I want to respond to something that Susi said in the Forked Deer thread, but I think it's worthy of a discussion in it's own right, and I don't want to divert that thread from all the great videos people are posting (I'll get mine up eventually, I promise!). Anyway, the comment is this: if I have someone to play the chords, and I need to play a break, I play something that sounds good with the chords, but I definitely NOT think that "oh, he plays and E chord there so I need to play this and that.." - I'm not capable to do such things. I just do what sounds good in my ears. My level of music theory is VERY low (if any at all). It's funny, because I'm pretty much the exact opposite. I know all the theory (BA in music), can figure out what notes and scales go over any chord in any key, but I've never gotten the hang of making it sound right. When I get to take a break in a jam setting, I try to play notes that work with the chord, but it never comes out sounding natural, just a flurry of notes that happen to make sense (if I'm lucky) over the chord progression. This is why all my videos feature carefully thought out arrangements - I wouldn't be able to come up with something interesting on the fly. I just find it interesting that people who have far less technical knowledge than I do can make it sound so simple. I love being able to make complex arrangements, but I'll always envy the ability of those of you who can improvise naturally.
Very interesting thread, Ken! You probably know more than I do about the pentatonic scale (I only know there is such a thing and that it is used in bluegrass). Have you tried improvising on that? There are some no-no notes in bluegrass as I've understood it... but I'm afraid I'm far out here in theory stuff that I don't know anything about Anyway that might be the reason you can't make it sound right even when using the notes in the chords. Just an idea. If you stop thinking and just listen to the chords and try to play along, what happens? Could you do that? I think that knowledge in music theory definitely helps in improvising, because you will have a deeper understanding in what you are doing and maybe have more ideas on what you can do - at least that's my theory of it. What do you think? Or is it better to just go with the flow (oops, sounds VERY 60's!!) ? I would never have the patience to sit down and learn a lot of music theory, I have too much to do anyway, but I can learn what to do on my instruments, and get ideas from others etc. Sometimes I feel that I should just give up on anything because I'm so hopeless and because it seems everyone who plays music knows everything about the theory, so there is no hope for me. But also, people around me enjoy my playing and I love to play music, and when it sounds bad it doesn't have to do with my lack of music theory but more with my lack of technique on the instrument. That being said, I do envy people who know it all. It must be handy, and if not anything else, you can join discussions here on the Cafe where I feel like an idiot (when they start discussing theory they could just as well start talking in Chinese).
I believe that improvisation is both easier and more difficult than most people tend to think. It's all about grouping things into chunks, like words and phrases, developing a little vocabulary that you can use and build on. In general people don't do what you describe Ken, which is to actually make up the run they play over the chord on the spur of the moment, because then, as you say, you're just lucky if it fits and even luckier if it sounds good. When people improvise, it always tends to sound very much "of the genre" in which they're improvising - they usually sound a lot like other people improvising in the same genre, and this is because they're playing the same phrases as their heroes. In order to improvise at all, you need just a few of these stock phrases for each chord. To improvise well, you need to know dozens, and you also need to have a lot of experience and expertise in linking them together in ways that show them off to their best advantage, and also that can mix up and disguise them so that you don't sound too cliched, make little musical puns, reflect or embellish the melody or whatever you're into. Some people do this quite instinctively, but for most, and certainly for me, it takes a lot of practice and behind the scenes preparation to improvise. But again, there's very little theory involved, most of the time it's just learning "oh this lick sounds great with this chord, when you're going to the four chord over the 7th you can use this run to get you there" and so on. Because it's called "improvisation" I think people just feel like they have to do it on the spur of the moment or it isn't real. But I feel that you can and should practice it as a skill just like any other.
Sausage, is it the "licks" you're talking about here? I don't know any licks. I do something around the melody when I play a break. The only lick I know is a little run to end the break.
Yes, it's interweaving sections of melody and licks, or combinations of licks that you remember. So, a lick can be just a couple of notes, or a whole phrase that goes over two or three bars. Or it could be something as vague as knowing that there's a position or group of notes you can play in a certain context that sound good to you. And you can combine and vary licks and ideas to suit the melody or your goal. Some people do it quite unconsciously I believe.
