Posted by Art H on January 27, 2002 at 00:25:53:
In Reply to: How to practice improvisation? posted by TubaKitten on January 26, 2002 at 15:47:58:
There are two separate skills involved in improvisation, and it helps to practice them separately. One is thinking of creative and melodic lines to play which will fit the chord structure and style that you wish to work in. The second is being able to play what you think of fluently, without hesitation or stumbles. Scat singing along with recordings will help you develop the first skill; then you just have to learn to play whatever you can sing. Practicing all of the scales and arpeggios every day is absolutely necessary, but not enough. I like melodic improvisation; I want my solos to sound as if they came from the pen of a Gershwin or Waller or Berlin or Carmichael, or a Lester Young. So I pick a good song every day and play it in every key. I start by trying to play it straight in the more unusual keys, and then as I move around the cycle into more familiar keys I try to put in some fills and interpretation. If you have trouble keeping the time steady then use a metronome or a band-in-a-box rhythm section. You learn a lot about a song that way, and much of it can be applied to improvising on other tunes.