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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:17 am
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Hey, another take on this learning thing...As we learn new information, such as a scale or mode, our brain creates new neural pathways - an new electrical connection if you will. Anyway, as these new brain "circuits" are formed they are reinforced with practice.

That's the premise - learn the new stuff and practice, get that muscle memory working and set about trying to apply the new stuff instead of the old tried and true licks, no small task for us pickers!

Also - use it or lose it applies to this principal as well.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:55 am
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nikininja wrote:
Flood your ears with some atonal jazz or calypso. What you hear your going to play.


I don't quite agree with the atonal part of what nikininja said, but, if you can get into it, you should listen to some classic Jazz (from the late '50s and early '60s). I would suggest the Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" album (or some John Coltrane). The songs are usually quite long and filled with solo after solo.

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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:01 pm
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by atonal i meant the kind that never sticks in one key for more than 16 bars. I didnt mean to say jazz was in any way dissonant.


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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:29 pm
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Wow, what a topic! We all battle with finding our own voice in our composition and improvisation. Here is what helps me:

1. Don't overthink music - there are only 12 different notes to make music with so don't overwhelm yourself.

2. Learn to use your ears - listening to music is just as important as playing. I like to find music that "tickles" my ears and sparks something in my head that makes me say wow. Understanding musical theory (i.e. scales & modes) proves more useful here for me than on the fretboard.

3. Know your fretboard - knowing all the note names and exactly where they are at is impairitive. Be able to hit any note on a whim.

4. Practice, Practice Practice - this of course is where the rubber meets the road. Learn as much as you can through study of technique, transcription, playing outside of what you normally would, or whatever else may suit you fancy - just as long as you are learning. (I didn't mention scales because I can't stand practicing scales religously but I am certainly not knocking them).

5. Finally, when you play out for your audience or record your work - play from the all your heart and soul - shut your mind off! I find that if I have done the first 4 steps right this one falls perfectly into place.

- By not being overwhelmed I find the confidence I need to play.
- By listening I find my ears are trained to hear the music I hear within. (Some say in their head, perhaps its the heart, who knows)?
- By knowing my fretboard I find it easier to translate what I hear within into music off of my guitar.
- Practicing builds my subconcious and allows me to call on all techniques and music that I know instantly.

But if I don't play from my gut the rest doesn't matter anyway. This works for me and all my solos are done through improvisation. Hope this helps. By the way, you will never reach that point where you are totally satisfied with your improvisation skills - and if you figure a way to do that - let me know how you did it!


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Post subject: Re: Question about improvising?
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:08 pm
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cuthbert wrote:
Ceri wrote:
Blaqdog wrote:
When I'm improvising on guitar to a certain song I get certain notes in my head that I want to play. But when I try to play the notes that are in my head on the guitar they end up being incorrect. How do I get to the point where the notes in my head match what I'm playing on guitar while I'm improvising?


But actually that's a good start - having notes in your head. Much of the time we improvise around shapes our fingers know on the neck. It can sound fine - it can sound great - but it is not the way to find new things to say.

The best melodic playing starts in your head, and from there you find ways to get it out onto the instrument.

Brian May said that all his most useful composition is done away from the guitar, out on a long walk, for example. Because otherwise his fingers just go through the same familiar patterns time after time.

Also, whistling or humming a lot is a good way to generate musical ideas. Lil Harding, Louis Armstrong's wife, said she nearly always heard his licks first in the form of whistling long before she heard them on the trumpet. Louis was an inveterate whistler, apparently.

I think you're doing all right, Blaqdog. You are tackling the job in the right order. Have the ideas first, then figure out how to play them on the guitar. Don't worry, it'll come!

Cheers - C


Well, brian may is a composer, not a improviser...he doesn't improvise...really, all his solos are done note by note.

To me, the best way to improvise is...not to think and feel the mood of the song.


Ah, well that's an interesting point. It is true I believe that Brian May doesn't make any claims to be making solos up as he plays them. But then all "improvisation" springs from licks we have learnt and ideas we have had prior to the performance.

Louis Armstrong is arguably the finest improviser in history, and as Lil Harding points out, he worked out his ideas before hand, providing him with the material on which to draw in the heat of the moment.

Ultimately, that's what we need for improvisation: a head full of ideas!

Cheers - C


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Post subject: Re: Question about improvising?
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:23 pm
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Ceri wrote:
Ah, well that's an interesting point. It is true I believe that Brian May doesn't make any claims to be making solos up as he plays them. But then all "improvisation" springs from licks we have learnt and ideas we have had prior to the performance.

Louis Armstrong is arguably the finest improviser in history, and as Lil Harding points out, he worked out his ideas before hand, providing him with the material on which to draw in the heat of the moment.

Ultimately, that's what we need for improvisation: a head full of ideas!

Cheers - C


1)Having ideas before playing and play them is not improvisation, it's composition!It's different...Malmsteen said that improvising is a "instant composition", a classical composer I don't remember the name once said "composition is a slow improvisation", in the sense of "cold", at cool mind, reflecting on what you're doing.

2)Mmm...Blackmore is a fine improviser, Malmy as well (he never plays EXACTLY the same solo, because he also said that he doesn't remember what he does), Paganini, when asked by other musician the score of his lead parts, used to say about himself "Paganini non ripete", because he improvised...in fact in none of his concerts we have the score of the soloist, he always reinvented his part.

3)I say the opposite: free your mind by any though, and full immersion to the piece, knowing perfectly the part of the other instruments.


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Post subject: Re: Question about improvising?
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:10 pm
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cuthbert wrote:
1)Having ideas before playing and play them is not improvisation, it's composition!It's different...Malmsteen said that improvising is a "instant composition", a classical composer I don't remember the name once said "composition is a slow improvisation", in the sense of "cold", at cool mind, reflecting on what you're doing.

2)Mmm...Blackmore is a fine improviser, Malmy as well (he never plays EXACTLY the same solo, because he also said that he doesn't remember what he does), Paganini, when asked by other musician the score of his lead parts, used to say about himself "Paganini non ripete", because he improvised...in fact in none of his concerts we have the score of the soloist, he always reinvented his part.

3)I say the opposite: free your mind by any though, and full immersion to the piece, knowing perfectly the part of the other instruments.


Ah well: we are going to have to agree to differ on that.

I have never yet heard an improviser who's solos were not constructed from licks, fragments, phrases, patterns - ideas - which he didn't already have in his head when he started playing, and for that matter which he hadn't used umpteen times before. Albeit, in a different relationships to one another each time out.

It's the quantity and quality of that stock of ideas that seperates the men from the boys, allowing seemingly endless variations and fresh congruences to emerge - as well as the beauty of delivery, of course.

Louis Armstrong put together his hoard of fragments in a radically different way each time out. Bix Beiderbecke performed his solos almost the same each time, only evolving them very slowly over months and years. But those two are only different points on the same spectrum.

I'm going to make way for others now - but we can talk Paganini Caprices some time if you like!

Cheers - C


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Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:11 pm
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nikininja wrote:
by atonal i meant the kind that never sticks in one key for more than 16 bars. I didnt mean to say jazz was in any way dissonant.


There are certainly sub-genres of jazz that are atonal and dissonant (for example, the free jazz that Coltrane was playing at the time of his death).

I guess you really meant "not modal." The modal stuff that Davis and Coltrane got into was pretty much a one chord kind of thing (it greatly influenced the jams of the early Allman Brothers Band).

Soloing in a modal fashion would be a good first step before soloing in a non-modal fashion: know what to play over a single key before adding addition key changes.

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Post subject: Re: Question about improvising?
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:03 pm
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Ceri wrote:
I have never yet heard an improviser who's solos were not constructed from licks, fragments, phrases, patterns - ideas - which he didn't already have in his head when he started playing, and for that matter which he hadn't used umpteen times before. Albeit, in a different relationships to one another each time out.

Cheers - C


Mmm, never know people who mindlessly take the guitar and start to run the finger ad libidum without any idea in mind, sometimes doing something different, like watching TV or writing on a board? :?:

Then, you never met me... :P

Seriously, I recall that Clapton also said something similar, he tries to clear his mind before improvising...for Paganini, the Caprices are one of the few solo composition he printed, but he never executed them live, he always refused, they were supposed to be exercises to reharse, description of what he was doing in concerts change radically according to his moods and preparation, sometimes he played like hell, but in other occasions, he was accused to be a vulgar clown that used circus tricks...this is also a sympton of improvisation.


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