transposing/improvisation

[wrench45us]

transposing isn't really improvisation, but my transposing exercise is a stage towards the goal of improvising

here's the situation
I'm old (> 55), but have taken to playing keyboards the last 3 years. I had a musical background from age 10 playing drums and being in bands and noodling about with fretted and keyboard instruments with a few aborted previous attempts to teach myself piano.
So I started pretty simply with a lot of chord study and turnarounds and worked my way into 4 part jazz harmony and when I took that about as far as I could with the resources I had I noticed I was starting to repeat myself. So I quit 'composing' and started to more seriously read music and play lead lines against chords with some concentration on learning bebop lines.
So after the usual stumbling about I found the most useful book Bert Ligon's 'Connecting Chords to Linear Harmony' -- terrible title, very useful concept and presentation.
So now I've worked my way up to learning a few basic outlines to play against ii V I progressions and some simple 8 bar songs that I use as exercises by playing in all 12 keys so 3 outlines against 12 keys. I'm feeling more at home in a key with chord tones.
But Bert also has the chromatic passing and surround tones enhancements on the 3 basic outlines, but those examples are all in one key. His jazz giant example pharses are in all sorts of keys.
Here's the gist. The great leap forward is now pushing past the comfort zone into transposing some of the phrases and chromatic extras from one key into others, so eventually it all feels comfortable. And once I'm in a key with plenty of sharps or flats, I'm at home enough now that after some warmup I can get through the basic outlines and play through the key and chord tones, but I stumble a great deal trying to add the chromatic extras in a new key that are fairly familiar in another.
On the one hand it all seems like a lot of unnecessary work, on the other it seems like a 'real' musician should be able to do this. And the pieces I want to play and write move around at will.
So after all that I'm asking for any exercise/practice methods to ease this transition.
I have been playing simple nursery songs and 'my favorite things' in different keys, but again those songs hang out on the key and chord tones. That's not the problem it's adding the color chromatic passing and surround tones in 'other' keys.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Good foundation so far! I myself benefit from starting in one key by playing a 2-5-1 progression in that key, then another 2-5-1 that leads to a different key and so on.

Try various combinations, using an improvised melody which cadences in the new key area.

You'd be surprised how many jazz standards are simply ii-V-I sequences in various keys strung together. I can name 10 Gershwin tunes that do this.

This skeletal framework will help you become more adept at modulations but also inside various keys.

Play a game of "you can't get there from here" by starting in C and having someone pick a random key such as F#m. Do a ii-V-I with a melody in C, and then do a ii0-V#-i in F#m (again with a melodic cadence in the right hand).

Then start over, but pick a new destination key, either maj. or min.

[EuripidesMac]

Hey Old Guy Wrench,

Good to read what you're doing...I need to do similar with guitar and go back to my classical roots at the same time.

Well, I've got a couple little suggestions to give you, maybe two. As I'm working on improvising too. Nursery rhymes, Christmas songs, "Doe a Deer" for me Anyway, the ideas for you may be narrow in their scope but may start to get you out of a rut and get your mind moving onto your own melodies and such...

All ideas are Blues-Based tune/progression with the left hand Minor Pentatonic Scale with the right hand:

1. Play it in whatever key and choose just four or five notes to play for your melody and improvise with just those notes. For example 12-Bar Blues in A and you are going to play with all your heart and soul a melody with just G, A, C, D (add E if you like) two octaves up from middle C. You can get a lot of mileage out of just four notes...use a lot of rhythm...make a two-note theme and repeat it over the bars...make it work. Maybe imagine that you have been given the gift of being able to play music, but it's just those four notes that you've been given what are you going to do with them, bury them, scorn them or speak/sing something amazing with them...tell a story with your four notes (five notes) for God's Sake!



Remember, the theme to that movement in Beethoven's 5th is just a descending third repeated over and over...with a vengeance...those notes are important!



2. Play it in whatever key...and this time, with the same 4 or 5 notes, on the I chord, emphasize the MAJOR 3rd of the SCALE and on the IV and V emphasize the MINOR 3rd of the SCALE. Maybe on the turnaround, though, keep it all MINOR.

So, in A, again...
On the I chord play G, A, C#, D, E
On the IV and V play G, A, C, D, E

This is just a change of 1 note in the Minor Pentatonic scale, but can make things sound so different and exercise your ear and mind...and it's simple enough to do...maybe

3. Change from the I-IV-V in a 12-bar blues to I-IV-bVII 12-bar blues...etc.

4. Try adding the b5 now in your 2nd octave up from middle C...
Play whatever progression and your melody must only consist of these notes two octaves up:

G, A, C, D, Eb, E...and then maybe add G

If you were a great singer with only a five-note range or only an octave range, wouldn't you sing the HELL OUT of those notes? How could you do anything less?



