Improv tips (non-theory based)

[Wiremessiah]

I'd like to start a list of tips for improv that aren't based on hard theory, but rather different creative approaches. I also play drums and keys, and have come up with a lot of universal tips. Here's a few to start off:
1. practice finger movement unamplified without regard for note choice or tempo or rhythm, usually while watching youtube videos or tv, to exercise physically only

2. Create an image in the minds eye to associate with what you are playing, and have a common image such as a landscape, artwork, place in nature or natural phenomenon like a storm or volcano eruption

3. Practice for a long time until you feel you have exhaused all creative energy, then use cannabis (or alcohol or whatever if thats your thing) to change your state of mind


4. Just jam with other musicians for a long time without stopping. Half an hour or an hour, no breaks, no rules, and pace yourself

5. Do number 4, but with a specific goal in mind, like working only on dynamics, listening, and since you are playing for so long uninterrupted, you need to constantly think about making it interesting and not monotonous.

6. Try to play for 10 minutes or more using 2-3 notes, focusing only on rhythm
7. Eat a very healthy meal (garlic and onion makes me more creative for some reason) freshly juiced veggies and green tea also open up the channels in you brain for creative thinking.

8. Yoga/ stretching before playing loosens you up and makes muscles more easy to control, gets blood flowing
9. Think constantly of how to play differently, even just for the sake of being different, good or bad, while practicing

10. Play in one key with a drone, like a tanpura, which youtube has videos with every key


Obviously these won't work for everyone, but they work for me so if you will, post what works for you and maybe at least try mine.

 

[Badwater]

I totally agree with all the above suggestions. Great information. I'd like to add... not being a theory learner, I've played guitar for decades doing cover songs, and just started with bass. What really helped me was...
1) learning the history and evolution of each style of music I was playing.
2) learning the basics of songwriting and how to play other instruments.
3) recording songs (covers and originals on a regular basis).

 

[Adjectives]

The drone thing is very helpful for ear training your intervals. I took Scott Devine's advice and got an EHX Freeze pedal. It's weaning me off my usual 3rd 5th and 7th jumps.

 

[mambo4]

No theory? oops...
The pinnacle of improvisational ability is to play exactly what you hear in your head,
and that means know exactly what notes (at least relatively) you are hearing.

Anthony Wellington demonstrates:



You might be able to get there via "no theory"
but having a name to stick on what you hear in your head will make things easier.

I apologize for violating the rules of this thread, but really this is the best Improv advice I have ever encountered.

 

[Wiremessiah]

These are specific non-theory based approaches to improv. It says nothing about whether theory is appropriate or not. There are plenty of threads about theory vs non-theory. Or do you think eating healthy meals before playing is an affront to theory?

 

[Joe Nerve]

3. Practice for a long time until you feel you have exhaused all creative energy, then use cannabis (or alcohol or whatever if thats your thing) to change your state of mind

Ya had to know that one of us was going to come along and take exception to this . I'll be the first.

My experience is that drug induced altered states of mind ultimately do more harm than good. First and most importantly, most people only believe they're coming up with more creative material, as they wind up focusing on drug enhanced nuances of what they're hearing and playing. Can't tell you how many times I've jammed with people who were stoned who thought they were playing the most brilliant stuff, when they weren't. They were just getting into it a whole lot more cuz they were stoned. Pot and other mind altering substances also, for some, quickly become something they depend upon. They start to believe they can't be creative without it, because it becomes less fun without it. I could go on an on about this... but you've all heard the arguments about why drugs are bad for you. Sadly, our culture is getting more and more dumbed down by the current acceptance of pot as a "positive" legal thing. No pot smoker will disagree that this is one of the greatest things to ever happen. I believe it's the movie Idiocracy coming to fruition. Short rant over for now....

