[Dixielandjazz] Diary of an Improviser.

[Stephen G Barbone]

Dear Allan and Pat:

There comes a time in most improviser's history where instinct takes  
over. One can start by memorizing the chord changes and then working  
out a coherent new melody using those chords. Or one can just play  
chord arpeggios on each change, or scales on each change (like John  
Coltrane). Or one can simply hear the changes coming in advance and  
devise a melodic line that fits.

Pat, you can take a tune like Five Foot Two, memorize the chords, and  
then realize that Darkness on the Delta uses the same changes for most  
of it, or that Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone uses exactly  
the same changes, just a different key etc. Then with a little  
practice, you should be able to construct your own tune over these  
changes. by humming a new melody.

Over time, it becomes second nature and one doesn't have to think so  
technically as Kent  did in the Diary. But one must practice all those  
chords and scales in order to get a working knowledge of the horn, how  
the chords/scales sound and thus where the improvisation can go.

I'll never forget the late tuba player Norm Burbank. He was a monster  
tubist who could not read music and did everything by ear. He did,  
however, know his chords and scales in all permutations. He could hear  
a tune once, and then play a coherent / swinging bass line on the  
second chorus.

His son studied Tuba at West Chester University and was an outstanding  
award winning student. Yet he couldn't play on gigs as well as his dad  
and he asked Norm about it.

"Say dad, I am an accomplished tubist, great formal music education,  
know the horn etc., and yet I cannot play on gigs as well as you do.  
Why is that? What's the difference?"

"The difference;" said Norm, is the 10,000 gigs I played before you  
played your first one. "

Nothing succeeds like on the job training. But my suggestion is to  
play Five Foot Two, or Darkness on the Delta, or Please Don't Talk  
About Me When I'm Gone very slowly and sing a different melody over  
those changes. (in the same key)  Start by the singing the first 2  
bars of 5 ft 2, then the second two bars of Please Don't Talk and the  
third 2 bars of Darkness, repeat etc. and voila, with a few  
modifications you will have a new melody. That's melodic  
improvisation, not where you embellish on the existing melody, but  
where you construct a NEW melody over the existing changes

Remember, two of the greatest improvisers, Louis Armstrong and Sidney  
Bechet were doing it 100 years ago without that technical knowledge.  
They probably started with the Blues and sang the melody from there.  
Then they started on their OJT and 10,000 gigs. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband