Raking is it the best way to groove?

[Brad Johnson]

Originally Posted by The Clap

It's not hard to repeat something played spontaneously or by chance if you can retain the sound of the notes in your head. For example, when I slip in a solo I'll sometimes repeat whatever notes I didn't necessarily mean to play to make it sound more intelligible, and I never have trouble finding those notes.

Which means that at some point you know what you did.

[Brad Johnson]

Originally Posted by dougjwray

You record it, listen back and learn it!
Anyway, I thought we were talking about improvisation, where the utopian ideal is to NEVER repeat yourself.

In this case Jimmy considered Vernon's improvisation lacking.

And if you learn it, you know it. It's no longer random fast notes to give the impression of speed.

[Brad Johnson]

Originally Posted by steveksux

I have to laugh at those saying "If you have trouble playing something SA, you just need to practice it more" followed by "there's no way to play 16 notes in time evenly while raking". To which I must say "If you have trouble playing 16 notes evenly in time while raking, you just need to practice it more".

Randy

That's what I said but strangely enough the idea of practicing raking to get to that point was pooh-poohed. SA good, raking bad. Who knew?

[JimmyM]

Ah, you've learned and learned well!

[Brad Johnson]

That's true... I have learned something from all of this stuff. It ain't pretty though.

[dougjwray]

Okay, guys, I'll try this one more time...
What I meant was that when improvising, especially in the kind of music Vernon Reid has played before, during and after Living Colour (avant-garde jazz) there's nothing wrong with adding some randomness as a technique-- flinging your fingers around to see what happens by chance. It's all about finding new paths and taking your brain out of the loop temporarily. I'm sure Cecil Taylor has done that on the piano. I'm sure Hendrix was doing that when he used his elbow to swipe the neck and ground his strings against the front of his amps. I'm sure Pharoah Sanders has done that sometimes when overblowing on the tenor saxophone. It doesn't mean the person hasn't mastered his instrument. Being able to replicate what was played is not the point at all.
I have no proof that Vernon was doing this on the Living Colour tracks we're talking about-- we'd have to ask him. But if it sounds to anyone like he was, it's not a criticism of him, because it's a legitimate technique. Whew.

A sidebar: Unlike a lot of composers who composed away from an instrument, Stravinsky liked to compose at the piano because he could discover new ideas when his fingers did unexpected things. (But that's composition, not improvisation (the topic at hand), so I won't digress.)

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by dougjwray

A sidebar: Unlike a lot of composers who composed away from an instrument, Stravinsky liked to compose at the piano because he could discover new ideas when his fingers did unexpected things. (But that's composition, not improvisation (the topic at hand), so I won't digress.)

I've heard (Jazz) people say that improvisation is fast composition and that composition is slow improvisation!!

[The Clap]

Originally Posted by dougjwray

Okay, guys, I'll try this one more time...
What I meant was that when improvising, especially in the kind of music Vernon Reid has played before, during and after Living Colour (avant-garde jazz) there's nothing wrong with adding some randomness as a technique-- flinging your fingers around to see what happens by chance. It's all about finding new paths and taking your brain out of the loop temporarily. I'm sure Cecil Taylor has done that on the piano. I'm sure Hendrix was doing that when he used his elbow to swipe the neck and ground his strings against the front of his amps. I'm sure Pharoah Sanders has done that sometimes when overblowing on the tenor saxophone. It doesn't mean the person hasn't mastered his instrument. Being able to replicate what was played is not the point at all.
I have no proof that Vernon was doing this on the Living Colour tracks we're talking about-- we'd have to ask him. But if it sounds to anyone like he was, it's not a criticism of him, because it's a legitimate technique. Whew.

Great post DougJ, randomness as a technique is an interesting idea.

[Snarf]

I only read the first page, here's what I say to it:

If you're not playing evenly while raking, you're not doing it right. It's your problem, not the technique's problem.