When it comes to improvisation, before you assume the playing position, I believe there is one rule you have to adopt to be successful: Let go. Don't worry about playing the right notes 100% of the time. As you go along and as these blog posts will demonstrate, the concept of a "wrong" note is inaccurate. There is no such thing as a wrong note, but there is such a thing as a wrong line. Before we get to that, let's start with the most basic component of improvisation.
With improv, the most critical element is rhythm. Having a wealth of fresh rhythmic ideas is more important than how many scales you know. Anyone can craft an interesting solo using only a handful of pitches as long as their rhythmic diversity is vast. How do you get this diversity? What we have to do is first breakdown rhythm. There are 5 different ways to create rhythmic diversity. They are:
- Duration
- Silence
- Volume
- Texture
- Accents
I'll spend a few seconds explaining each quickly.
Duration - This basically means using combinations of various sound durations; half notes mixed with quarter notes and eighth notes.
Silence - Don't feel like you have to use every bit of solo space. Give your brain and the listener's ear short breaks throughout your solo with silences.
Volume - Surprise your listener with a phrase consisting of whispers of notes.
These last two elements can be grouped as "Articulation," however, one deals with the beginning of the note while the other focuses on the end of the note.
Texture - Create diversity by mixing notes that blend with notes that are separated with minute spaces.
Accents - Give extra emphasis to the beginning of certain notes and see how much a difference it makes in your playing.
Well, that's about it. All of these ideas I've gotten from a book entitled The Improvised Melodic Line by Michael Longo. Future posts will be a mixture of my own ideas as well as concepts from Longo's book. If you have questions or would like to comment, please feel free.
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