Posted by Cruz on February 06, 1999 at 20:22:31:
In Reply to: The beginning of improvisation for tuba posted by Alfons Merscher on January 29, 1999 at 02:29:41:
I'd like to say that when improvising jazz nobody needs a book. Improvising is simply being creative. This is something that you are naturally born with "the ability to improvise" It's good to have some knowledge of the scales to know where your notes are going, and it's probably good to listen to jazz to have some idea of something you want to model. But remember back then the best musicians (Louis Armstrong, etc) didn't use books to improvise they just played by ear nevertheless played what they felt. It's just recently there has been the frequent use of reading notes, but mostly to copy what musicians had done back then.
So my conclusion go ahead and pick up that horn and play what you feel, even if it's a few notes play what YOU feel and when performing jazz don't worry about making mistakes the time that you mess up is when you'd worry about that and start stumbling. When I play jazz I don't even practice (even though it's good to practice somewhat just a little bite). I've learned some scales that I didn't know performing. Last you may want some accompanyments. If you don't have a band... tapes, CD, etc will come in hand. Aersold has some good CD's for that purpose but if it's not aebersold get some old instrumentals (music with no words on it) and use those as your accompanyment.
Cruz
Lou Rawls once said there are no bad notes in jazz.