Thinking faster?

[Carl Johnson]

Redbull and the shed

[tomesim]

I don't believe "thinking fast" has anything to do with it. The great players play beautiful, coherent, interesting lines regardless of tempo. Also, and this will sound a bit mystical, but I strive for musical intuition not musical thought. Intuition will always get to the right answer 10x "faster" than thinking. So, the question to me is how to develop musical intuition. Maybe that's the same as what you are asking.

[TroyK]

Originally Posted by hdiddy

When I listen to fast guys, I know I can hear the flurry of notes, but I'm not mentally fast enough to hear each note as it's own entity. If I can't hear something fast, how can I expect to come up with something at the same tempo? Maybe this is where transcribing is important to build "hearing skills" slowly.

John Clayton likes to say "if you can't sing it, you can't play it".

I don't have this "fixed" in my own playing yet, but I am turning a corner. I still play scales, learn tunes, transcribe, et al. But, I do A LOT of focused dedicated listening. Chair, speakers or headphones, room by myself. No washing dishes, no working on my taxes. I hear more, I can improvizationally sing more and I'm starting to like my playing better.

Someone talked about singing while you solo and yes, a lot of people do that. I can't at tempo, sing pitch and match it on my bass. My ear and chops are just not that good. But, when I do, I still play good note, whether they are the ones I sang or not and I notice that my phrasing is WAY better. I can match my articulation to my voice in the moment.

I agree with Ed (usually), it takes time and work. Some people will do it faster than me, some more slowly, but it takes everyone time and work.

[Marc Piane]

Originally Posted by TroyK

my phrasing is WAY better

+1.

I remember a discussion how singing while you play can be singing what you play rather than playing what you sing. I am guilty of both. I too have noticed that it helps my phrasing either way though. It also seems to make me noodle less.

[hdiddy]

Originally Posted by tomesim

Maybe that's the same as what you are asking.

Yes... more specially, how to adjust the intuition to handle situations where you're being forced to play at fast tempos. My intuition likes things slow. It's when I approach playing tunes at 200+bpm is when I get nervous and trying to come up with a coherent line.

I've been listening to some Slam Stewart lately. When I do an arco solo (of course I'm nowhere as good as he was) I do get the effect of a more coherent line because I am singing an octave higher than the bow but I'm still stuck with the speed conundrum as I simply cannot play fast ATM, but I have been phrasing using the same concept and end up with a simple but similarly coherent line. If i'm playing at 200 bpm, I feel like I have to resort to almost walking a line but tha'ts what I'm singing, so be it I guess.

[Phil Smith]

Originally Posted by hdiddy

In other words: How does one imagine musical ideas faster? It's an esoteric question I guess, but I see no other way than what FEDUPQUA said that it's a long slow process to expand ones mental harmonic capacities. This sort of stuff prob came easy to guys like MJ.

I think if you put in the kind of time MJ has and had the experiences he had you wouldn't be asking these questions.
The point is that you see the fruit of their labor and not a detailed record of the labor. If you as person A grew up in a family where everyone played music and someone else as person B grew up in a family that didn't and also didn't encourage the odds are pretty good that your musical maturity would be greater than that of the person B.

Do you think if you were immersed in a day to day world where musical ideas needed to be imagined faster your ideas would come faster than they do now?

Going back to Sam's response (which I needed to read more carefully), I think I will meditate on the "listening faster" mantra. I think there's something there worth noting. When I listen to fast guys, I know I can hear the flurry of notes, but I'm not mentally fast enough to hear each note as it's own entity. If I can't hear something fast, how can I expect to come up with something at the same tempo? Maybe this is where transcribing is important to build "hearing skills" slowly.

I think we all hear stuff, I don't think we all recognize stuff. I also think that the fast guys conceptually play phrases not individual notes as we speak conceptually and may not be able to correctly spell every word that we use to express an idea.

[hdiddy]

Originally Posted by Phil Smith

I think if you put in the kind of time MJ has and had the experiences he had you wouldn't be asking these questions.

That goes without saying. I need not be reminded about how much work that needs to be put into this to get proficient cuz it happens every time I play, regardless of the amount of time I've put into it myself. I'm about ready to create a "Jazz Is Hard" Whiners thread.

Time to read some Kenny Werner self help.

[TroyK]

Originally Posted by Phil Smith

Do you think if you were immersed in a day to day world where musical ideas needed to be imagined faster your ideas would come faster than they do now?

Just think about trying to function in a 2nd or 3rd language that you haven't mastered yet. You can study rules and vocabulary all you want, but you get with some native speakers who talk fast, mumble, use slang, different body language, etc and you're struggling to keep up. In that situation, I usually think of what I should have said later. I think it's the same with improvising jazz.

I don't think you can learn it without living it.

[hdiddy]

Originally Posted by TroyK

Just think about trying to function in a 2nd or 3rd language that you haven't mastered yet. ... I don't think you can learn it without living it.

This is probably the most sage thing I've read on these forums in quite a while.

[flatback]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

I really think it's mostly ear training and expanding your harmonic vocabulary. Which comes VERY slowly. Not just hearing intervals and triads, but hearing and singing 4 part chords with two tensions starts putting you into polychordal territory. And when you start hearing melodic choices through a multiplicity of harmonic material, you get a LOT of notes to choose from. Not randomly, but because you hear the possibilities of every single one of them and can hear all the arcs of all the solo possibilities. And that's profound.

Like gumbo.

like gumbo...that is the **** right there.like gumbo. Ya got that? couldn't think of a better metaphor in a million years.
yea.
nuf said.

[damonsmith]

I think some of my experience in free improvisation can help answer this one. I am pretty much with Ed on this one.
If you want to play complex ideas you need to know what they sound like, and to quickly access them.
In improvised music we are often trying create complex layers in a really quick exchanges.
Jazz is not so different, it is just mostly focused on harmony and rhythm, but you should still keep timbre in mind.
So anyway, you are still looking at managing a chunk of information rather than note by note.
if train yourself to hear the harmonic ideas you want to use, they will just happen in the moment, so that leads back to Ed saying it is a slow process:
You train your ear to hear a wide variety of Harmonic options and then you can apply them on the fly.
Not only harmony, but different levels of tension and release.
You not only need to hear how to find the "right" note, but were to go to right the wrong notes.
I came to this though learning how to layer scraping sound with the bow against a line played on a wind instrument and drummer scraping his cymbal.
In the end is the same principal:
Knowing what exact effect your playing will have and having a lot of options for each situation.

I might add to put more time into learning to hear dissonant and unstable harmonies, the ear is going to lead us to unisons and consonances. So the more control you can get over dissonance the more complex your harmonic ideas are going to be able to be.

[damonsmith]

I would also ad that a great, well constructed line is going to carry itself provided it starts and ends in the right place. So that is another good strategy for high speed improvising.

[Pstewart]

Originally Posted by hdiddy

This is probably the most sage thing I've read on these forums in quite a while.

+1

[Dave Muscato]

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brain-Neu...3865638&sr=8-3

[dragon6]

You must be able to get to "The Zone" on a moments notice. It must be practiced the in and out of it, the Zen of it, to be aware of it, kills it. The connection between the two halves of the brain is what must be used. Creativity and Serial thinking must be one. I once saw a child singing a song while counting on her fingers doing math homework. Two parts just out there like nothing. So its natural to some but to most we have to work at it.

Burt Teretsky was famous for telling stories,singing,while playing
the bass. Mingus hummed and yelled. So many players.....examples

Point being creativity must be practised. Speed comes when nothings in the way.