Right there with you H. All the theory is Greek to me. Another language I’ve never learned. At 70 I most
Likely never will.

 

if you propose you can achieve it.I am 72 …..

 

I am learning to improvise using this book which offers a simple six step approach based around pentatonic scales:

Beginner Jazz Soloing for Saxophone & Clarinet: The beginner’s guide to jazz improvisation for woodwind instruments - Birch, Mr Buster, Alexander, Mr Joseph, Pettingale, Mr Tim | 9781789330809 | Amazon.com.au | Books

Beginner Jazz Soloing for Saxophone & Clarinet: The beginner’s guide to jazz improvisation for woodwind instruments [Birch, Mr Buster, Alexander, Mr Joseph, Pettingale, Mr Tim] on Amazon.com.au. *FREE* shipping on eligible orders. Beginner Jazz Soloing for Saxophone & Clarinet: The beginner’s...

www.amazon.com.au

There is a second book called Rhythm Changes teaching chord-based improv.

I have used this approach successfully to compose my own melodic & harmonic changes to songs. This is like improv but done over days rather than instantly.

Another resource I have used is transcriptions where I've picked up the use of leading notes and passing chromatics. You'll see this in lots of Youtube videos, too.

There are other formal jazz books but I find them far too difficult to recommend.

 

Great recommendations for improv thanks.

 

This seemed to help a bunch of people on their journey:

 

@Humbardi, you already know. Just wiggle your fingers and blow. The trick is paying attention so that you recognize the parts you like and the parts you don’t.

For jazz, the best thing is playing along with records you like, trying to match the style. There are a gazillion books and videos and web sites, etc, that have different approaches. They are all good, and they all suck, because the important thing is to play YOU. Explore, think about what you read, think about what you hear, learn one new thing every day, it’s your voice. Don’t give in to that inner fearful voice that says you can’t, because you can.

 

3 points -

1) @Humbardi hasn't chimed back in to this now five-page thread.

2) In the first few posts I said this:

@Humbardi, you already know. Just wiggle your fingers and blow. The trick is paying attention so that you recognize the parts you like and the parts you don’t.

For jazz, the best thing is playing along with records you like, trying to match the style. There are a gazillion books and videos and web sites, etc, that have different approaches. They are all good, and they all suck, because the important thing is to play YOU. Explore, think about what you read, think about what you hear, learn one new thing every day, it’s your voice. Don’t give in to that inner fearful voice that says you can’t, because you can.

Which is similar to the advice (but perhaps less structured) given by @turf3 on page 4...

But anyway I’m curious what you imagine as the way to start someone who doesn’t know the first thing about a scale or a chord. Just listen to records and hope if you press the right keys (out of all chromatic possibilities equally considered) you’ll be able to play something that sounds good? I’m assuming that’s not what you mean so there has to be some starting place, right?

3) But that's exactly how I started. Sure, I had played clarinet, I knew the note names, and how to finger them, and I practiced scales - from a book, reading the notes. When I started playing saxophone, I played along with the radio, every day, trying to pick stuff up. Three years later I was playing lead alto in my high school stage band, and tenor in the area "all-star" jazz band. And soloing (badly). Was also in a funk band where we learned every song we did by putting on the record and copping the parts. I did not learn much about theory per se until I went to college, just what I picked up by playing and talking with other musicians (and teachers sometimes).

It takes time and immersion, this is a process one has to go through to be successful at improvising. I don't care how many scales you can play, without "learning the language" (funk, rock, jazz, klezmer, you name it) you won't be any good.

@Zasterz, I agree with you, the great (and even the mediocre) players know both the language and the theory. They know how chords work, and what scales are good for, and they've practiced their asses off, can instantly play a new pattern in all 12 keys, and can read a flyspec at 50 paces. But I submit that the one thing one must do to be a successful improviser is immerse yourself in the music you like, and try to play it by ear.

 

So….no real answer. If you can do it you will. Or not.

-edit- My response was to the comment about wiggling your fingers. I hadn’t seen Dave Pollock’s post. No offense meant to Dave or anyone else.

 

The move for me was singing.

I figured out that I needed to sing my solo first, then learn to play what I sang on the horn.

Only after doing that for a while could I sing improvisations directly thru the horn.

