[Dixielandjazz] Teaching Jazz improv to a new band memeber.

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Al - In a lot of ways you are right - I'm pretty convinced that the ability 
to improv is something that you develop young and it doesn't necessarily 
transfer to other instruments.  I have been playing woodwinds (mainly sax) 
since I was in the 4 th grade.  The horn to me is pretty much like 
whistling - I don't have to think about it very much.  I think I improv on 
trumpet rather well for someone who doesn't regularly play the instrument 
BUT I took up bass guitar some years ago and it was like I had never played 
anything.  All thumbs describes it pretty well.

I think a person can learn to improvise later but it's much more difficult 
to train the brain to make everything happen by simply thinking about it.

There is another thing and that is you have to be a person who likes to re 
arrange things and make things different.  When I was in about the 5 th 
grade my dad bought me some music and I learned how to play it.  Then I 
started changing around things to like I wanted it to sound.   Now I'm not 
saying I sprang out of the egg doing full improv but I just wasn't happy 
with the way tunes were written.  For example: at that time they wrote out 
dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth in an attempt to write swing which it 
didn't.

Some time later I discovered that I could memorize music fairly easily and 
at the time sax was a lead instrument in rock bands.  I had to memorize 
solos by who ever had a number 1 hit.  At the time I hadn't a clue as to 
what a blues scale was - I was doing what others were doing but I soon 
discovered that I liked making up my own solos rather than copying someone 
else.

I was already playing gigs and had to sound good.  The written page just 
didn't cut it and you had to play solos with some reasonable improv anyway. 
When I got in the AF band it was improv big time and I still saw myself as a 
beginner and didn't know a lot of the tunes they did.  What happened and it 
was a good thing, I would hear a tune for the first time in possibly a hard 
key and I had the head to learn the tune and then it was hit it.  That's a 
lot of pressure especially when the other guys really swung.  It was learn 
to cook or get out of the kitchen.

The guys were not helpful either.  Since I am primarily an ear player I 
needed to hear a chord progression.  It's true some were easy but some 
aren't and I would ask the piano man to make me a tape of a progression and 
a lot of times he just wouldn't do it.  Today we have Band in a Box and the 
various recordings that help a lot.  If I had BIAB at the time it would have 
been great.

I did learn how to hear chord progressions and not be dependent on a chord 
sheet.  That's another leap that an improvising musician needs to make. 
That is, not just playing canned riffs on chords - I hate that.  Take the 
chord sheet away and they are dead in the water.  It's not to say that I 
don't use them because I do but I'm not dependent on them.

I have a lot of Black Swan charts and they go back and forth between written 
riffs and strings of chords so I think that's something a little different 
than just fake sheets.

I think learning how to chord spell is a very useful tool especially if you 
are playing harmony with someone else.

It did take awhile before I was no longer intimidated by the other players 
and could stand toe to toe and duke it out with the horn.
Larry
StL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <W1AB at aol.com>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 12:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Teaching Jazz improv to a new band memeber.


>
> In a message dated 7/6/2010 1:29:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> kmurdick at jaguar1.usouthal.edu writes:
>
> Very few  (you might as well say none) adults are willing to spend this
> kind of time or  have the theoretical knowledge to do what I did.
>
>
>    Yeah, we old farts don't know nuthin'  'bout music.
>
>                                                        Al B
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz 
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com