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Topic: improvisation vs arranged pieces |
Brian Evans
From:
Nova Scotia, Canada
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 12:46 pm |
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I come from a background of small group jazz where you learn the head and the changes, and improvise everything in the middle. When I look for pieces with dobro on youtube and such, they all seem to me to be fully arrange pieces. I wonder how many players here prefer to improvise over the changes to a tune, or prefer to play arranged parts?
Brian |
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Rob Anderlik
From:
Chicago, IL
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 1:53 pm
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| All thing being equal I like to do a combination of both. For folks like me that come from a bluegrass background our learning experiences were a combination of attending jam sessions and woodshedding at home to learn standards - mostly fiddle tunes, and/or tunes by Josh Graves, Mike Auldridge and Jerry Douglas. Bluegrass jam sessions are very much about improvisation. It's one of the main ways I learned to play, so in that sense it's very similar to jazz. |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 1:55 pm
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An example of what you are referring to? What genre are you listening to and who is the player?
h
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Bill Hatcher
From:
Atlanta Ga. USA
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 2:42 pm
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| both are viable.... |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 3:05 pm
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This thread jogged my memory of the NPR interview in 2009 with Rob Ickes and Michael Alvey after Rob released his CD of mostly jazz standards, Road Song. With the exception of a couple vocals by Robinella, the rest of the tracks are all duets with Rob on dobro and Alvey on piano.
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| "This is a discussion that Rob and I have had many times about bluegrass versus jazz," Alvey says. "He would say to me, 'How do you learn all those different chords and inversions and harmonically move around these songs and improvise and make it make sense?' And my response was, 'How do you play a song with two or three chords and make it sound like a symphony? You're all over the place, and after about eight bars, I've run out of ideas.' " |
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Mark |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 3:06 pm
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I'm an improviser. I'll learn tunes for specific reasons, and then mostly forget them. I've always admired musicians with a solid repertoire, particularly guitarists, but it's always been my nature to try to make something new every time I play. It's a condition I must have picked up as a child. 
That is also why I try to learn my tunings inside out, so I can be free to mess around. My skills need to catch up with my ears.
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Brian Evans
From:
Nova Scotia, Canada
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 3:27 pm
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To elaborate on my initial question a bit... Classically trained, brought up on reading orchestral music. So obviously set piece arrangements, including classical and big band jazz. Later small group jazz on guitar. But I suffer from a learning disability - I can't learn arrangements of tunes and play them start to finish, just doesn't work for me. I can read a chart, but I can't learn a long, sophisticated arrangement. So the free form of jazz (and perhaps bluegrass is very similar) was what worked for me. I can learn a 32 bar AABA head, and play over the changes. Now that I am learning lap style, I am working on learning scales, learning where the notes are, and frankly frustrating over not having the chords at my disposal, but I wonder if I should pick a tune and write an arrangement and learn it cold, as foreign as that is to me. I am going to be taking some lessons in solo guitar and I will be able to translate those to this side of my music.
Today I was working on diminished scales in lap slide G Dobro tuning, and it just struck me as weird,and I wondered if I was the only person to ever do that...
Brian |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 4:07 pm
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You could although if bluegrass is going to be your thing be forewarned that it is largely improvisational and there is no such thing as a set arrangement.
As for scales, diminished or otherwise? You bet. Always a good thing!
h |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 5:23 pm
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I get too bored playing set arrangements. I'm driven to improvise and it doesn't always work out in my favor.
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Larry Dering
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 30 Apr 2015 5:54 pm
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| I enjoy listening to others take on standard jazz tunes. As a jazz guitarist its hard not to improvise on the lap and pedal steel. It's a part of my creative style and keeps me trying to learn new things. |
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Orville Johnson
From:
Seattle, Washington, USA
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Posted 1 May 2015 9:28 am
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Interesting subject. I'm self-taught and learned how to play by copping tunes note-for-note from records and then by exploring the instrument and improvising.(And picking up things from friends and fellow musicians) Even tho I can now read music (albeit slowly and certainly not well enough to be a good sight reader), the way I learned required me to memorize stuff. I couldn't sit down and read thru a piece of music without knowing it. In retrospect, I think its a good thing. Even tho there are times when I envy folks that can easily read a piece of music, I think the education of my ear and cultivation of improvising skills have brought me to a place of having a style. I'm thankful for that.
I find learning melodies, analyzing harmonies,and creating your own arrangement of a tune, even if you don't plan on adding the tune to your repertoire, is a powerful way to learn and expand your knowledge of both your instrument and the music itself. |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 1 May 2015 12:08 pm
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I've played both styles (improvised and arranged parts), and I like the ability to do both. Like you, Brian, I don't work well with completely arranged parts, but playing the head, solos, and repeating the head is something that works well in both jazz and bluegrass.
What's fun is getting jazz guys to play tunes that the bluegrassers know, such as Limehouse Blues, Minor Swing, etc.
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 1 May 2015 1:37 pm
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Sort of depends on the situation, doesn't it? After reading the other posts since the one I wrote earlier, here is another quote from that NPR interview with Rob Ickes and Michael Alvey.
