, I forget which is which), but I haven't had or seen too many books about guitar and not all-purpose music in my life. alright, the information on this thread may even be gratuitous. I think the same points are mentioned a lot, but its not all my fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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