[Dixielandjazz] Diary of an Improviser

[Pat Ladd]

When I improvise it just happens.>>

Hi Larry
Lucky you. I am sure that is what happens to most improvisers at a certain 
stage of development.
The question is, how do you get to the point where instinct takes over?
As you play, there is a point  in your growing experience when you know the 
tune and  can hear a chord change coming.. Is being able to improvise around 
that chord, which is what I imagine improvisers do, just the next stage? 
Some attain it and some don`t.

If you don`t improvise around a chord I am not sure I want to know. I live 
in hope that in the few years left to me I might, going downhill with a 
following wind, just be able to improvise around the chords  over eight or 
twelve bars. If that is not the way it is done I might as well give up now.

What a fascinating thread

Pat