Good advice, Susi and sausage. I guess my training leads me to think too much about the big picture that I never stop to consider small bits. I've never thought "I've got 4 bars of I, then 4 bars of IV, etc", I just jump in and try to keep up. I've also always been a little wary of "licks" based improvising, because it seems kind of limiting. I'd rather crash and burn trying to do something creative than just plug in a bunch of pre packaged licks. I guess that's not as much fun to listen to, though!
I think the problem is how you think of it. You can call it a "licks based approach", and that sounds kind of facile and not very free-spirited. But it's really more fluid than that phrase makes it sound. Instead of thinking of them as "a bunch of licks", you should think of them as "building blocks for an improvisational vocabulary". If you don't have a vocabulary, you can't say anything. The "licks" are like mini fiddle tunes, can be played many different ways and are capable of infinite variety. There's no creativity without structure.
It would be cool to have an annotated video of a song everyone knows, i.e., this is what I'm doing and why it fits here. Here is a example of an approach for teaching people to read. If you substitute music, there are some cool ideas on how a more experienced player can concretely share what they're doing. I see the makings of a Mel Bay Book/DVD proposal. If not that, the makings for a cool continuation of this thread ;-) http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruct...thinkaloud.htm
I really enjoyed this discussion from all of you. I can play the notes straight but to improvise in a Jam session is very difficult. I end up playing it just straight. I think the mark of a person that can really improvise well plays so the basic tune can still be heard but at the same time adds changes that create an new sound or flavor to the tune. Basically if you cannot recognize the song to me you have created something new and I am not sure I would consider that improvising. So I think that the licks approach is the key to learning how to improvising. Don't get me wrong I do not know how to improvise but this is my thinking of what I need to do to learn to improvise. Do you agree with these statements? You know it sounds like we need a "lick a week song" where the licks are shown and then applied to a song. I wish some of the more advanced players would start a thread like this so we could learn how to play and apply licks.
I am not a big fan of predefied worked out licks. I mean when someone comes up with a bunch of licks that work for tunes in G, or what ever, and then shoves those licks into the next G tune that comes around. It causes a certain "sameness" to all that person's improvisation,and it makes the tune itself less relevant. For me, the tune is everything. The improvisation should come out of the tune, should be inspired by the tune. The break should expand upon the narrative logic of the tune itself, not just be an opportunity to "play my own stuff fast". I am not saying we shouldn't learn an practice licks. Not at all. But when we use a turn around or a break that we have practiced, it should fit into the tune seamlessly, and it should seem an obvious way to go within the tune. Extreme example I recently heard at a jam that made me grimace - a blues lick in the middle of an Irish tune. Ahhhh. Just my opinion.
I am certainly not an expert in any of this.... my whole experience in playing music is in mostly Celtic, and the rest old-time tunes. Very few jam session experiences... I play in a band that has 4 members. I play melody MOST of the time (but hope to expand that so I also can play chords) However, the chords and rhythm is well taken care of by the guitar player and cittern/banjo player, and the only chords I readily can play, are the 2, sometime 3 finger chords, and when I do play those, it's when I'm playing my OM. In the type of music that we play, we learn a melody, then we'll try to come up with a harmony or counter-melody that one of us plays part of the time...but there's no real LICK playing (as I think I understand the term) Maybe playing licks is more in other genre, like bluegrass? However, I do like the idea of a LICKS video thread, with videos filmed closely, slowly, with you explaining as you go along, just what you are doing, and why, so that those of us that are completely clueless, can get an idea of what you are talking about!
I'm not sure I could use licks.... I have a book full of licks but I never know where to throw them in. I never learn like everyone else do.... it seems. I'm not able to improvise at all. I learn the melody of the tune and then play something around it (if playing a break). Maybe that's not improvising? It seems here that you define improvising as coming up with something completely new? That's not how I've seen it..at least not only. Barbara, yeah, licks is for bluegrass and other styles where you do improvise. You don't do that in celtic styles or oldtime.
