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Double Bass The different ways of approaching Improvisation..

G

gai113

Apr 25, 2008
866
7
#1
So far I've seen some different approaches to playing changes.. .the Chord/scale approach, the chord tone approach, and then the "key center" approach...

I was wondering what you guys thought about this and here is a quote... BTW i don't believe there is a "right" or "wrong" way.. Ive heard some amazing solo's playing "wrong" notes ... Just wondering what you think thats all..

Please No debates or arguing... .Thanks

This is also the basis of the key center approach to improvisation, which was the predominant method used over the first fifty years or so of jazz history, and is still used by most players who have not been specifically taught otherwise. In the key center approach, instead of expecting to change scales with every chord, we assume from the beginning that the scale of the key will be all we need to play over the progression. This approach is ideally suited to simple, mostly diatonic tunes, which is the type of tune most often played in the early years of jazz. The approach falls apart when playing complex modal or non-tonal tunes where the chords do not function according to the guidelines of tonal harmony, as it becomes difficult or impossible to identify key centers. Most standards, though, contain only a few key centers; so in theory, all one needs to know in order to improvise over a standard is the keys it travels through.
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#2
I tend to approach improvisation from the direction of melody and harmonic context. What does the melody do? This is usually a good starting point for understanding the tune, since to me the melody is the essence of the tune.

Harmonically, I tend to look at how the chords relate to each other in the context of the progression. Since most "tonalities" (or scales) have seven different notes, and since there are only 12 chromatic pitches, this means that there are always common tones from one harmony to the next; I find it useful to be aware of these, and to know whether any of these common tones are shared chord tones of the harmonies in question. Last, I try to hear the implied resolutions within the progression, since if I want to outline the progression melodically, these are the clearest way to do that.

For me, most of this kind of thinking is best left in the practice room. Once on the bandstand, all of this stuff happens in the background and I'm just trying to shut my brain off and play a melody that sounds good.
 
#7
Don't think about music for a minute. Think about conversation. Not an exchange of platitudes or relating situations and experiences but an exchange of substantive ideas. Did you decide ahead of time what you were going to say? Did you stop and try to find new words to express yourself? Were you thinking about grammatical construction and syntax?
Or did you just say what you thought and felt with the language you had the most nuanced control over?

When you're in the heat of the moment, you don't have time to THINK about vocabulary (chord scales) or grammar and syntax (harmonic analysis) or ANYTHING, just WHAT DO I WANT TO SAY.
 
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#8
Wow Ed I couldn't have said it better myself .. That is something I totally agree with 100%!! One question though in order for the vocab to come out I must have it under my fingers ?

I think being in the moment is what it's about.. If im thinking while i play something's not feeling good
 
#9
This shows the prime importance of excellent ear-training. Most of us can imagine a song and image beautiful accompaniment and beautiful solos, but when we try and play what we hear in our mind with our bodies and our instruments, those of us without the solid ear training end up fumbling around with finger patterns, music patterns, cliches and "ummms and ughhs" and bad time, + poor phrasing. Those with the proper ear training and the proper physical technique can play the beautiful ideas they mentally hear.
 
#11
Ed Fuqua said:
Were you thinking about grammatical construction and syntax?
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When I was trying to speak in Korean, hell yes!

There's a school of thought that says, 'learn the rules, and then forget them and just play', but the first part of that is learning the rules - and because there isn't (thankfully) one big authoritiative book, "The Rules of Music", you have to make those up for yourself to some extent...
 
#12
topo morto said:
I'd be interested if you can summarise these quickly?
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You have a set of changes...

You play 1 scale for all the changes(using a key centre approach)
... Or you play each parent scale for each chord(C major for Cmajor chord; D dorian for minor, etc)...

or you play the chord tones of each chord the root 3rd 5th and 7th....

Im not really good at teaching hopefully i explained that decently
 
#19
Ah. Since I rarely play with amplification I kind of "forget" about pedals.
The Zoom H1 is cheap and does a very serviceable job of recording live performance, all of the stuff on my soundcloud page was recorded with the H1.
 
#20
BTW I am definitely not at the stage yet of doing a lot of improvisation on bass... I've been playing for a year and a bit. I used to write a lot though (MIDI sequencing)... whether the same approaches I used for composing can work when there's no time to think, I guess I have yet to find out!
 

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