Before any of that, for the longest time, I composed my solos at the piano, and that was the only way I could do it.

I was always a slow learner ....

 

Good idea. I do the same thing by whistling. I struggle with using chord tones on the fly. For me, a major step is knowing the tune really well. It's difficult though, I've always been a reader. I was contemplating Scott Paddock's course, though at US$29 per month, it's a little pricey.

 

Unless you devote a lot of time to music theory, learning changes and practicing these things for thousands of hours you are never going to become a master. But if you want to improvise, follow the melody and then just expand on it. And above all else, listen, listen to the improvisers and play along with their music.

 

If you can "carry a tune", e.g. vocalize (hum) or whistle a melody, and stay on pitch, you are on your way to learning to play by ear. Pick simple melodic songs and sound them out on your saxophone in various keys.

Years ago, I recorded myself playing basic melodies of tunes in my genre, then I played it back and played along with the melody to develop harmony-lines to the melodies - standard Dixieland fare, in my case.

After I taught myself basic harmonies, then I taught myself about chord structure. I found a simple book (I can't recall the title but I'm sure such books are easily found) that showed each chord with piano keyboard graphics, and I began playing various arpeggios and scales. I did this without reading actual written music.

I was blessed with a good ear for melody and chords, but I had to work at it. If you can hear the melody and the chord behind the melody, then improv will come to you. I admit that current musical fare (modern jazz, mostly) is beyond my ear, but put me in a Dixieland or early Tin Pan Alley setting and I can fit right in. Most early 20th Century music is predictable and even if I haven't heard an obscure piece before, it doesn't take me too long to get into it.

I agree with others about playing along with recordings. DAVE

 

I agree with others about playing along with recordings. DAVE

Yes. Improvisation begins with listening to music and then playing along with it. First getting the melody. Then adding harmony. Then adding your own voice.

The books can wait.

 

There are two primary methods to improvising. One requires a lot practice utilizing chords and understand the theory behind the chords. It really isn’t that hard but, it does require some explanation. It is best done that way starting with a private teacher who can explain things in the moment and what to practice. The other requires you to use your ears and have the facility on the horn to play what you hear. With this, you likely want to play along with recordings (transcription) and focus on developing vocabulary like you would learn to speak; through mimicry.

Ultimately, both paths should lead you to using you ears but the first increases you vocabulary as it specifically relates to specific chord changes while the second focuses on the ears more than technique.

 

If you can find any of Adolph Sandole's books, grab them and never let them go. They will give you the fluency on your instrument, develop your ears and you will learn the tunes. You can adapt his ideas on your own, play short motif fragments in every key, one right after the other. Use your ears to do the transpositions.

 

There are two related things, hearing the expression of notes in your head, and being able to execute them. Books and courses will usually develop your hearing through a gradual and logical methodology, but you can do that without the theory, too. The two most important aspects of hearing are rhythmic and melodic. Little is said about the rhythmic end, but it's something I like to focus on. I think the rhythmic part is what separates the many good players from the few great ones.

An improvised solo can be a conversation or a monologue, but either way, it needs to tell a story. To do that, as in any language, requires familiarity with words and the ability to combine them into sentences. Here's the thing: that doesn't mean you have to know and understand everything that everyone else in history has ever played. Whether something goes with what's behind it is a matter of personal taste. Ask Cecil Taylor as you listen to his solo in the very melodic Just Friends. The whole recording can be a major lesson in improvisation over a lot of chord changes.

Good improvised solos usually have a clear structure, too, like chapters in a book. I would recommend listening to the players you like, not just saxophone, but anything from voice to drums. Try to retain what it is they are saying, and how they say it. I think listening to something like John Coltrane's live recording of Spiritual displays the story telling aspect well. On piano, Keith Jarret's solo in Lucky Southern is a masterpiece. The way he plays with rhythm in it is nothing short of spectacular, ending the bridge in a waterfull of notes. Another brilliant piano solo by Gerald Clayton also demonstrates what can be done with a few simple notes and funky rhythm.

 

There are two related things, hearing the expression of notes in your head, and being able to execute them.

That, to me, is the essence of improvising. We've heard many suggestions as to how people have gotten there but basically it's the same thing. You have to have an idea, and you have to play the idea. You don't just look at the changes and have a melody spring forth by itself. You can look at the changes and connect them with scales that fit, but that to me is more like doing a crossword puzzle.

