Learning to Solo from the Heads

hdiddy · #1 12-18-2006, 05:39 PM

Just wondering, has anybody tried treating a head to a tune as a solo and using the individual phrases as licks? I would imagine the bebop heads would work alot better for this.

I tried this yesterday using Blues for Alice. For instance, I came up with two different but small licks (or "phrase-lets") out of the first two bars of the tune. Do the lick in 12 keys, then try to use it as a motif over a solo. Kinda interesting as you can interpret this as learning some of Bird's melodic phrasing, in a sorta kinda way.

Anybody try this approach before? Did you get anywhere with it?

jazzbassnerd · #2 12-18-2006, 06:35 PM

This approach has been suggested to me by a lot of people, but in a slightly different way. The idea I've heard is to look at the melody of any tune, use rhythmic, intervalic, contrupuntal, et cetera ideas and to use them to solo over the tune.

Even when done not-so-well, it gives great results.

hdiddy · #3 12-18-2006, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NERDE DE LA BASSE DE JAZZ

The idea I've heard is to look at the melody of any tune, use rhythmic, intervalic, contrupuntal, et cetera ideas and to use them to solo over the tune.

Whaddaya mean? Details please!

Mess with the rhythm of the head? Mess with the intervals in the way with the head is written out? How about an example?

jazzbassnerd · #4 12-19-2006, 09:38 AM

Something like Au Privave ....

The first figure could be used and transposed to different key centers, it could also be used as an idea that could start on the 9th instead of the third.

Also the descending 6th from that same first figure could be used. End a lot of phrases with descending 6ths, play entire phrases only using the interval of the 6th.

The idea is that all of your melodic material would be generated by the tune itself.

Mixmasta J · #5 12-28-2006, 10:36 AM

When melodies are written over chord progressions, they often contain key notes that are found in the chord that is being played during a specific measure. Strong tonal centers for soloing are in the third and seventh of a chord, as well as roots and fifths. This notes can often be found in the melody.

For Example, in the standard "All of Me" , (in the key of C), we see in the first measure a C6 chord. This chod contains a major triad plus a major 6th added to it, and the chord lasts for the first two measures. the first three notes in the head are a C, a G, and an E. These three notes form the major triad of a Cmaj chord. In the second measure we have the same E being held over, and then a drag tripelet of a c-d-c pattern. This shifts from an root (or an octave) to a major second (or 9th). This gives the melody some direction by using a slightly weaker tone (in the D) to give the shift from the root to the root a little bit more flavor.

You can analyze most songs like this, and by using similar notes in the head, ou are going to hit key notes that identify the chord. Heads also contain passing tones and other notes that lead the player into new tonal centers, and can add some variety. IMO, heads are a lot like a solo.

In the end though, you want to make the solo yours, although playing around with the head is a very effiecent way to start a solo and perhaps give it some direction and theme.

I hope this helped a little, and made sense haha

- Joe

Phil Smith · #6 12-28-2006, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mixmasta J

...IMO, heads are a lot like a solo...
- Joe

The head is the first solo.

Mixmasta J · #7 12-28-2006, 03:01 PM

thats a good way to think about it

SLaPiNFuNK · #8 01-03-2007, 12:17 AM

you can transcribe and analyze the notes...

and them put them over other chord changes... ie (2/5/1) with different approaches or with similar structures / rhythems and make your own solos out of them...

Ben Rolston · #9 01-03-2007, 12:38 AM

I had it explained to me this way:
The head (or melody) is the story of the song. Even though the goal of Jazz is fluid improvisation, if you don't refer to the melody the listener will gradually lose interest (despite what new augmented inversions of crazy new chords that youre playing). If you lose track of the story more things are a risk also than just a pleasing solo, it is much easier to get lost in a tune if you are unaware of the melody. Conversely, if you keep the melody in your head while soloing, I find it basically impossible to become lost.

I just feel that part of the reason you should be playing a song is because you like the melody, so why not use and sound good.

SLaPiNFuNK · #10 01-03-2007, 12:45 AM

One of the things people do all the time in jazz is "quote" other melodies...

If you are playing "I Got Rhythm" you will play "Anthropology" atleast a short phrase from it intermingled with what ever else you are playing...