I hope that helps you. It's helped me as I've never been a good improviser, still aren't, but I've started to look at it from the eyes of my 10yr old and my 6yr old who I'm teaching and they can only play a couple notes on guitar, flute or clarinet...they should at least sound good and you can make music with them.

Cheers,

EM

[jopy]

Play a game of "you can't get there from here" by starting in C and having someone pick a random key such as F#m. Do a ii-V-I with a melody in C, and then do a ii0-V#-i in F#m (again with a melodic cadence in the right hand).

Interesting idea; I've never heard of that exercise before.

One other recommendation is to use the ii-V-I series of Aebersold playalongs which include random transpositions. Don't look at the book, just play the CD and try to figure out which key you're in. Knowing where the "inside" tones are with great facility can help figure out where the outside tones are as well.

[tapper mike]

Jazz improvisation is more then a feel it's a mindset. Which is why songs that would have never been considered "jazz songs" find thier way into the repetoire of jazz musicians.


-Play guide tones based on actual song progressions.
-Play jazz licks trying not just to clone them but to create variations of them. different key different metre different accents. A good blues player can play the same three notes with infinite variation. It's not what you say it's how you say it. (it don't mean a thing if it aint got that swing)

-Play complete familar songs in the jazz tradition. Melody Chord and Solo's
You don't have to play all three at the same time. Jazz standards are nice but they shouldn't be your only source of inspiration.

-Play with other musicians.
-Play with Band in A Box


Improvisation is not the art of knowing everything. Its about reaching and reacting on your feet. You can play the most technically proficent solo the world has ever heard however it doesn't hold water if it isn't corresponding to the feel of a piece. As you play melodies regularly with musicians your sense of motif harmonic movement and rythmic phrasing is expanded.

Good improvisors play off of one another not just the song. It's hard to get a sense of variation with a backing track.
If you want to get a good grounding in motive and phrasing variation see chapter 1
http://www.palette-mct.com/manual_eng/t ... tents.html
If you want to gain a better sense of rythum playing you really need to spend time analyzing what other rythum players actually do. The larger the jazz group the more not less variance in rythmic structers take hold.
Each part needs to gain a special foothold without stepping on someone elses part.

Jazz bands are few and far between. Working Jazz bands are less likely to take on new members. Jazz jams are even more few and far between. There is no 52nd street to work out your chops with the masters.

Band In A Box is pricey these days. But well worth the money if you are intent on being able to improvise.
While BIAB is somewhat midi based it takes the melody and solo as absolute while the progression is relative. You can then apply different "styles" to a song. These are not the cheesy auto accompany sections of cheap keyboards. Basslines and Chords don't come out as cookie cutter rythums or pre recorded tracks. Thus giving the sound a realistic feel of interpertaion in all the parts. There is a large community of biab users in yahoo groups and else where. I personally have collected over 4,000 songs in biab format. Styles are as collectable as songs. The styles reflect characteristics of how a particular group would choose to interpert the piece. From Freddie Greens All fours to Basie to Fats Waller stride to Byrds Bossa and many many more.

The standard display is simplified. The entire song easily fits in the display area. See the chord play the chord or play over the chord.
The combo is up to seven parts depending on style, each part is deselectable.
To work on your guide tones listen to the entire song then deselect "strings"
To work on your rythum chops deselect guitar or piano etc. Once you get accostumed to the piece deselect the solo or the melody and just jam. Try to connect the dots of moving from one guide tone over one bar to the next using both melodic motion and rythmic variation. Don't obsses over playing all the notes of a mode/key for a particular measure or half measure to make it fit the chord.

[wrench45us]

err
perhaps I wasn't clear
let's assume a level of skill where I can pick up Parker's Omnibook or David Baker's bebop Volume #2 with hundreds of bebop phrases and after a few minutes I can play a 4 bar phrase with moderate competence
(and that may be generous)

and I fall in love with that phrase as it sums up all I hav eknown and may hope to know

why is it so difficult to take that same phrase (or infinite variation) and play it in another key?
Because it is.
And here's how it is -- the chord tones and key tones on basic melodies and 'outlines' I can handle with a few minutes of settling in to the new key. It's the numerous chromatic surrounds and approaches and passing notes that are so much a part of bebop that confuse the old fingers looking for those extar tones in the new key

What exercise or practice regimen (aside from the usual slow and steady) has anyone found that aids this particular process.
I see this as a step forward toward the full world of improv. I don't expect at this late date to make the full leap in one leap.

[tapper mike]

It's not only key but key does play a role.