My path to improv was to learn a phrase I liked, and learn it in several different keys, then stick it in wherever I saw that chord. Then do that with another phrase, and so on. Eventually I learned that a Maj 7 phrase made a pretty sound, a flat 5 phrase made this funky sound, etc. and I could call on them as needed. After a while I didn't need to quote the phrase verbatim but pluck out bits and pieces and use them as a vocabulary to create a statement. But, I had to have an idea of what I wanted to say with them before I could do that.

 

My approach has been to embellish the melody and work on that to a point where it becomes more of a tribute to the the melody.
Using the basics of pentatonic and blues scales along with just listening and trying to feel the tune.
I’m very limited in vocabulary also, but I enjoy melody and expression above gymnastics.

 

I strongly believe in the virtues of building one’s understanding and “adoption” of improvisation skills by roughly following the sequence it went through in jazz history.
Louis Armstrong, Johnny Hodges or Lester Young before Charlie Parker, then the big post-bop decade, and then John Coltrane, and then the 60’s, etc….
As an example, Coltrane’s Body & Soul just doesn’t make sense if you can’t grasp how he put it together.
Armstrong’s or Hodges’ playing can be approached with quite basic harmony theory. Parker and later Coltrane require far more knowledge AND (thousands of) hours of practice.
Get the basic mechanics and rules into your ears, before you understand how to challenge and smash them.
Who said we stand on the shoulders of those before us ?

 

I think there are many a way to get somewhere but the way to get there is personal.

Singing is , to me, absolutely the way to get to improvise, at least, melodically, you take the melody, make it your own and make variations on that.

I have seen people (many of my friends) way more versed in theory than I ever was attending lots of courses and stil not be able to think of a few bars of unwritten music. The more they became full of theory the less they seemed to be able to think the music.

I have a moderate talent for music, I have always had it. I was able to sing and to remember music at some point I started playing and I could sing with my intrument, the more I knew the instrument the better I could do this but only because the connection between mind and instrument became stringer.

There are countless books and videos and courses but believe me I have seen many trying the cognitive road and failing miserably ( especially if you are a late bloomer).

Start small, take the blues, something simple that you know well. Summertime is a good beginning. Start in keys that you know well and don’t get your fingers in a twist.

Sugar was certainly, for me, one of the first easy tunes I started improvising. Blue Bossa was probably the second.

First try to sing the lines that you would like to play, and then , slowly, (start very slowly at a slow tempo) play things, other things will come to your mind

 

Singing is , to me, absolutely the way to get to improvise

I used to jam with a piano player and he would always do rounds of scat improvisation by everyone trading fours near the end of the song.

 

that may be a good thing but scat is yet another branch of the game.
The singer in my band is good at improvising but not very good at scatting, the thing is that scatting requiers a certain flair for articulating sounds which are equally rhythmic as they are melodic and not everyone has that, even if they are good at singing.

the power of ingrained patterns in our mind, the pentatonic “ scale” or rather sequence shows that we all have a built in (culturally) basic knowledge of where to musically “ go” where you start somewhere that you can relate to.... many times quoted

 

Sheryl Bailey has a video I saw where she demonstrates a crash improvisation method. It goes like this:

Take something simple like the first 8 bars (verse 1) of Autumn Leaves:
Cm7 F7 BbM7 EbM7 am7b5 D7 gm7 gm7

Learn each of the 4-note seventh arpeggios one by one, up and down the range of your instrument. Start on the lowest root, go up to the highest available note, back down to the lowest available note, back up to the root.

Then set up a backing track (iReal Pro etc) set to something quite slow, 60 bpm or so, and start each arpeggio from the lowest root note on 1 ascending in 8th notes. Go up until you hit the top and come back down as necessary to fill the bar. Work on ensuring you hit the new root on each 1.

Next do the same descending from the highest root note going down (and turning back up where needed.)

Repeat starting from the lowest third of each chord going up.

Repeat starting from the highest third of each chord going down.

Repeat with the fifths then the sevenths.

Then try switching it up, always going to the nearest chord tone of the next chord on the downbeat of the next measure.