A much better way, IMO, to stretch the mind is to alter it's state in ways that take a little more thought (and possibly, work). That could be as simple as envisioning different scenarios and trying to create them musically, or imagining a soundtrack to those scenarios. Or even choosing different emotions and expressing them with the same patterns or grooves. I can ride a single A and express rage, and I can do the same and express love, or tranquility. I can also listen to different music to change my state of mind, take a 5 minute break, meditate, or find other ways to get creative. I think this is all much healthier and much more mind expanding than drugs. I'm sure many will disagree. But I'm right and they're wrong .

Though you mentioned listening in your list, I'd like to add listening and locking to a particular instrument - and then switching off, locking with another, and then joining the two (or more). A lot of where that can go depends on how well the others do the same, so it's also a good idea (at times) to talk to bandmates before jumping into that half hour jam. Just to get a little more focused.

 

[Wiremessiah]

screw it, this thread is done. Go ahead, everyone, debate whether pot should be legal or whether theory is better than non-theory.

 

[Joe Nerve]

screw it, this thread is done. Go ahead, everyone, debate whether pot should be legal or whether theory is better than non-theory.

I think that there post just insured its longevity.

Maybe you should have thought a little more before suggesting that drug and alcohol use was a positive way to get creative - on a forum that people of all ages come to for inspiration and knowledge. Not all of us agree.

 

[mambo4]

Again, I apologize for derailing. I do understand I think what you are after.
There are perhaps specific areas of theory you don't care to regurgitate here
(like modes, exotic scales, chord - scale relationships or jazz walking tips over chord changes) which is understandable.
But theory is rather all-encompassing as a description of music, so musical specifics can be very hard to discuss practically without it.

Perhaps I should have just said "practice playing what you hear in your head"

In the spirit of repair, here is an excerpt from an interview with Trey Anastasio of Phish, specifically regarding improv as a group:

We had this series of exercises that we developed, called “Including Your Own Hey.” It sounds weird, but we did them a lot. They start off with a pulse. [Snaps in time] The first level is, I play a four-note phrase [sings “do-do-do-do”]; Page [McConnell] is on my right, and he imitates it on the piano; Fish [Jon Fishman] does his best to play it on the drums; then Mike [Gordon] does it on the bass. Now everyone goes around the room in a circle and everyone starts one.

The next level is, I start a pattern and then Page harmonizes with it. We make a jigsaw-puzzle pattern. Then Mike finds his place in the pattern, and Fish finds his place in it. And we’re all listening to each other. Now, only when you hear that all the other musicians have stopped searching, once you hear they’ve locked in with what you’re playing, you say, “Hey!” So, since we’re still listening so intently to each other, we should all say “Hey” at the same time, but if we don’t — if someone says “Hey” when you’re still searching, they’ve basically just told you, “I’m not listening to you.” So we found, very quickly that it meant you had to always be listening to three people other than yourself. And the music, we found, improved immensely by not navel-gazing. So now the idea is, I’m not paying any attention to myself at all. I’m just responding to what they’re playing.

TLDR: listen

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Go ahead, everyone, debate whether pot should be legal

It already is in many places. Ironically it's illegal in the Nederlands, but it's "condoned".
There's laws against growing & laws against importing it, yet somehow they have plenty

 

[mambo4]

Another interesting bit of improv thinking can be found in John Zorn's Cobra Musical Improv game

wikipedia description:
Cobra (Zorn) - Wikipedia

the "rules"
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

the result:


I watched several fellow musicians perform this once. My take away: probably waaaay more fun to for performers than an audience.

 

[lowdownnotes]

The Dito is a very useful pedal for helping me find improve ideas.

 

[mambo4]

Yes loopers are awesome for self - jamming.
And theory exercises too

 

[Bob_Ross]

here is an excerpt from an interview with Trey Anastasio of Phish, specifically regarding improv as a group: ...[snip]...

Another interesting bit of improv thinking can be found in John Zorn's Cobra Musical Improv game

One thing that both of those examples share is that they both utilize a strategy. There are rules that guide the improvisors, and while those rules may not resemble the traditional rules of music theory [sic] the performers must be equally beholden to them in order to make the improvisation work as intended. This makes them very similar to a lot of 20th Century aleatoric music, where composers would create a situation and a process for the musicians to explore, rather than explicitly defining musical events that had proscribed pitches and start/stop times.