The romatic keys are F, Bb, Eb
F# and C# are a little too bright for many ears.
The rock keys are E A D and G

Metre is more then tempo. Some licks just don't fit within the feel of a given score even if the progression is the same.

You can put it in your rainy day collection of someday chops. Or you can try to vary the passage by changing accents making small embelishments altering your grouping of the notes.

[wrench45us]

ok thanks

I got a few suggestions worth pursuing

the get anywhere from where you are is a great exercise and Bert has some similar sketches for voice leading to moving to closely related keys

the restricted set of notes is good to get a real base working

and the playing along to recognize key is good. that's a bit of ear training along with everything else. I think it comes down to spending enough time in a given key that the fingers begin to sense where to reach to get the tone they want to hear and things will come togeher.

[tapper mike]

Yes that's where guide tones come in handy.

At first it may seem like a futile, less then "musical" and boring effort simply playing one note per bar or chord as the song progresses.
Once you can hit the guide tone consistantly on the one beat try to connect the dots.

"All of Me" is usually where a lot of jazz improvisors cut there teeth.
The melody is slow and uses guide tones on the one. After you work out the melody replace notes with other guide tones but keep the metre you don't have to crowd the melody line.


I maybe beaten up for this one but here goes.
If jazz were truely chromatic all the notes would have equal value, They don't
It's very uncommon to find an non key tone on the first beat of a measure as part of the melody.

In sll of me there is a passage over Dminor which is not consistent with the Key harmony of C While you can treat it as based a Bb scale (any minor7 scale will work over a minor7 chord) I see it as bumping. Your key conciousness begins with the chord you are playing as a means to connect it with the next chord you will play over.

Connectors/bumping
Sorry I tried to find a piano vid that explains this
This guitar vid the walking bassline uses bumping to connect chords (or guide tones) with one another. The concept is the same for walking bassline melody or hsrmonic motion



The turnaround.
There are two types of V7 Those that cap (resolve) to the 1 chord at the end of the progression and those that don't.
In the small instance where you are forming a closure to your piece the type II Dominant 7 can be used.
Type II is the flat5 approach
In the Key of C you subsitute G7 for Db7
Rather then ii-V7-1 you play ii-bII7--I Dm7-Db7-C

Db7 (mixolydian) has enough susbstance because it shares the same 3-7 guide/chord tones as G7 the rest of the scale tones can be thought of as resistence/dissonance moving to complacence/resolution.

[beboop]

What exercise or practice regimen (aside from the usual slow and steady) has anyone found that aids this particular process.

If I understand, essentially you're asking how to make the transition from fumbling through a passage to playing at tempo with good phrasing, articulation. yeah there are a few basic things you can do to make the process as efficient as possible.

First, break it down and slow it down to whatever degree necessary to stay relaxed, and play it perfectly. If that means 2 notes at 20bpm, that's where you start. The first goal is to play the entire passage with solid time (as slowly as necessary) cleanly, musically. Depending on where you're starting, that might take minutes, or days. At the same time you should be practicing singing the line, and imagining it.

Next step is to get it up to whatever the goal tempo is (or beyond). The trick there is to stay relaxed while pushing against your own limits, kind of a delicate balance -- the precise awareness can't really be described, but if you did the slow part well you should have an idea what that feels like. Once again it may take days, weeks, months. Progress won't be linear, you can expect to slog through stretches of no apparent progress, then suddenly leap forward. And occasionally fall back.

Another thing -- loud is demanding, fast is demanding. Separate loud from fast -- if you're working on speed, work with a very light touch first, get the coordination down, then work on varying dynamics, articulation.

And you'll also find things that, say, a virtuoso alto player can do, that are impossible on another instrument. Sometimes just dropping or changing a note or two can make it playable.

well anyway those are some general, uncontroversial tips. This reductionist approach works great for building chops and vocabulary. At the same time you want to be practicing holistically, working on tunes, playing the melody, singing the melody, imagining the melody, varying the melody, not worrying too much about what it says on the chord chart, just internalizing the note to note gravity of the tune.

heheh it looks so easy when you type it. Well, it'll keep you busy! I wouldn't worry too much about mastering everything in every key, some of that is good, or necessary. But it's also incredibly time consuming, and I think you're gonna find your plate is more than full just mastering a few ideas and applying them to a few tunes.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Beboop has the right idea about practice... very very very very slow with metronome and build tempo incrementally. I never try to learn anything without a metronome and always MUCH slower than I want to go. Then it comes up to performance level faster actually (and much cleaner).

[tapper mike]

Thank God for the guitar.
While it may have niether the harmonic range or the ability to create chord clusterings in the way a piano can it truely is a chromatic instrument.

I'd prolly kill someone if I had to work out a song in F# playing the piano.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Just hit the transpose button on yer keyboard. Voila!