Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject: How to IMPROVISE fast phrases
Hi, I´m new here but I´m an advanced player with a little frustration, hope someone can help.
Just for a little background: I know all my scales, I know how to sequence them, lots of licks, I know how to compose solos, and I can play fast, but just pre-planned solos.
So, the thing is: even when I have the ability to play fast licks I can´t improvise fast phrases without doing something pre-planned. Is this normal?, is it how it´s supposed to be?, that´s how pros do it?. Because if it´s so, you would have to know like a zillion pre-planned licks and phrases to not sound always the same, so if you take a book like Speed Mechanics (Troy Stetina) and learn all of the phrases and then use them freely, sure maybe you may sound fantastic but did you think about how much work that would require?... like 10 years of hard work besides of learning scales, rhythm guitar, theory, other styles, etc.
So the basic thing here is, how do you do to play fast passages? you just do some kind of exercise for the fingers to play fast but everytime different from the original one, (like 3-note per string scales) or every fast thing you play is pre-planned?, and if that is what you do, how do you avoid sounding always the same?...
I can improvise decent slow and mid tempo phrases, but I just want to do that fast Guthrie or Dave Mustaine or even John Coltrane licks on my own improvisation you know, it gives such a cool intensity on their playing.
Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject: Re: How to IMPROVISE fast phrases
Snakepit wrote:
I can improvise decent slow and mid tempo phrases, but I just want to do that fast Guthrie or Dave Mustaine or even John Coltrane licks on my own improvisation you know, it gives such a cool intensity on their playing.
Guthrie, Coltrane, and DAVE MUSTAINE in the same sentence? Didn't expect that combination.
Ok I noticed this post the other day and was thinking of a way to explain this, at least how I see it.
First of all, I'm not particualry fond of playing by licks, which a lot of jazzers do/did. But I see the value in knowing some, so as far as fast passages go, you need to work out longer phrases, based on licks if you like, that fit the timing better. Or shorter phrases if you will (depending on tempo). But don't go into the solo saying "Im' going to play this lick here and that there, this is not improvising." More explanation below.
I would say the main thing to do is practice playing with faster tempos, get used to it. Don't be afraid to leave some space, look a miles davis, just learn everything he did, he was not flashy but used space better than anyone, period.
Also, I'm with Scott henderson, in that you shouldn't play by pattern, you should always be thinking notes, but I think it's okay to practice patterns, or licks to work into your vocabulary.
The way to implement them, is to engrain them in your head, then forget about them, think about the notes then you'll see them when they are triggered.
Kind of like speaking. Certain words or phrases trigger something in you that has many possible out comes. Let's say something like this.
"I was going to 'take me out to the ball game, take me out for justice and peace man in the mirror dream theater, movie time after time's up before you know it will be a long night of the round table for 2 +2 = 4 you for me, myself and irene."
This is a crazy sentence that makes no sense, kind of like a solo with lick to lick, but notice how certain words trigger certain phrases or whatever, this is how practicing licks should be for you. You'll just start to grab them. I had no idea what I was going to write up there, but those were the things that came to my head. Just like when you're improvising, but try not to get to into licks and forget to make the thing make sense. There are definetly some people who improvise with no meaning from lick to lick, don't be that guy. Sometime you have to listen and just try things out. You will get better at it.
So in retrospect, practice at fast tempos, practice licks, but don't use force them on the "MUSIC". They will come out if you know them. As my improv teacher Jack Schantz says, play it a million times, then maybe you'll understand, then you can work on something else. And believe Jack is a monster, from fast to slow this guy is amazing.
Anyways, good luck, and I hope that helps a bit, try not to worry about lick fest.
I've mostly steared clear of this as "improvising faster" is a bit like "painting louder" to me. And that sounds grumpy and dismissive so I had a think about it, tried to make something positive of it.
I think experience of improvising at slow speeds will eventually mean playing improv at higher speeds. I also think there's more worth in recognising that you can improvise over a wide variety of stuff at low speeds. Stuff like syncopation didn't happen for me until I'd really worked on it at lower speeds, a lot and then patiently built up speed. But rhythmic approaches (like Nuno Bettencourt's) add better qualities than speed of notes can deliver.
If you can play one note over 3 bars and make it meaningful, that's improvisation.. say the 2nd, 4th or 6th degree of a major scale (IV chord) and hold it as the chord changes to a I chord so it winds up being the 5th, 7th or 2nd degree of the new scale.. these things might need more notes to resolve nicely or with familliartiy... but there is more fun to be had playing on expectations with fewer notes than blurring through a scale or arpeggio and trampling the ambiguity of a musical narative, far better to play fewer notes for longer and with more command than misuse 3/4 of the chromatic scale in 2 dimensional pyrotechnics.
Wayne Krantz's guitar player's OS is a good book for driving home the complete set of melodic demands placed on an improviser, but it misses the rhythmic disciplines that add a lyrical narrative to playing.
Improvising fast phrases for me is a case of knowing a rhythms I want to use and being able to play it on a variety of strings and speeds and knowing the chords I'm playing over and the movement of the degrees of one scale shifting to the next. The rest is freedom until just before the chord changes where I need to squeeze through one of a few holes to segue stuff together.. then more freedom.
I also like playing stock licks to reference other tunes a bit like "oh look this bit sounds a bit like After the Rain" or "the guy I'm jamming with came up with this chord progression and now I listen to it, it reminds me of Higher Ground ... or Star Wars " _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
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