Planned improv?

[mythicfish]

"Oh gee, sorry I put you through having to read it three times. Heaven help us that there should be any repetition here on the Cafe'! Maybe it's because the three threads I posted it in were re-hashing the same topic. In case you haven't noticed, we do a lot of that here. I repeat quotes. Others repeat tired old opinions."

Alan, tread lightly ... folks 'round these parts can be pretty thin-skinned at times, especially when they feel that they've be informed against their will.
I say that ALL the time ...
As for "tired, old opinions" ... when repeated enough times, that's what passes for common knowledge.

[Mark Robertson-Tessi]

It's useful to try to work out solos with different feelings on the same tune since you don't always know what the player who goes before you will do. You have to be ready to continue or contrast their solo. If the band is rocking when your turn comes, the delicate solo you worked out may be lost (or may be brilliant, if the band follows you). Likewise, a blazing solo might be inappropriate if the group goes for a chill version of the tune.

Eventually, improv would allow you to respond to these situations on the fly.

Cheers
MRT

[Peter Hackman]

Quote (jflynnstl @ April 14 2007, 23:14)
I read an interview with the great jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain. The interviewer stated that Fountain was renouned for improvization and then asked him what his secret was to great improvization. Fountain replied words to the effect, "My secret is that I have never improvized anything in my life."

You've posted that quote at least three times.

Here's another quote (I forget the source):

We never talk about our music. Because, as soon as we do, we start telling lies.

Oh gee, sorry I put you through having to read it three times. Heaven help us that there should be any repetition here on the Cafe'! Maybe it's because the three threads I posted it in were re-hashing the same topic. In case you haven't noticed, we do a lot of that here. I repeat quotes. Others repeat tired old opinions.

I was merely stating a fact. But I also thought it was about time to point out how little significance should be attached to such cute statements by musicians, especially in interviews.

Incidentlly, I didn't know that Pete Funtain is a great jazz clarinet player but I guess Lawrence Welk thought so ...

[mythicfish]

"I also thought it was about time to point out how little significance should be attached to such cute statements by musicians"

Musicians don't just "steal" ...:

[Peter Hackman]

It's useful to try to work out solos with different feelings on the same tune since you don't always know what the player who goes before you will do. #You have to be ready to continue or contrast their solo. #If the band is rocking when your turn comes, the delicate solo you worked out may be lost (or may be brilliant, if the band follows you). #Likewise, a blazing solo might be inappropriate if the group goes for a chill version of the tune.

Eventually, improv would allow you to respond to these situations on the fly.

Cheers
MRT

Important point: different segments of a musical performance can relate to one another not only by similarity, but also by contrast.

[Tom Smart]

Fountain replied words to the effect, "My secret is that I have never improvised anything in my life."

How is this Pete Fountain quote relevant to the various threads where you've posted it? When someone asks for advice about improvising, are you telling them:

1. Pete Fountain is a great player; he doesn't improvise; therefore, great players don't improvise? Fallacious and untrue.

2. People asking questions about improvising should just forget about it? Not very helpful advice.

3. It's possible to play enjoyable, entertaining music without ever improvising? That's obviously true, and completely irrelevant to the question.

4. I, MandoJohnny, never improvise? So what.

5. Something else? Then please explain.

Coincidentally, I recently read an interview with Pete Fountain too. It can be found at www.experienceneworleans.com/pete.html. Here's an excerpt:

Nick: Pete, what method, if any, did you use to learn how to improvise?

Pete: I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets. I could always hear it.

I believe that developing the ear is one of the greatest benefits of working on improvisation skills, even if in actual performance you play pieces note-for-note. It strengthens the hand/ear/mind connection that Niles has written about, and helps free the player to express emotion through the tune--not just recite the notes. It also helps overcome the fear factor of performing: If you can get comfortable improvising solos in a jam setting, then playing the stuff you know by heart in front of an audience becomes a snap.

Tom

[mythicfish]

Ergo Socrates is mortal

[Peter Hackman]

[QUOTE= (Tom Smart @ Oct. 29 2007, 17:15)]

www.experienceneworleans.com/pete.html[/url]. Here's an excerpt:

Nick: Pete, what method, if any, did you use to learn how to improvise?

Pete: I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets. I could always hear it.

