[saxboy126]

Hey guys, im quite new to this forum..so..
just got a couple of question, hope you can help.
I've been trained for may years as a classical saxophonist, playing things like creston, ibert, glazunov n stuff like that.
but now im learning to improv a bit.

i cant seem to get a good grasp on the chords, and the colour of each note in the chords. The solo i play sound really dull n boring, especially funk n swing....thanks a lot guys.

 

[vonbraig]

Well if you have a V7 chord going to a minor I would try going from (talking about V7 chord) the 3rd (say B on a G7 chord) and jumping up to the b9 (Ab on the G7) then just slide down to the G which is the 5 of the i chord (Cmin in this case)

Also on the V7 (G7) B (3rd) Bb (#9) Ab (b9) to the G 5th of Cm. And B (G7) D# (#5 or b13 if you prefer then experiment with teh b9 and #9 thing. These a very colorful and I teach them to my brand new improv students as soon as we get into a minor key. Summertime is a good tune and Blue Bossa.

I wouldn't try to do a bunch of 8th notes yet. Just live with these sounds and learn to really "lean into them" Notes are not more than 10% use all the tons of stuff you know about music, atriculation, dynamics.........

CB

 

[HeavyWeather77]

Hi Saxboy, it's great that you're curious about this stuff! Learning how to improvise is a very satisfying and fulfilling lifelong venture, and it will open up worlds of music to you.

To start opening those worlds up, something you have to understand is that there's no way to learn improvisation visually (as in, reading sheet music or method books). Music is, at its heart, an aural art-- THE aural art, really-- so truly learning to improvise means developing your ears beyond what you ever thought they could be. Start learning simple music intuitively; there's plenty of music that's harmonically simple but emotionally deep (James Brown, for example). Pick some recordings that really excite you, take out your horn, and start to play along. When you start getting a feel for how things work, you can begin to fill in your intuitive knowledge with intellectual knowledge (chord-scale relationships, extensions, alterations, voicings, all that good stuff). And when you learn technique, such as scales, arpeggios, and other patterns, learn them by ear and listen to how they fit into the music that you like.

Good luck, get those ears going.

 

[Buck Laughlin]

Hi Saxboy, it's great that you're curious about this stuff! Learning how to improvise is a very satisfying and fulfilling lifelong venture, and it will open up worlds of music to you.

To start opening those worlds up, something you have to understand is that there's no way to learn improvisation visually (as in, reading sheet music or method books). Music is, at its heart, an aural art-- THE aural art, really-- so truly learning to improvise means developing your ears beyond what you ever thought they could be. Start learning simple music intuitively; there's plenty of music that's harmonically simple but emotionally deep (James Brown, for example). Pick some recordings that really excite you, take out your horn, and start to play along. When you start getting a feel for how things work, you can begin to fill in your intuitive knowledge with intellectual knowledge (chord-scale relationships, extensions, alterations, voicings, all that good stuff). And when you learn technique, such as scales, arpeggios, and other patterns, learn them by ear and listen to how they fit into the music that you like.

Good luck, get those ears going.

Wow -- what a GREAT post! This is right on so many levels (IMO). I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say "I've learned all my scales, but I don't know what to do with them. So now what?" Taking HeavyWeather77's approach will lead to creativity and the ability to produce something beautiful, meaningful, and truly unique to you.

Just think what kind of players and composers music schools would be producing if they started out by just locking all their first year students in a room with great, simple, inspiring music, and telling them to just play along with it. Good bye cookie cutters!

 

[buddy lee]

You have to walk before you can run. With this in mind, the best way to get a feel for how the song is constructed is to play arpeggios over the chord changes. So if you're looking at a (just an example) Cmaj you would just play C, E, G and if you come across C7 you would add the flat 7th so C, E, G, Bb etc. If you do this enough over a song, it should help you come up with melodic ideas to play over the song. But this is ALWAYS the first thing I do when I come across a new song.

Hope this helps. Also, LISTEN to as much jazz sax playing as you can online. Youtube is a great resource for this. It will give you ideas...

 

[ismail]

I think it would be nice if you uploaded something we can hear. You mentioned Funk and Swing, which are two very different styles that can be approached differently. The arpeggio-approach (nice word, btw.) mentioned above works well for most jazz tunes, but for a lot of funk, rhythm is more important and should really be the essence of what you play. If you can't play one note funkily, you certainly can't play all the right chord tones funkily. So, in order to give better advice, some of your playing would be nice.

 

[PhineasC]

Since you have a root as a classical player, the fast track to improvising is listening and memorization. Chord theory is icing on the cake. Learn melodies and passages that you like, then try to play them over different changes in different styles. This way when you develop solos, they will be more melodic and less technical. You will find the best improvisors(players period) are the ones that have the biggest record/cd/mp3 collections.