Bird, Coletrane, Jaco, Miles, etc etc... anyone who was a great soloist did it...

Soloists develope their own voices... They are known for quoting certain songs... There were certain melodies Jaco was known to always quote... the same goes for the mentioned above... in any tune they were playing in.... that was their voice... that is what made them recognizeable...

Stewthebassman · #11 01-09-2007, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Rolston

I had it explained to me this way:
The head (or melody) is the story of the song. Even though the goal of Jazz is fluid improvisation, if you don't refer to the melody the listener will gradually lose interest (despite what new augmented inversions of crazy new chords that youre playing). If you lose track of the story more things are a risk also than just a pleasing solo, it is much easier to get lost in a tune if you are unaware of the melody. Conversely, if you keep the melody in your head while soloing, I find it basically impossible to become lost.

I just feel that part of the reason you should be playing a song is because you like the melody, so why not use and sound good.

When I play a solo that quotes the head a lot, I actually enjoy listening to it afterwards because I understand it better and I think others must too!!!

Ben Rolston · #12 01-09-2007, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stewthebassman

When I play a solo that quotes the head a lot, I actually enjoy listening to it afterwards because I understand it better and I think others must too!!!

Thats whats up!

Stewthebassman · #13 01-11-2007, 09:30 AM

Last night at my gig I did just this....for all my solos I played at least the first 4 bars strictly by the head, and then bit by bit I let the improvised bits take over...I found that my ideas were nicer than when I let my fingers just flap, and it seemed like I was able to build a nicer solo each time.

Ben Rolston · #14 01-11-2007, 08:32 PM

It can, like anything, be over used but I'm glad you've found something that seems to work well for you.

Snarf · #15 01-16-2007, 01:27 PM

Some teachers really like this method a lot . . . but I don't. I take my soloing influences primarily from horn and guitar players. Seriously, if you listen to any happening cat, they really almost never use the head as the major basis for a solo. I think you have to get your own licks and phrasing happening. Using the head is just soooooooooooo painfully in, I could never hear myself doing it.

Alex Spradling · #16 01-16-2007, 04:14 PM

Brad Mehldau references the head all the time, and in alot of interviews he talks about how he uses the melody to the head as a base for his improvisation. Obviously he has a whole arsenal of stuff to play, but he does do this all the time. Anddddd, Mehldau is like the supreme "happening" cat.

hdiddy · #17 01-16-2007, 05:16 PM

Actually, when I started this thread I was asking about using different heads a melodic devices for entirely different tunes. For instance, today while I was driving to work, KCSM was playing Brubeck's Take 5. Clearly, it was Paul Desmond soloing over it. At one point he wandered onto a Charlie Christian standard (Air Mail Special?!?) and started fiddling with little phrases from that tune as his melodic devices for Take 5, while the Rhythm section was harmonically tying the two tunes together. You could hear him progressing slowly through the other tune, taking it bit by bit. It was kinda like watching a juggler do tricks, spinning phrases this way and that. Something only those who are familiar with jazz vernacular would get.

Pretty cool if you like players who do quotes, I guess.

EDIT: Woops, I just saw that HAPPenInPuNK had said what I said. That was more of what I was referrin to tho.

eadg57 · #18 01-17-2007, 11:29 AM

I do practice heads to improve my soloing, but for somewhat different reasons. 1) I've had a problem being "root bound", and working on melodies helps me enter the chords from non-root chord tones and 2) they have helped me with facility, especially in the upper range.

My teacher has had me working on a bop head or a solo transcription as part of almost every lesson for years.

mje · #19 01-18-2007, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Rolston

I had it explained to me this way:
The head (or melody) is the story of the song. Even though the goal of Jazz is fluid improvisation, if you don't refer to the melody the listener will gradually lose interest ....

I like that. I think there's also the danger that if you ignore the melody, you can easily end up just playing licks, like so many bad rock (and jazz) musicians.

One of my favorite jazz solos- and the first that really connected with me, as a kid- is Eddie Harris' on "Kathleen's Tune". On successive choruses, Harris takes you farther and father away from the theme and the harmony in the head, and then brings you back. The reference always seems to be there.

I was just listenening to the Giant Steps album, and Naima and Giant Steps are good examples of an implied head that continues through the solo.