What kind of music do you improvise to and how?

Question to fellow improvisers: what player/group of players would you like to sound like? And what kind of sound do you prefer (or what brand of instrument, if we are talking acoustic instruments)?

Edited by Dayvenkirq - January 22 2015 at 00:41

HackettFan wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: Question to fellow improvisers: what player/group of players would you like to sound like? And what kind of sound do you prefer (or what brand of instrument, if we are talking acoustic instruments)? I do a lot of my own thing, exploring scales and stuff as we already discussed. I've always had this idea of going for some sort of blend between Frank Zappa and Steve Hackett's very different guitar styles, and wondering what such a thing might sound like. Ultimately I sound like myself, probably because I don't spend a lot of time with other people's material. It normally doesn't take me long to forget the two-thirds of someone's piece that I may have taught myself on some odd occasion, remembering only some peculiar highlight in the phrasing that I try to incorporate elsewhere.

Dayvenkirq wrote: ^ I've always wondered what "action" means (hard to find the right definition on Google).

Anything musically, arpeggios.

Dayvenkirq wrote: ^ I've always wondered what "action" means (hard to find the right definition on Google).

Action refers to the distance between the strings and the fretboard. The advantage of having low action is that you don't have to raise your fret hand fingers as high when moving from string to string. I used to like low action. My older guitar, an Aria Pro II RS Ina Zuma V (silly name), still has the action set really really low, but it bothers me now when I was playing on it extensively a month or so ago. I'm more comfortable with a somewhat higher action now that I have on my Les Paul. I'm not sure why except that it's just what I've gotten used to in the last few years.

I now feel comfortable playing in different keys on the piano, and I like unpredictable chord progressions, so that makes for a fun improvisation free of over-thinking: http://soundcloud.com/andrey-gaganov/edited-improvisation-1

moshkito wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: I'm going to say something that might be a lot of help to my fellow improvisers around here: ...   The point of ANY improvisation is to find something ... unknown! ... This is not an illusion ... but you are doing things the "academic" way ... which is the same thing as just scrambling the notes on any DAW! You can do that without an instrument in your hand!

I thought the point was communication, being able to connect with somebody, to relate to somebody, as academic as the idea of "common language" may seem to you. But maybe you are right: communicating in a "common language" is kind of like using DAW, a practice far too specific for a concept so vague.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - February 06 2015 at 15:20

1) Of course, the purpose of making music is whatever you want that purpose to be. To me it's about finding the communicative channel, reaching out, finding somebody to relate to, not pandering to somebody or making somebody's ears bleed, or make someone fall asleep. I don't even think indulging myself is the point either; for other people that defeats the purpose of listening to your stuff. (However, this discussion is in the wrong thread.)
2) I don't believe productivity in itself is the point either, an end that all musicians should aspire to. (This is also in the wrong thread.)

Dayvenkirq wrote: moshkito wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: I'm going to say something that might be a lot of help to my fellow improvisers around here: ...   The point of ANY improvisation is to find something ... unknown! ... <span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">This is not an illusion ... but you are doing things the "academic" way ... which is the same thing as just scrambling the notes on any DAW! You can do that without an instrument in your hand!</span> I thought the point was communication, being able to connect with somebody, to relate to somebody, as academic as the idea of "common language" may seem to you. But maybe you are right: communicating in a "common language" is kind of like using DAW, a practice far too specific for a concept so vague.

I went back and forth with Moshkito on this in another thread concerning improvisation. He rejects the use of any structured conceptualization, which he often labels as "academic", in improvisation. We all agree that it should come from deep inside and that it should be genuinely creative. But I don't see any opposition between structure and improvisation. Artists control structure. Structure does not control them. A case in point was, again, your emphasis on chords (using cadential harmonies) versus my emphasis on scales. I still find it hard to imagine going about things your way, but that doesn't mean I don't find it intriguing. Even with things structured, there are many directions to head in. Nothing's pre-determined by structure, and it's the artists who mold everything with their own mindset. If that mindset is like Mosh's, in which an artist just wants to do his thing without being bothered by questions about his method, that's fine. But if the mindset is like yours in which self-reflection concerning your methods has its own inherent value, then that should be fine too.

Dayvenkirq wrote: 1) In that case Pedro and I could have a long chat about whether or not a musician can be happy without any structure at all. Can't be very expressive without being very concise. That's why we have music theory.

Pedro has indeed been anti-music theory in a couple threads.

Dayvenkirq wrote: Sounds like you are having trouble moving between different scales on your guitar. If you challenge yourself this way (yes, it takes some practice), you will find it very rewarding. Come up with a chord progression and assign every chord a scale that suits it well given the context of the progression.

So, the scale, or I presume the key as well, drifts with each chord. That is intriguing to me. I've done shifts between scales where I dwell for a period a set of notes or chords that are ambiguous between two scales and then make a shift. I haven't worked on frequent shifts like you're talking about. I presume the best progressions for this don't move from chord to chord to rapidly, or it seems it would be difficult to keep up, at least in the context of improvisation.



Edited by HackettFan - February 08 2015 at 08:58