[Dixielandjazz] Improvise redux

[Dan Augustine]

>From: Trumpetom at aol.com
>Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 19:48:29 EDT
>
>Dan Augustine wrote in his bio:
>  >Still want to learn how to improvise (i hear it in my head, but can't
>play it)
>
>This applies to me, and not necessarily anyone else. Dan is blessed that he
>can hear the sounds he wants; many do not have that much imagination. I was
>blessed with this talent, but the curse was that I didn't know how to play the
>horn by ear to sound those notes.
>
>What helped me was playing scales & interval exercises hundreds of times
>(listening carefully to each note). I memorized all the patterns. Eventually I
>could play the desired tones without taking time to consider how to finger the
>instrument, and without considering  the name of the note; more like 
>how someone whistles a tune. It was applying relative pitch to the 
>instrument.
>
>The other issue was taking a chance doing this in front others. It took a lot
>a lot of nerve to screw up in front of an audience (even when the audience
>was just my dog, or my wife in the other room). But covering up 
>screwed up notes is another issue.
>
>Tom Loeb, trumpet player
>California
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Tom and DJML--
     Thanks to everybody who sent me advice on how to improvise (or, 
perhaps more accurately, to get past my 'improvising-block').  Good 
stuff, all of it, and i value it highly.
     Perhaps tuba-pickers and others who never play the melody are 
more likely to suffer from this problem.  But we of the oom-pah 
brotherhood are not used to playing even simple tunes without reading 
them off the page (at least i'm not; i've never played anything but a 
tuba).  I'm starting to think that i ought to just play along with 
the main melody of every song i can play on my CD-player (almost said 
turntable, irreparably dating myself), just for practice in playing 
melodies.
     But even more, what Tom said above (especially about whistling a 
tune) reminded me that when i used to take 'screech tuba' solos on 
"Watermelon Man" (whose chord-progrressions are, shall we say, 
unembarrassed by excessive complexity), i played them up in the 
trombone range (and higher) because i didn't know the fingerings for 
the notes i wanted to play.  Ideas and sticking with the chord 
weren't the problem.  Fingering was the problem.  Playing above 
middle C (or an octave above middle C) meant i usually didn't have to 
worry about the fingering, since the harmonics are so close together 
up there that all notes are available (but largely out-of-tune) 
without pushing valves.
     This falls in line with what Meg, Kash, and Steve said: turn off 
your conscious mind (left-brain, if you will) and let your 
right-brain ramble (good name for a song, eh?, the "Right-Brain 
Ramble").  Hell, that's where i live most of the time anyway (except 
at work), where most of my words and ideas come from (it's either 
that or the computer-programmers' favorite culprit, "stray 
electrons", ricocheting around the left-brain).
     So thanks: this is something i can try to do: improvise something 
higher, without fingering, and then try to repeat it down in the 
proper tuba-range, once i hear myself do it.  Weird.  Bypassing our 
so-called intelligence with unlikely stratagems for greater artistic 
and human results may be the hallmark of a higher level of 
civilization.  (What was it that Saint Francis of Assisi called his 
body?  "Poor donkey"?  Also reminds me of what Ambrose Bierce said: 
"I think I think, therefore I think I am.")

     Dan
-- 
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**  Dan Augustine     Austin, Texas     ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu  **
**  "And the human understanding is like an irregular mirror, which   **
**   distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own  **
**   nature with it." -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)                    **
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