Check out Hal Crook's book, "How to Improvise." I wish I'd had this when I started out, and just looking through its more streamlined version, "Ready, Aim, Improvise," (which I think works better for teachers or students who already have some idea what's going on) helped me to conceptualize an efficient approach to practicing better.
Actually, I wrote a response to a young kid from Chicago on a myspace forum a couple years ago, and I saved it because I thought I might use it somewhere else. Here you go:
Posted: Nov 15, 2005 12:57 AM
**********Wrote:
You almost have to transcribe yourself.
Yeah, but without the "almost!" When I was having trouble negotiating Giant Steps without sounding like a retarded robot, one of my teachers said, "Look, dumbass, you're going about it all wrong. Every day this week, you're gonna sing a few choruses and record it. Then you're gonna take the one you did the day before your lesson, transcribe the solo and come in here ready to blow it." That helped me a lot, because it freed me from the "constriction" my mind placed on me with regard to the changes.
When I started learning to improvise, I'd say I learned the same way most people did, and now I think I wasted a lot of time doing it that way. I started out in jazz band in high school, unable to read changes, and not knowing anything about theory, harmony or melody. My one saving grace was that I really listened to music (as opposed to having it playing in the background) and I had a good ear. Pretty much right away I could take a blues solo that wouldn't embarrass me as a 14-year-old. You know, I learned some blues scales and I knew my major and minor scales and went from there. Later I learned about arpeggios and whatnot, but it didn't help me much with coming up with a good solo. When I told my teacher I wanted to learn jazz and go to music school, he told me to grab an Omnibook and start shedding that stuff to get the sound of bebop in my head. Later I started transcribing stuff, and the harmony classes in college explained a lot about the thought process to me.
Anyway, the thing is, there's only so much you can be taught off the printed page about improvising, and other people have said more than I can, and said it better. So, for starters, I'd recommend that you buy "Ready, Aim, Improvise, " by Hal Crook. If I were starting out today, I'd work from that book from day one.
Also, get a knowledgable teacher. Make sure they're experienced players: look at their bio, because they can probably "wow" you pretty easily just by pushing a lot of buttons, but the bio will tell you what experienced pros they've been able to "wow."
Now, to get better, you've gotta do it, love it, see it and basically overall jones on it.
Step one, join the jazz band at school, get some guys together to jam, find the local blues, jazz, bluegrass, afro-death-neo-classical-J-pop jam session and go sit in if they let you. You have to do it and hear people who are more experienced do it. Pick their brains, listen to what they say and what they do and learn everything you can.
You gotta have the love for this music, man, or you're not gonna work on it like it needs.
Whenever you can afford to go see some of the badass world class cats that come through Chicago, go do it. There's no substitute for the live experience, and if you're lucky, most of these guys are pretty chill, and you can go pick their brains, too. You can learn as much as if not more from going to a great show than from hitting the shed.
When I turn off the music going into my head, I got my own jukebox that keeps playing inside there. Sometimes I just hear a tune (usually whatever I last heard gets stuck), but usually I've just got an improvised thing going unconsciously. I think most musicians are like this, with whatever they do on the brain all the time. That's the jones that won't leave you alone.
I'm serious, if you do this stuff, you will find out everything I could tell you and more. Personally, I think that music is communication, and many of the ideas can only be poorly translated into English, so you have to learn to hear them, then to identify them, understand them, and finally express them in their own language.
Also, learn your scales and chords and stuff. The Joe Viola books "Technique for the Saxophone: Volumes 1-2" are good to help you with that, but mainly you just gotta practice. Knowing your way around the horn is a huge asset. On another thread, I think Douglass said that all the great players are nasty classical cats, too, and that's because the technique that comes from classical study lets you express the music that's in you freely. Think about it less as building technique and more as knocking down the barrier between you and your instrument. Kenny Werner wrote a great book called "Effortless Mastery" that might help you with some conceptual stuff. It's not about the actual mechanics of improvisation like the Hal Crook book is, but it's like "meta-improvisational" or "meta-musical" information that will help you play better.
The Hal Crook is the best investment you can make for this, man. Drop the $40 and buy it. He's got 2, but they're essentially the same: "Ready, Aim, Improvise" spells things out a little more and has more examples than "How to Improvise." Anyway, I'm tired of writing and I have an early morning, so it's bed time. Thanks for the kind words.
Dan