 

[mambo4]

There are rules that guide the improvisors, and while those rules may not resemble the traditional rules of music theory [sic] the performers must be equally beholden to them

very astute.

I think that lack of explicit rules is why I lost interest in "just jamming" with friends.
aimlessness is not musically compelling to me.

It's also why jazz was so successful: you get to "jam" but there's a clear context for that improv that an audience can recognize

It's almost as if you need the contrast of a structure for improv to stand out against.

 

[bfields]

Disclaimer: I'm not that good an improviser. But I've gotten better over the years. Some things I've found helpful:

- just spending time playing tunes from memory: random songs, TV themes, whatever, to improve my ability to play what I hear.
- making myself learn songs (chord progressions, melodies, bass lines, solos...) by listening instead of reading.
- singing improvisations. E.g., trying singing an improvised solo along with the song that's on the radio right now.
- Bass playing, actually: I think it's made me better at hearing bass lines, which makes it easier for me to follow the changes.

 

[Nickweissmusic]

Ear training. Learning intervals is not "theory," so I think I can post without further disgusting the OP... I hope...

Every sonic distance, from one Fred to Juan octave, (what I dictated was "one fret to one octave," but the result was so hilarious I had to leave it) has a different "signature sound." You can look up interval training or ear training apps. The names of the intervals are all named after the major scale, I started off that way but nowadays I don't really think of them that way, I more or less hear the sound, and then can picture which distance it looks like on the fretboard. Even just being aware of the difference between a small Leap and a large Leap can be a big help.

 

[IJBurns]

Wasn't it Miles who when asked what he was playing said something to the effect of, Let me play it and I'll tell you what it is after? Of course there is a lot of theory and overall musicianship involved.

Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe. No one gives a poopie if you can notate it on the staff correctly, or give a thoughtful analysis of what you played, just transcribe. Learn your favorite players' solos note for note, articulation for articulation, phrasing tendencies, if they play ahead of the beat or behind it, how they "time"
certain ideas, how they accent certain things, then forget all that poopie and play.

 

[IJBurns]

It's easy to forget that jazz wasn't born in a university. Improvisation is just that. It's you telling someone else something via sounds and albeit emotion. It's a language. You can only convey a message as clearly as you have a grasp on the medium it's being spoken.

 

[Wiremessiah]

It's easy to forget that jazz wasn't born in a university. Improvisation is just that. It's you telling someone else something via sounds and albeit emotion. It's a language. You can only convey a message as clearly as you have a grasp on the medium it's being spoken.

Improv is the best form for expressing emotion in real time. Indian Classical is 90% improv, but conveys deep deep emotion through spontaneous music. At a level almost impossible with equal temperament. But it requires things not taught in western theory. It requires a respect and kind of spiritual attachment to the notes, unlike western music that focuses on cold mathematical structure. It requires training. Not practice, but training. Practice is a sort of mindless drilling, while training is in depth playing and improvising and exploring. The difference between a scale/mode and raga is vast, even though they may have the same pitches. Find out why.

What made Miles so great (as well as jaco and herbie hancock and others) was that he was able to give meaning to the notes, rather than just trying to reach a harmonic ideal like for example coltrane. Coltrane was a fabulous technical player, but so technical with so many flurries of notes that the notes become meaningless, like he's just shredding without feeling any of the notes, and trying to create complex harmonies with a monophonic instrument. With miles, every note has depth and feeling behind it, like in Indian music. Indian music ties justly intonated intervals to the mythology of chakras, which gives a certain importance or sanctity to each note, and play in only a single key, without any functional harmony. Rhythm, melody, and inflection are what counts, even in western music. The voice is still the most popular instrument all over the world, and it's monophonic.