I believe that developing the ear is one of the greatest benefits of working on improvisation skills, even if in actual performance you play pieces note-for-note. It strengthens the hand/ear/mind connection that Niles has written about, and helps free the player to express emotion through the tune--not just recite the notes. It also helps overcome the fear factor of performing: If you can get comfortable improvising solos in a jam setting, then playing the stuff you know by heart in front of an audience becomes a snap.

Tom

I found that interview too, after some googling.

Note his evasive answer. My conviction is that improvisation simply happens; the gift or urge to improvise is something you discover. It can't really be taught or learned - all you can teach/learn is some basic techniques, harmonic relationships

[Don Christy]

IMO John's favorite Pete Fountain quote (posted at least 5 times ) is simply meant to be a humorous statement to the effect that improv skills come from doing the hard work of preparation. Though, like most clever bumper sticker statements, much is left unsaid. You would have to dig much deeper to find out if there's really any substance to the statement.

IMO there's some great advice in this thread. Lot's of things to start working on.
Don

[Peter Hackman]

IMO John's favorite Pete Fountain quote (posted at least 5 times ) is simply meant to be a humorous statement to the effect that improv skills come from doing the hard work of preparation. Though, like most clever bumper sticker statements, much is left unsaid. You would have to dig much deeper to find out if there's really any substance to the statement.

IMO there's some great advice in this thread. Lot's of things to start working on.
Don

Some musicians will say different things to different reporters, perhaps depending on their varying respect for them. But many musicians resist any intellectualizing or any easy generalizations on the topic.

I recall a conversation several years ago with some prominent jazz musicans - I forget the occasion and the topic. I remarked somewhat carelessly that J McLaughlin hade said somewhere that he thinks much more in terms of scales than chords, e.g., not Cmaj+11, but C Lydian. To which Bobo Stenson remarked almost angrily: He does not, he improvises.

[John Flynn]

Look, guys, sorry I posted that quote too many times. Really. I didn't realize I had overdone it. It is just an apropos quote by a musician I really respect and I am mindful that new members read these threads and those new members don't have the "corporate memory" of the usual crowd here. I never intended the quote to be a "be-all-end-all" QED logical argument. I do think it is a nice thought. It uses what I think is a clever parallel irony to say that it is good to have a plan when you improvize. It is a statement I agree with.

BTW, I have heard Fountain play live, NOT on Lawrence Welk, but in a performance with his own band in New Orleans. It was a small club and I was in the front row, about 10 feet from him. The performance incredible and riveting. I am not really into New Orleans jazz, but I was blown away nontheless. It was just great music and his solos were out of this world. IMHO, anyone who would imply that his opinion on this topic should not carry some serious weight has not heard him live.

Do I ever improvize with out a plan? Sometimes. However, I am never nearly as satisfied with the outcome as when I improvize with one. Of course as always, YMMV.

[Kevin Briggs]

Fountain's quote sounds to me like the quote from a famous Russian chess champion regarding how far ahead he plans each move. He said something like he only plans one move at a time. It's obviously an understatement, because he means that each and every move is the most appropriate for what he is tryign to accomplish, but the point is well-taken. He can only do what he is able to do (and not lose), and still manage to execute his plan.

That's pretty confusing. The point is, I agree that people who are really great at something often have a very simple way of explainign what they do. Fountain may simply mean that what he plays is programmed through licks and a vocabulary he knows so masterfully. He may be on a level where he is not really inventing the music, in his opinion, but that it is coming together exactly where it needs to.

I also think of trhe movie "Amadeus," when the Duke or whatever told Motzart that his operah had too many notes, and Mozart responded that it has just as many as it requires, no more and no less. i think anyone who has created music on any level can understand the realm where the music seems to create itself.

I am no song writer, and I'm a mediocre musican at best, but I have had a handful of what I think are tremendous moments when playing music. Once was at the end of an instrumental version of "Just Like A Woman" that I recorded when I was a young 20-somethign who only played guitar. I played it as Dylan sang it, with two singing verses, one bridge and one last singing verse. The first verse was almost nothign but basic meldoy. The second verse was a little more varied. The bridge was even more varied. by the time I got to the last verse, I was "just playing," but it was all based on what I had done up to that point. Finally, the very end of the song was basically playing itself. I remember sitting there and thinking, "Holy cow. How did that happen?"