As far as I'm concerned, improvisation is a very broad term. Basically, if you're playing something that you didn't prepare or plan ahead of time, you're improvising. That can mean sticking close to the melody but throwing in some variations. It can also mean creating something entirely new to go over the chord changes (this is how most jazz players approach it), or anything in between. I guess I lean a bit towards the latter, as long as it makes sense within the style, because I like to hear individual creativity, and it gives the player a bit more freedom to come up with something interesting.
I'm interested in these negative reactions to licks, and I think that perhaps it's easy to develop a very narrow definition of the term "licks", and maybe "licks" is not even a good word to use. I don't know if I really have the skills to do a video, but in the meantime have a little think about what the possibilities are if you want to improvise over a certain section of music, and what the possible approaches might be. You certainly can never go wrong by just playing the melody, but part of the fun of an instrumental break is that you can embellish or alter it in some way, and make a new thing from it. That doesn't mean ignoring the melody, you can play a lot of the melody, but at some point in your break you need to add something. So what do you play? Your choices are these: 1. you can run up and down the scale a bit, (which can work, but tends to sound dull if you do it too much) 2. You can play more or less the melody but make rhythmic variations and/or note substitutions (nothing wrong with that) 3. You can spontaneously create an entire new composition in your head (can be challenging when standing in front of 300 people and playing at 300bpm) 4. You can choose a tasteful selection of suitable and interesting licks from your vast store and vary and interweave them with the melody. There may be other ways and I'd like to hear of them, but these are all I can think of. When I'm improvising I try to use a mixture of strategies 1, 2 and 4. Also, consider that there are licks that define the genre you're working with. Jazzers all know a few Miles Davis licks, bluegrassers all know a few Bill Monroe licks. Everyone who is any good at improvising uses licks all the time. Nobody says you have to use these licks slavishly, and I think Monroe and Davis clearly demonstrate how successfully you can do this, although it is a lot of work.
Jeff, I agree with you from the standpoint of using the same licks over and over and over. It is so bland. It has to be tastefully done and it is only one technique that should be used when appropiate. Licks are used all the time to start and stop songs as well as to add variety in bluegrass. Licks can be very simple or complex. But also consider a madolin player playing a celtic fiddle tune. If there is a whole note for 2 measures how does the madolin player resolve this technically. The mandolin sound decays quickly so the player has to do something to the tune to play it and maintain the timing. He could select to play a series of triplet, tremolo, an arpeggio, a series of notes or chord to fill the time. He has just played a simple lick. I guess I have a loose definition for licks but no matter what you call it the key is that it is done with musical style. I have to agree with what you said about the idea of playing a blues lick in a irish tune. It just doesn't fit in the traditional music style. Licks have to fit the style of play and you have to know several to keep things interesting. What are your thoughts?
Excellent explanation, Sausage. I would guess most of the negative reaction to licks (including mine, to some extent) comes from hearing people who use your #4 choice exclusively. Especially if said players don't have a huge selection and/or don't know which licks to use when. I have no problem with licks when players use them as a guide, or maybe as a linking passage to different ideas within a break. I suspect this is what the really good improvisers do, in fact. The hard part is getting to the point where you can weave in selected licks as a seamless part of the whole.
Jeff: I reread your post and believe we are saying the same thing. You are not opposed to the use of licks just the "abuse of use" of them. OldSausage: You said exactly what I was trying to say. The variety of different licks is what I was hoping to learn from my original request. I am not sure I know all of the different types and styles and would like to learn some of them. Got to go for now. I will have to read any other (if any) responses tonight. See Ya!!
Ken_P: "The hard part is getting to the point where you can weave in selected licks as a seamless part of the whole." That's exactly right, Ken. I can learn a new lick in a few minutes, but it can take weeks, months or even years to learn how to build variations out of it, play it in different timings, over different chords, and work it successfully into my breaks. I have to live and breathe them. And more than half the time it still comes out all wrong
One other thing that I wanted to say about improvisation is that I believe most skilled improvisers don't just go out there and instinctively play a great break without any forward planning. Usually they know at least what tune they will be playing ahead of time, and they will have a sketch in their head of more or less what kind of thing they will play, which be something like this: "At the start of the break, play the melody in first position. Where there's a break in the melody over the V chord I will play that Adam Steffey lick that will sound great there, and that will take me up to the 7th fret where there's a great minor scale position that sounds cool over the second part, and I think I can make it sound like a minor version of that bit in the chorus. Then I'll do something with this Doyle Lawson riff that's good over the IV chord, and if I'm feeling lucky I'll hit some Bill Monroe triplets right at the end before finishing back on the low A to help keep that lousy lead singer on track".