One good place to start is Steely Dan records. The sax players that have been with that band over the years have very melodic approaches to complex chords. Of course, that is just one of many examples.

It is all about the ear, and developing your own approach. Anyone can memorize passages out of an exercise book.

 

[scotts]

One good place to start is Steely Dan records.

If it doesn't help his improv, at least he'll have an easier time falling asleep! (Just kidding, sorta-- your advice is fine, but that band just never really excited me)

 

[PhineasC]

If it doesn't help his improv, at least he'll have an easier time falling asleep! (Just kidding, sorta-- your advice is fine, but that band just never really excited me)

Well, there are better examples of improvisation, true enough. Compared to most commercial bands, they use a lot of complex harmony. I have always thought this band had some pretty tasteful sax players, and have always like the fact that they were never over the top as a whole.

I like Jeff Lorber, older Grover Washington, Crusaders/Joe Sample, Maceo Parker, etc.... they would be good as well. I guess I am a Steely fan...lol

 

[Wade Cornell]

So refreshing to hear a thread in which the advice is not strictly technically oriented. The cookie cutter approach that so many schools dictate results in mechanical players that sound like they came out of the 1950s (for which there is no audience).

The only advice I'd add is to sing what you intend to play so that it's in your head and not just a finger exercise. Listening to all sorts of music will also open your ears to lots of possibilities that at first may not be obvious, but enrich your vocabulary. Too many focus solely on one or two sax players they like, and just try to play in that style. Style should be an individual thing like the way you speak. Imagine people trying to talk like Arnold Schwarzenneger, just because he's famous. I listen to guitarists, trumpet players, lots of ethnic music, etc. because it's the music that counts.

 

[MartinMusicMan]

I'm repeating good advice already given, but saying it in my own way. Find recordings of the kind of music you want to be able to play -- funk, swing, whatever. Then play along with these recordings. Get the notes under your fingers and the sounds in your head. Get the rhythm right. It doesn't matter if you can't get all or even most of the notes. Keep playing until you're getting in the groove of the music you want to play. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[saxboy126]

Hi Saxboy, it's great that you're curious about this stuff! Learning how to improvise is a very satisfying and fulfilling lifelong venture, and it will open up worlds of music to you.

To start opening those worlds up, something you have to understand is that there's no way to learn improvisation visually (as in, reading sheet music or method books). Music is, at its heart, an aural art-- THE aural art, really-- so truly learning to improvise means developing your ears beyond what you ever thought they could be. Start learning simple music intuitively; there's plenty of music that's harmonically simple but emotionally deep (James Brown, for example). Pick some recordings that really excite you, take out your horn, and start to play along. When you start getting a feel for how things work, you can begin to fill in your intuitive knowledge with intellectual knowledge (chord-scale relationships, extensions, alterations, voicings, all that good stuff). And when you learn technique, such as scales, arpeggios, and other patterns, learn them by ear and listen to how they fit into the music that you like.

Good luck, get those ears going.

wow thanks for the great info! I'll certainly work on some of improv over my christmas break!
im gonna do a solo for "feather report"by kris berg, and the solo is quite simple i think, just C13 chord and a A13 chord lol. anyone got any suggestions on maybe some of the licks i can do?

thanks again!

 

[HeavyWeather77]

Again, nobody is going to be able to explain to you how to sound good via text on an internet forum. The first step has to come from absorbing good-sounding, good-feeling improvised melodies aurally (by ear). If you have a recording of that tune, play along with it. If not, just find some simple two-chord tunes to start playing along with (James Brown, like I mentioned earlier, or Tower of Power, or Parliament, or Curtis Mayfield, or any number of great soul bands).

What we can help you with is the structural knowledge to help inform what sounds you use over your chord progressions. For a funk tune that uses C13 and A13, you'll probably want to get most of your information from the "lydian dominant" scale associated with those chords. For C13, you can get a lydian dominant sound by using G melodic minor over C. For A13, you can get a lydian dominant sound by using E melodic minor over A. (This gives you colorful and good-sounding chord tones, like the major 3rd, dominant/flat 7th, and raised 4th.)

But don't forget, the way to learn HOW to use these scale sounds is to listen for how they've been used in music you like to listen to. All of those intervals (the chord-tones as they exist in relation to the bass) have their own personalities, and it's important to develop a personal, aural, intuitive relationship with all of them. It will make improvising more natural, more effective, and more fun. You'll actually be able to create what you want to create, not just what you think you're supposed to.

 

[saxpiece]

Someone really has to be hearing and feeling things they want to play, to be able to improvise somewhat.

It's not a rote learning or paint by numbers sort of thing but picking up technique is part of it but it really has to be in the person to begin with.

If I had no feeling for improvisation then I wouldn't try to do it.