Other moments include writing a few songs that sseemed to write themselves. It doesn't mean they are any good, it just means that I didnt' have to labor over it. It just sort of happened.

That's my $.02. I can't do any better. I think it has something to do with brain composition and synopses. Maybe it's religious. I guess it depends....

[Tom Smart]

I never intended the quote to be a "be-all-end-all" QED logical argument. I do think it is a nice thought. It uses what I think is a clever parallel irony to say that it is good to have a plan when you improvise. It is a statement I agree with.

jflynnstl,

So the answer was #5 after all. I honestly thought your intent in posting that quote was something like "Improvisation isn't all it's cracked up to be."

It looks like I missed the point completely. And I couldn't agree with you more: It's good to have a plan to improvise. Stated more broadly, it's good to approach improvisation schematically. You have to be thinking about the melodic and harmonic structure of the piece, the dynamics of the band at the moment, the effect you want to produce within that sound, and a whole lot of other stuff. Then you apply some kind of plan--whether it's one you've worked a hundred times before, or one you come up with on the fly.

Without that kind of "planning" (very broadly defined), an improvised solo is nothing but gibberish and noise. And I've definitely heard solos like that. Too often, I'm the one playing them.

By the way, I have no problem with the idea that Pete Fountain is a "great" clarinetist. Lawrence Welk, Johnny Carson and the rest were just gigs, and pretty stellar ones at that.

Tom

[Peter Hackman]

I think you guys are inferring a lot from a very casual, or even facetious, remark (and Fountain is not exactly alone in this). Perhaps one has to distinguish between "plan" and "direction". What is it that gives direction to a solo? In BG (according to the OP's interests) where solos are usually short you have to connect somehow with the vocal segment just before and after it. A common strategy is to divide the solo into two contrasting halves, with the second reaching some kind of climax, then fading into the background. The contrast could be one of rhythm or attack - downstrokes-tremolo, etc.
That may seem a bit limiting but also a great challenge.

Jazz, where solos are usually longer, and more central, is a different thing altogether.

[mythicfish]

"Then you apply some kind of plan--whether it's one you've worked a hundred times before, or one you come up with on the fly."

I believe that the former would be called an arrangement.
The latter -if successful- is a minor miracle.

[Tom Smart]

No, I didn't say "play the exact same notes you've played a hundred times before." Pete's message, right before yours, gives an example of a plan that's been worked a million times, resulting in a million different solos.

And coming up with something on the fly is the very essence of improvisation. If you're saying the ability for humans and other critters to improvise their actions can seem almost miraculous--then I agree with your second point. But I doubt that's your intention.

Either way, your comments don't address my central point, which is that successful improvisation requires a highly schematic ("planned") approach, whether your solos are very rigidly structured on the one hand, or very spontaneous on the other.

In other words, "to do this, you got to know how."

[JeffD]

When I don't know a song, many times I'll start an improv with some standard licks and go from there.

My respectfully submitted 2 cents, but isn't that the problem right there. If you don't know the tune, its time to learn the tune, not start an improv. The improv should be an excursion from the tune, a recomposition of the tune, a personal exhuberant re-expression of the tune.

The tune should at least be a guide for the improv.

[Tom Smart]

JeffD,

I know a player, who shall remain nameless, who can't even be bothered to learn the most basic tunes like Soldier's Joy or St. Anne's reel. He literally has no idea whatsoever how they go and doesn't care. It seems that he doesn't even try to pick up on their basic structure as others play the tune, going around the circle.

When it's his turn to take a break, instead of shaking off the nod he just dives right in, playing stuff that bears no relation to the tune whatsoever.

Thats' right about when I decide it's time to pack up and go home.

[JeffD]

Tom, thank goodness things like that don't happen a lot. Oh, there's one in every sixth or seventh bunch, but as a rule, folks cleave unto the tune to some degree.

I have heard some awesome breaks, and like ice sculptures, part of the beauty is that they are not permenant. A progression that surprizes you for how it carries you back to the chorus, or how it unexpectedly hightens the sadness or lonesomeness expressed in the tune. I heard a break the other day, on Kneel at the Cross, that just made me ache.