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| "So as we started getting together, Michael just would teach me a lot of great things," Ickes says. "One time, we were playing 'Caravan' or some Duke Ellington piece, and I kind of know the melody, and I was kind of jiving my way through it. And when we were done, Michael said, 'You know, with a lot of these standards and stuff, you can embellish and tweak your way around it, but with Ellington, you really have to play it note for note.' " |
To read and/or hear the whole interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112523794
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Mark |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 1 May 2015 1:49 pm
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I find that, with continued practice on a tune, I develop an approach and my ear starts to hear licks and ideas that I originally improvised but I end up liking in certain places and my solos then may tend to consolidate around those ideas (they become the things that pop into my mind most readily) and so the solos may end up being slight variations on a theme. So, I need to take a long break from certain tunes in order to 'forget' how I 'usually' play them and get a fresh run at them.
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Last edited by Jim Cohen on 1 May 2015 2:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Brian Evans
From:
Nova Scotia, Canada
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Posted 1 May 2015 2:11 pm
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| Thanks for all of your thoughts, and I am going to take time to review that NPR interview. You know what is funny, I have been watching some of the current American Idol, and I am really very impressed with Harry Connick Jr as a judge. He is always all over the contestants to do more than "just run pentatonic scales" in their runs, and to hang with the band members and ask about chords and such. This transition to slide guitar is all about that - learning where the chords are, and how to play more than just the pentatonic three chord stuff. Once you get more, you can go back and pick that up again, but with mustard! |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 1 May 2015 5:36 pm
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I do both at the same time. I have a set arrangement to follow. But I add improvisations along the way, some of which then become part of the arrangement for subsequent engagements.
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Amor vincit omnia |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 1 May 2015 6:00 pm
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Even the greatest improvisers aren't improvising all the time. Everyone has their pet runs and approaches and when we have moments of pure inspiration, those are what keep us going. As Jim said, it's pretty common to solidify aspects that were once improvised into practiced content. Heck, it was good enough for Bach!
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Last edited by Andy Volk on 2 May 2015 2:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 2 May 2015 5:59 am
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I started playing guitar at a young age and was self-taught. Playing guitar was my favorite activity in life, and it was all about enjoyment and fun. I think that is still the way I approach playing, although I have done a lot of studying, just not enough to take the fun out of it. In fact, it has enhanced the 'game' of music. Still, I am no fan of rules.
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James Hartman
From:
Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted 3 May 2015 5:47 pm
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| I enjoy both approaches. Learning complex arrangements and rehearsing them in a band setting is rewarding. But I love to improvise. The ideal, for me, is to work in circumstances that include both. |
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Bob Simons
From:
Kansas City, Mo, USA
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Posted 3 May 2015 8:36 pm
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No offense, but it seems like kind of a goofy question. I am playing lap steel in a 5 piece band. If you want to be more than a shaggy garage band (or "barn" band in the case of this Forum) you have to make arrangements and reproduce the important parts thereof...that being said every tune has room for flexible approaches and outright improvisation. All part of being professional. The players I don't understand or relate to are the ones with a bunch of memorized licks and they look for holes to poke them into in the tunes. THat must be a nerve-wracking experience feeling the need to rely on memorized sequences other than distinctive hooks where called for. (But then again, our music is largely original anyway and no one expects a human juke box.
The answer is, to be accomplished you need to do both- understand your place in an arrangement and make creative musical choices as well.
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 4 May 2015 2:29 am
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| Andy Volk wrote: |
| I'm driven to improvise and it doesn't always work out in my favor. |
Occasionally I make a mistake  and often the mistake wasn't but led to a better line.
For example:
| Jim Cohen wrote: |
| my ear starts to hear licks and ideas that I originally improvised but I end up liking in certain places and my solos then may tend to consolidate around those ideas |
Improvisation should lead to a broader range of ideas available in the subconscious.
Wow, I am starting to write like Bill Hankey....
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Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons |
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James Hartman
From:
Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted 4 May 2015 4:15 am
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| Bob Simons wrote: |
No offense, but it seems like kind of a goofy question. I am playing lap steel in a 5 piece band. If you want to be more than a shaggy garage band (or "barn" band in the case of this Forum) you have to make arrangements and reproduce the important parts thereof...that being said every tune has room for flexible approaches and outright improvisation. All part of being professional. The players I don't understand or relate to are the ones with a bunch of memorized licks and they look for holes to poke them into in the tunes. THat must be a nerve-wracking experience feeling the need to rely on memorized sequences other than distinctive hooks where called for. (But then again, our music is largely original anyway and no one expects a human juke box.
The answer is, to be accomplished you need to do both- understand your place in an arrangement and make creative musical choices as well. |
I agree with what you've said, except I don't think the original question is a goofy one at all. Brian describes two extremes which we often encounter. I prefer a more integrated approach, as you describe. On the other hand, different musical contexts call for different approaches. If I take a gig in a theater orchestra I don't expect much opportunity to improvise; at the other extreme, small jazz combos often tend to be lazy about arrangements and treat the "head" as if it's merely an inconsequential appendage to a set of changes to blow over (not my ideal, but far from a "shaggy garage band"). |
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So the rule is... there