Wow, I'm glad I play Celtic music with no lousy singer... much less to think about!
Good discussion. There's no right way to approach improvisation. Old Sausage has a lot of good advice. Must be the wisdom that comes with being "old." At the risk of repeating what others have said: 1. If you want to learn to play more than the melody as written, first learn the notes and, ideally, the chords (which is something I am working hard to improve on myself). 2. Come up with some simple variations on the melody to play the second or third or fourth time through. Play the melody up or down an octave. Alter the melody and play your new version (or borrow from one of the alternate versions of these tunes you'll find here, on YouTube and in the written versions). Maybe alter the rhythm a little -- instead of playing two quarter notes, play four eighth notes; instead of playing eight eighth notes, reduce it to two half notes. 3. Learning licks is important -- not so you can rip somebody off, but so you can collect bits of tunes that will fit into the melodies of other tunes as a pleasant way to personalize and vary them. Example: parts of the opening figure of Blackberry Blossom can be used in a lot of different tunes. When you hear somebody coming up with something brilliant in a solo, either they're REALLY good, or it's something they've worked out in advance, or it's a part of something from somewhere else they're grafting onto the tune. 4. Beyond that, it's playing scales and scales based on chords, and not getting too far from the melody or losing the chord changes, which usually leaves you playing in the wrong key. That, and relaxing enough to listen to what you're playing, and, when possible, not playing the music so much as letting the music happen.
I agree, a very interesting discussion! What wisdom do you think he has, which comes from being 'sausage'? I never sausage a good picker! I'm goofy with finally being back in Iowa, where the weather is nice and cool, rather than over 100 degrees every day!
Well, I think the sausage part helps me collect licks Here's an example, a little improvised break that is basically all licks, and I've annotated it so you can see who I have ripped each bit from:
Old Sausage..... that was awesome. Makes me feel completely inadequate!
Great, Sausage!! That was a good example, will you save that on your Tube channel so that I can save it somewhere? Good ideas there. Seems I'm not too far from being on the right track. At least something.. Thanks for taking the time to do the vid!
Improvisation is a time consuming practice, practice, practice, and more practice. When you aren't practicing there's listening, listening, listening, and more listening. No matter the genre or style of music played. Here's a couple of resources I've not seen mentioned but y'all should be aware of. (imho) Though they contain the word 'jazz' it doesn't mean it will turn the lover of bluegrass into a jazzer. It's a tool to be used and applied as and where one can. David Baker, who was a renowned jazz musician and instructor at Indiana University, put together several books that dealt with various aspects of jazz improvisation as well as arranging and composing. One of the books broke up a scale into over 220 ways to play a scale. Quite a series of exercises. Should one want to peruse his offerings you can them here. Another option is Jamey Aebersold's series of jazz improv and study cd-roms. Jamey's stuff has been around for quite awhile and can be found here.
Can you offer any further guidance on that Joe? I went to those web sites but they look rather daunting. I felt like I'd stumbled into some fancy Parisian cafe in my bib overalls.
OK, now let's all take a deep breath and remember we're just simple mandolin players and don't know nothing about birthing up no babies.
OS, I'll have to dig my book out so's I can give y'all an exact title. I'll try and see if it's still in print. You're right about that sight being daunting. Both individuals are enormously prolific in their educational publishing and I hesitated to make mention of them. So, stay tuned...
sausage's demonstration is way beyond what i can do now but i found that limited variation on a melody is easy to do if you can sing - harmony in particular. i wouldn't be able to analyse what i'm playing and it might be different every time but singing helps.