Then feel free to add some neighboring/passing notes rather than sticking to just the arpeggios. Just try to get back to a chord tone of the new chord on each 1 (at least most of the time.)

Loosen up the rhythms, add space, make phrases. Experiment.

It may seem methodical and robotic at first but by going through this on just a few tunes you marinate your ear in possibilities and it really starts making a difference imo.

p.s. If 8 measures is too long to remember or is otherwise overwhelming, feel free to start with a shorter segment such as the first ii V I in just 4 bars like:
cm7 F7 Bb7 Bb7
You can add the next chunk as you get the hang of it!

 

Maybe the best advice might be to engage a tutor? I did that some five years ago when starting on sax (I am a very 'late bloomer'.. and theory tends to fry my few remaining grey cells). I am trying to learn improvisation. I can harmonise singing on the fly (up to a point) but I find improvisation hard. I play piano so some chord visualisations are helpful. Pentatonic/blues scales are getting me going and these can be used in some pieces throughout - so good for a learner. Following chords has the first problem of me losing my way, but working in chunks of 4 bars is helping that. My next step is to play along with others' improvisations.
As a btw, the thread on here about tritone substitution has told me how to bring in that glorious key change that I have heard for years hut never understood. Dave Pollack's video particularly helpful.

 

Maybe the best advice might be to engage a tutor?

It may be the thing but I have seen from close by a friend of mine (late bloomer) spending hours and tons of money with tutors, schools and so on, he plays marginaly beter now that he did before he did all this and the thing is, you can read it and hear it, but at some point you have to do it.

Now you are facing the instrument and its complexities and between you and the instantaneous improvisation there are now all the books and courses which one should all call in the “ moment”.

Frankly speaking if you have to think of the music you can’t play it (can’t remember who said this).

Think of singers (I keep saying this), most have no idea of theory, but they have experience , they have interiorized where they are and where they want to go, and the experience helps them through “ how to get there”

Reading the dictionary and learning the rules has never made many people able to speak any language and music is no different. Doing it, is a balancing act, think on someone walking on the slack rope, to me this is improvisation...., in an instant I know that I have played a sound (notes are written so it is not a note) and that is where I am, no in my mind I need to know where I want to be.

Well, I played another sound, maybe not preceisely the one I wanted and now where do I have to be to be on the way where I know I should be?

 

Here are my 2cents:

Everyone can improvise. If you are singing in the shower, you are likely improvising. The problem usually starts when you hear other people do something and think "I want to sound like that".

It is my impression that in this forum (but also in discussions elsewhere) the term "improvising" is used in a more narrow meaning as in "playing over a set of chord changes as [insert any given name of a jazz legend of your choice] did". What you need then is a vocabulary that fits the respective style. This can only be achieved by listening to that kind of music extensively. But that is only a first step. In a second and many subsequent a step you need to learn what the main incredients are that are the fundament of that particular sound. If you have the ears for it you can do that by ear and everything is fine and dandy. If you are like me and don't have the ears you need to get that information elsewhere and in different ways.

If we are talking about improvising over main stream jazz material I find this handbook by Jamey Aebersold helpful, which can be downloaded for free here:

https://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/download/FQBK-handbook.pdf

It starts at the beginning (i.e. the realisation that we can make something up in the moment without further ado but that it does not sound anything like the records we adore) and gives you a step by step method to approach improvisation over chord changes with some rudimentary theory. That book will keep you busy for a while if you actually care to follow it. In fact, most of the stuff in there can be found in the prefaces of Aebersold play along books, but no one ever seems to read those, me included.

Now, I know that I will be eaten alive here for this post since Jamey seems to have gone from superhero to antichrist of jazz education in recent years and people will argue and point out that his play-alongs ruined generations of jazz musicians, that his understanding of minor modes in jazz is all wrong, that his b5 really is a #4 and that if we do what Jamey says every one will sound the same and that this is the final straw that breaks the camel's back and kill jazz. (And yes, there is some advertising for Jamey's products in there. But as a savvy internet user you can't really point fingers at something like that and you can ignore it at your discretion.)

However, I wish I had that resource available when I started out on my journey (which was befor the internet was born). My teachers certainly conveyed none of that information to me although they all could certainly play it.