Improv should be about emotional and spiritual communication, rather than just a mathematical puzzle in real time. That's why I like to focus on a few notes, and learn how to make them work. I can play just 2 notes and make it interesting with rhythm and inflection. A lot of bass and guitar teachers talk about "mastering the fretboard" as if that's the way to make good music. I'd say it's much more important to "master" making a few notes sound interesting, and giving depth to simplicity. If you can do that, everything else is easy. But it's not easy to do. The mind always wanders, and the fingers always want to move, and you always want to hear yourself. So you have to:

1. constantly be in the moment. Do not think about the past or future while improvising. The mind always has to be focused on something, so when it starts to wander, learn to catch yourself, and if you can't think of anything else, think about the instrument itself, how it feels in your hands, or the relationship between the strings and pickups, or anything related to the instrument, rather than thinking about picking up your kid from school the next day or what you are cooking for dinner that night.

2. Don't let yourself space out. Train yourself to always be aware, and train people you are playing with to give each other cues when anyone gets the dreaded blank stare. Cues such as like eye movements, hand gestures, loud accents, etc. Everyone spaces out, but the really great musicians know how to control it, only letting themselves space when it's beneficial, and able to snap out of it at will

3. Always be aware of rhythmic space. Don't always play constantly all the time, note after note. The more rests and space you have, the more meaning the notes have

4. Change up note durations. Practice playing the same lines staccato and legato and mix up note lengths, even with the same lines, this makes it more interesting

5. Play in front of a mirror. Watch yourself, your movements, the way you look playing, your facial expressions. Facial expressions are an important part of being a musician. You have to look like you know what you are doing, having fun, and whatever other feelings you want to project to the audience and musicians. The mindless "cheese" face that comes from not being aware of your demeanor makes you look like a buffonish porn star, and it happens to everyone. But maybe that's what you are going for, who knows.

6. Mixing. I only really started to learn to dynamically play bass and music in general after I began engineering, specifically mixing. So many musicians including myself in the past simply don't listen. They are just listening to themselves with the rest of the band in the background. Simple balance between instruments is a lot harder than most people think, especially in real time. But you have to mix constantly. Every musician has to mix themselves with the rest of the band, which is extremely difficult to do while playing and listening, yet supremely important. Having a drummer that controls their dynamics is key. This is why conductors are so important to orchestras. You have to have dynamic control, and it's better to have someone, preferably a disciplined drummer, to lead the dynamics of the music. Otherwise it's just a competition for loudness, and because drummers are the loudest and have impaired hearing anyway, they will always win. Hence the endless smashing of music and the loudness wars

7. Quiet playing/passages often garner more attention than loud ones, because people have to kind of "lean in", as it were, to hear it, focusing their attention. Good dynamic playing makes use of extremely loud and extremely quiet passages (and everything in between) tastefully juxtaposed

8. Don't be afraid to speed up and slow down, as long as everyone is phase locked in rhythm, especially on the downbeat. In fact, you can do anything rhytmically, polyrhytmically, etc, and as long as you come back on the 1, it's all good. OCD has made people think that perfect time is the ideal, when rushing and lagging (at least slightly, not necessarily enough to notice) makes music more interesting. "Grid" thinking/playing causes robotic lifeless grid music.


9. Embrace mistakes. Mistakes are a huge part of improv. If you are not making mistakes, then you aren't brave enough to take chances. But learn to not let on that you made a mistake. Usually when i see a musician make a mistake, they usually have an awkward smile, and you know they messed up, when most of the time you wouldn't know. Don't do that. Try to make the mistake into something musical, even repeating the mistake to make it look like you meant to do it. Poker face.


10. I approach the fretboard sometimes like a chess board. Think about new ways to move around, rather than getting stuck in the same patterns. This is different from mastering the fretboard. The point is to not master it, to never think you know it. There's an infinity of possibilities, it's up to you to unlock new paths. Think about moving sideways and diagonal melodically rather than just up and down, ascending and descending. Yes, that makes no sense, but do it anyway.