What kind of music do you improvise to and how?

I'm looking for a cool scale to learn, what do you guys recommend me? I know the major, minor, pentatonic minor, blues minor and byzantine scales.

The Pessimist wrote: HackettFan wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: The Pessimist wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: The Pessimist wrote: Adapting it to your style is what makes a phrase/progression individual, not the actual architecture or content of the thing. Don't the architecture and content of a phrase determine its style? Not at all. The five notes 2 - b3 - 7 - 2 - 1, in a minor key going from dominant to tonic (the tonic note landing on the tonic chord), can be found in Baroque, Bebop, Folk, Heavy Metal, Hip-Hop, Funk, Prog Rock and Jewish Klezmer music. I can say the same about a million different cells or phrases. Oops ... we've almost made this a conversation based on a different question - the question of style. So, going back to my original question (or argument) of how to compose a phrase. The way I weave a solo is I string different phrases together, each phrase based on its own chord and placed in its own bar. One bar would feature a phrase that is a fast ascending scalar run. The bar after it would rely only on the root and 5th notes with an octave slide-up (since I play an electric guitar), executed economically, slowly. Two different phrases, each one has its own character. I don't know how other guys do it, but that's the gist I got. Very interesting. I've never caught on to chord based leads. It sounds like a burdensome approach to me. I just use scales and explore aspects of tension and resolution in a very free-form fashion. I know my scales very well, but thinking about chords is something I never do aside from throwing in an arpeggio here and there. Interestingly, I like to create rather complicated chord progressions, yet I've always been more successful soloing over more simple progressions. I ought to try incorporating some of your approach. Chords and scales are the same thing. Scales emerge from chords. If you were to just play the chord tones (so the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th), then there would be no tension. However, the tension comes from the 9th, 11th and the 13th, and so when you incorporate them, you've essentially got a scale. Every scale functions this way. To say that you think in scales and not chords is actually to disregard where the idea of a scale comes from. This whole concept is known as Chord-Scale Relationships.

You're not wrong, of course. But I would turn it around and say chords come from scales. And historically that's my the order of operations in my discovery process. I'll learn Hungarian minor or the half diminished scale, then I'll say, hey look what chords I can play, or look at the odd interval between these two minor chords. Some people discover new scales through complex chords or combinations of chords. I don't. I look at intervals I like and expand from there. For instance, I was playing in Hungarian Minor quite awhile back, and was falling in love with the place where there's a half step—whole step—half step sequence of intervals. Further fascinating because there's no such sequence of intervals in the traditional major scale. So, I think, well, what if I repeat this same interval sequence, and presto! something I later learned was a diminished scale. The scale can be thought of as (a) sets of diminished chords one half step apart, (b) Major and Minor chords neutralized over the same root note, then repeated one and a half steps apart, or (c) two adjacent notes one half step apart with all proceeding notes following a minor third ahead, or (d) the recurring set of intervals I used to discover it.   So, yeah, it's kind of whether you're seeing things as concave or convex, but that's the crux of the challenge. This difference in orientation has real implications, I would tend to think. I concentrate on the character of the scale, not chords. I know my approach well, but Dayvenkirk's made me interested in sampling a bit of his approach, if I can manage it. It might be helpful over some complex chord sequences. I'm not sure how it would work with a diminished scale in which one can play, for instance, either an A Major or an A minor, both are valid with respect to the scale.