 

I used to be strictly an ear player, having no idea what was going on harmonically really, except for using my ear to find what sounded good. That works for some rock, blues, and pop stuff if you have pretty good ears, but IMO Jazz is a whole other animal.

After giving up music for nearly a decade, I jumped back in, but this time approached it by learning and practicing scales and trying to learn fundamentals of playing and theory. It's been a slow and steady process for several years squeezing in time around family and work.

I recommend perseverance and patience most of all. Practice scales. Practice arpeggios of all chord qualities. A lot of this stuff does not necessarily sound like music, but it's stuff you need to be able to do without thinking, in order to concentrate on playing what you hear and knowing how to do it. I think you just have to go through the motions and trust that it is taking you somewhere.

Wax on, was off.

 

I think that the operative thing is that you were already an improviser and then you added things to support it , this may have worked wonders but I an not sure that learning first scales and other things (like theory of improvisation) will necessarily make you a improviser when you need to be.

Then and there.

I spent years at a place where people came to improvise, some could some couldn’t and this included people with solid musical backgrounds.

At then the teacher felt that he needed to explain his version of harmony and harmonic improcisation.

The glaze in the eyes of most (included me) was absolutely noticeable then people started dropping out in one evening there was one hou or two of explanation and we practiced in a group two songs at most (each taking turns on a solo) , no one improvised any better than they did before the lessons had started.

 

Paul Desmond:
"Jazz is like writing...it can be learned, but it can't be taught."

Learn harmony/melody/rhythm, then forget it & just dance.

 

I've witnessed some players at jams and such who really sound bad, with no rhyme or reason to just about anything they play, and just seem happy as clams to be tooting away. That's one form of improvisation I suppose.

Not sure of my point, but maybe it's that it is hard to give advice without knowing what the player really wants out of it.

 

but again, most singers have a natural way to do this by accessing the vocabulary and the wealth of things they know, although their advantage (mine since I sing) the interface, the instrument, is a natural one, the voice, so the instrument you have to play is YET another hurdle, but the ability to improvise has not necessarily to pass through music theory.

 

If you are unable to find a teacher then you might consider two suggestions. One, learn every scale forward and backwards and listen and play along with as many recordings as you possibly can. Improvising is about listening and learning to feel the changes and being able to use those scales to create melodies and "cells" of combination of notes from the appropriate scale that fits the changes of a particular chart. I forgot to add be prepared to make lots of mistakes and get frustrated but keep persevering and it will eventually happen in a decade or so. Good luck

 

There are two broad aspects of jazz improvisation: 1) what you feel and imagine, and 2) the tradition and what you want to bring forward from the tradition into your playing. There are tons of resources regarding the latter, but it's also important to explore your own experience- to play what what you feel, even if it doesn't sound exactly like how you want it to sound. That will improve over time, but it's important get after it as part of your daily practice.

 

As many have pointed out there are two basic avenues: Theory or by ear. You need to know yourself and your abilities to decide which way works for you. In one situation you often have no idea what notes you are playing as you're following patterns and "translating" continually the chords that are written into arpeggios, and patterns that are practiced until they become "finger memory". Playing by ear means that you hear the notes you want to play (could sing them) and have developed the facility to play those notes.

It should be obvious which one communicates best and can be a personal expression. For those who can't sing an improvisation the academic route may be as good as it gets. Having a good attitude and enjoying what you're doing with either direction you take is important. Many players have been advised that one MUST use theory. Theory is good to understand, but if you have musical talent, then having a good musical library in your head and playing what you can hear is a very direct way to play. Rote pattern players can develop speed and skill. By playing the same or similar patterns means that little thought is necessary...it can be impressive, although it's unlikely to communicate much beyond appreciation for the effort that went into learning those patterns.

Copying players you like (or are told are great) can work both ways. You may find as you dig that it opens vistas of understanding and ways to hear music. Too often though players just become pale imitations or "tribute players" to some long dead sax hero. Does it matter?

 

As many have pointed out there are two basic avenues: Theory or by ear.

Yeah.. no. Every decent musician I know has both (and every astounding musician I know excels at both.) It ain’t either/or. Sure there are some who studied theory less deeply than others, but to the extent of “not even knowing what notes you’re playing”— I don’t know anyone like that except for some vocalists.