Learning To Improvise

[Michael Bishop]

It’s pretty cool to hear how pro players like Lee Allen, King Curtis, etc.. just kept things simple and it sounded really good. They knew their music theory inside-and-out & King Curtis did lots of Jazz stuff too. But it all centers around simple concepts. The Blues is always a great place to start learning to Improvise…probably the best place to start learning to Improvise on the Saxophone for my $. Once we get a good hold of the Blues, then it opens the door to other kinds of Improvising/playing too. A lot of Jazz Improvising is actually based on the Blues. So if you understand the Blues really well, then you’re already on your way to understanding Jazz related stuff too.
Here’s another great example of keeping it simple–I love this song by King Curtis “Home Cookin'”…this is the sound that really gets to me, killing stuff to say the least 🙂 He’s not using that many notes in his playing, but notice the things he’s doing to make it sound good; great lesson for us 🙂

[William Cingolani]

Right on Michael, Right on!

[Michael Bishop]

@ William: At least when you hear that kind of stuff, you know what I hear in my mind 🙂 It’s just my own perception of sound on the Saxophone, how I wanna sound, etc.. 🙂 That effects everything, how we practice, etc..

[Michael Bishop]

Here’s another great example for all of us of our own ‘Sax guru’ keeping it simple and KILLING it…..Johnny Ferreira 🙂 Notice how’s he’s not using that many notes and notice not just what he’s playing but HOW’S he’s playing. His solo here is the “essence” of the ebook of Killer Blues. If someone don’t dig this stuff, then you just must not like the Saxophone! 🙂 https://youtu.be/7M9rtd6YBPk?t=1m4s

[john]

and check out the guitar player…that’s Jimi Hendricks!

[Anonymous]

i think a lot of these exercises are more about getting fluid with the scales and less about improvising proper. He did stress the 5th exercise i need to be able to play it as fast as possible, without thinking about it. And its about getting to know the number of the notes in each scsle. As an exsmple he stuck the 12 bar blues backing track on, and asked me to to play 1,2,3,5 to the backing track, not having practiced enough with the scales, i had to think about it before playing, whereas if i was fluent with the scale notes i should have been able to play it without thinking.

But there is an element of improvisation present otherwise i’d just be going up and down a scale – which doesn’t serve any purpose but to remember the order of notes in a scale.

hopefully it gets better..,

[Michael Bishop]

It will get better for you Sxpoet…believe me, I’m right there with you in the frustrations of just knowing what in the world to do with all of that awesome Blues stuff. It takes a lot of patience/hard work to make this stuff our own…and it’s frustrating because we wanna do it so badly! 🙂 I’ve been studying Blues heavily for almost 2 years now and I’m just barely getting to the point where I can show up and pull something out, at will, and just play it. Even accomplished Sax players who are great at things like Site reading, memorizing songs, playing in the quartet, etc.. will all say how difficult it can be in learning to Improvise. Improvising is a whole new world than playing with the Quartet..it takes years of getting to that point we all wanna get at in our Blues Improvising–kind of like learning a second language. It all starts with what you’re doing right now, working on your Blues Scales, having to think about it before you playing, etc.. That’s how it all starts. You need to be really patient with what you’re learning….good for you to wanna take those steps, not many people are willing to take them 🙂
Later when I get the chance, I was thinking about maybe doing a video to share with members of how I get inspired/creative in blues, how I play on the Sax what I’m hearing in my mind, etc.. For me, the biggest hurdle was being able to actually play what I was hearing in my mind. Like anything else, the more we work at it then the easier it gets.

[Anonymous]

@Michael – in terms of improvising, the only thing i know is, when you fully know you your way around an instrument, improvising becomes 2nd nature. Thats what i found when playing guitar after 20 yrs. As to improvising on the sax i’m not finding anything frustrating, as i’m not in a hurry to get anywhere, just taking things in my own time and seeing where it leads me. (fun)

[john]

Yes good points. we have to know the notes of the scales without even thinking about them in order to do any sort of creative improvisation.
but to get there, going up and down them over and over and over is the way to do it.
when you get a chance to study my Killer Blues take a good look at the Brown Sugar solo.
it’s entirely made up of the blues scale of 5 notes, the same 5 notes you’re working on now (either the pentatonic or basic blues scale) and yet you can compose an awesome rock and roll solo just by playing around with those few notes. There’s only so much you can do with them… play a few of them consecutively like 123, play the chord arpeggio like 135, and jump around as you feel and then do all this backwards! as you gain more experience and confidence your ideas will start to take more shape and your playing will be transformed from exercise-like to a more creative improvisation-like sound.
keep on this track of learning these scales and playing them over those backing tracks and things will start to come together for you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again Jf – just holding off the Killer blues course, until i get more fluid with these scale notes – so he can say play 7,3,4 etc and i don’t have stand there and think what note is number 7 in scale C. Also my teacher doesn’t want me to jump into pentatonic scales just yet (shh – doesn’t want to overload me), but theres no harm in peeking at the killer blues like you say.

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