HackettFan wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: The Pessimist wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: The Pessimist wrote: Adapting it to your style is what makes a phrase/progression individual, not the actual architecture or content of the thing. Don't the architecture and content of a phrase determine its style? Not at all. The five notes 2 - b3 - 7 - 2 - 1, in a minor key going from dominant to tonic (the tonic note landing on the tonic chord), can be found in Baroque, Bebop, Folk, Heavy Metal, Hip-Hop, Funk, Prog Rock and Jewish Klezmer music. I can say the same about a million different cells or phrases. Oops ... we've almost made this a conversation based on a different question - the question of style. So, going back to my original question (or argument) of how to compose a phrase. The way I weave a solo is I string different phrases together, each phrase based on its own chord and placed in its own bar. One bar would feature a phrase that is a fast ascending scalar run. The bar after it would rely only on the root and 5th notes with an octave slide-up (since I play an electric guitar), executed economically, slowly. Two different phrases, each one has its own character. I don't know how other guys do it, but that's the gist I got. Very interesting. I've never caught on to chord based leads. It sounds like a burdensome approach to me. I just use scales and explore aspects of tension and resolution in a very free-form fashion. I know my scales very well, but thinking about chords is something I never do aside from throwing in an arpeggio here and there. Interestingly, I like to create rather complicated chord progressions, yet I've always been more successful soloing over more simple progressions. I ought to try incorporating some of your approach.

Chords and scales are the same thing. Scales emerge from chords. If you were to just play the chord tones (so the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th), then there would be no tension. However, the tension comes from the 9th, 11th and the 13th, and so when you incorporate them, you've essentially got a scale. Every scale functions this way. To say that you think in scales and not chords is actually to disregard where the idea of a scale comes from. This whole concept is known as Chord-Scale Relationships.

^ I believe any line is chord-based. Otherwise, where do you get your arpeggios from? Also, if you have an audio mix with a progression for the background and a solo for the foreground, can we hear it and see how you go about things? Many of my arpeggios sound boring. I don't know why. Even though Steve does make arpeggios sound complicated in execution on "... Moonlit Knight", I want to try something else, something even more challenging. I hear all those guitar players (Neil Young; Danny Whitten; Bruce Springsteen; Steely Dan-, Steven Wilson-, and Scott Walker- recruited guitar players) not relying on arpeggios and pulling some really good phrases. I might have not mentioned that I tend to use scalar runs, octave jumps, slides, reliance on principial notes (root, 3rd, and 5th), etc. I don't think about technical stuff like that, actually. For right now I don't want to let music theory replace my musical intuition, that channel of inspiration that tells me in my head what phrases would sound good against the given chords. I tend to think about how would another guitar player, a pro, do it. I'm an imitator, a listener, really. For the time being, I don't want to bother in trying to sound even 90% original, or anything close to that. I'll just imitate.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - August 07 2014 at 00:59

SteveG wrote: Usually by trying to copy something I heard and playing it wrong but liked what I came up with, so I would loop it and then play along to that with my guitar or keep the loop going and switch to bass.  Nothing serious, just for kicks.

So, as I understand, you come up with a chord progression (or a bass line) derived from somebody else's work. When you solo, do you just play random notes?

Usually by trying to copy something I heard and playing it wrong but liked what I came up with, so I would loop it and then play along to that with my guitar or keep the loop going and switch to bass.  Nothing serious, just for kicks.

The Pessimist wrote: Adapting it to your style is what makes a phrase/progression individual, not the actual architecture or content of the thing.

Don't the architecture and content of a phrase determine its style? Like someone heard a collection of phrases that have a common character, grouped them, and gave them a genre name.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - July 29 2014 at 19:22

^ It appears that Bill is discussing the matter of perceiving the musical information in a solo from a player-as-a-listener point of view. This is covered within the framework of a piece written by somebody else. That's not my case. If I come up with a chord progression and play over it, I care about what I have to say, not what somebody else said. I'm not interested in repeating what someone else said. Bill's case seems to be how accurately you copy someone's solo. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - July 29 2014 at 13:14

^ I'll keep some of your points in mind.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - July 28 2014 at 14:31

Here's a link to a clip (that was recorded about a year ago) that I think demonstrates perfectly how the life of a solo can be extended - just by adding distinctive phrases, i.e. where each phrase has a distinctive character to it (as mentioned in my previous post under no. 7). No one has ever told me that. All those pro's give you those little tools and methods that you can use to write a phrase. They will tell you what a chord is, what a scale is, what modes there are out there, what an arpeggio is, but they never told me how to just keep writing a solo, how to make it stand out, how to give it a character, how to breathe life into it.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - July 27 2014 at 18:41