 

[saxboy126]

Again, nobody is going to be able to explain to you how to sound good via text on an internet forum. The first step has to come from absorbing good-sounding, good-feeling improvised melodies aurally (by ear). If you have a recording of that tune, play along with it. If not, just find some simple two-chord tunes to start playing along with (James Brown, like I mentioned earlier, or Tower of Power, or Parliament, or Curtis Mayfield, or any number of great soul bands).

What we can help you with is the structural knowledge to help inform what sounds you use over your chord progressions. For a funk tune that uses C13 and A13, you'll probably want to get most of your information from the "lydian dominant" scale associated with those chords. For C13, you can get a lydian dominant sound by using G melodic minor over C. For A13, you can get a lydian dominant sound by using E melodic minor over A. (This gives you colorful and good-sounding chord tones, like the major 3rd, dominant/flat 7th, and raised 4th.)

But don't forget, the way to learn HOW to use these scale sounds is to listen for how they've been used in music you like to listen to. All of those intervals (the chord-tones as they exist in relation to the bass) have their own personalities, and it's important to develop a personal, aural, intuitive relationship with all of them. It will make improvising more natural, more effective, and more fun. You'll actually be able to create what you want to create, not just what you think you're supposed to.

Cool! so essentially i'll be composing my self? xD
i've always thot the C13 was a C major with a Bb, so a mixolydian on F major, and the A13 was just a A major with a G natural, so a mixolydian on D....
but its great to know that there are options!

thanks again!

 

[HeavyWeather77]

Cool! so essentially i'll be composing my self?

Spontaneous composition is exactly the point. In fact, there's very little separation between composition and improvisation: during their lifetimes, Bach and Mozart were known as great improvisers in their idioms. I believe part of the reason European orchestral music has stagnated is because its musicians and composers no longer learn to improvise as they once did.

In jazz (and really in most western music), you'll find that the natural 4 doesn't sound very good when emphasized over a chord with a major 3rd. So when you're improvising over C major, using F# instead of F (giving you a C lydian, or G major over C, sound) will sound great. The same goes for C dominant: you'll use that lydian scale with a Bb instead of a B, turning it into C lydian dominant, or G melodic minor over C.

 

[piwikiwi]

Someone really has to be hearing and feeling things they want to play, to be able to improvise somewhat.

It's not a rote learning or paint by numbers sort of thing but picking up technique is part of it but it really has to be in the person to begin with.

If I had no feeling for improvisation then I wouldn't try to do it.

I disagree, I worked my *** of for 4 years and now I'm just starting to get it, I'm starting to hear it and my improv is starting to make sense. In another thread you mentioned that you were more a rock n roll guy anyway so I don't get it why you want to give someone such discouraging advice.

 

[saxpiece]

Yeah, but what does the OP want to improvise like?

There are so many ways of improvising in different things.

A Rock player might not be able to cut it for a Jazz solo but that's probably because they are inherently pulled towards Rock rather than Jazz and vice versa.

They could do a Jazz solo but it would probably be a just getting through the changes type thing and yet they might be able to play a great Rock solo.

Some players just don't function as improvisers at all.

The desire to do something has to be there otherwise it's just fxxking around and alright for some fun or whatever.

If I am 13 and I hear some blues and something clicks and says that's what I want to do rather than someone just drifting about thinking Oh! I'll have a go at that improvisation thing without anything pulling them into it, well they are totally different things.

Where there is a will there is a way but the will and direction has got to be there in the first place.

Usually most people are aware of what they might be ok at and what they might be hopeless at.

I have no desire to Tap Dance and if I was dragged along to a Tap Dancing course I could achieve something but I know that I am never going to be able to be much at Tap Dancing.

I might surprise myself and end up doing some killer Tap Dancing moves but my will to do it is not very strong and I have no feel for it.

 

[saxboy126]

Spontaneous composition is exactly the point. In fact, there's very little separation between composition and improvisation: during their lifetimes, Bach and Mozart were known as great improvisers in their idioms. I believe part of the reason European orchestral music has stagnated is because its musicians and composers no longer learn to improvise as they once did.

In jazz (and really in most western music), you'll find that the natural 4 doesn't sound very good when emphasized over a chord with a major 3rd. So when you're improvising over C major, using F# instead of F (giving you a C lydian, or G major over C, sound) will sound great. The same goes for C dominant: you'll use that lydian scale with a Bb instead of a B, turning it into C lydian dominant, or G melodic minor over C.

Hmm, the music has 2 sharps (F# n C#), then the improv is C13 and then A13, cuz im doing this for competition, dun want the adjudicators to think that im playing in a wrong chord xD

thanks!

 

[madhag]

i think one of the biggest hurdles coming from classical background is learning to swing, playing anything jazz without swing is square. it's like learning a new sport.