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Making yourself more musical and getting out of a rut [long]


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A few years ago I made a thread about being stuck in the blues scale in my soloing. I wanted to make my playing more interesting, and got some good advice. Now the same problem is back again.

 

Except this time I know my altered, diminished scales, I"ve got my quarteral voicings down and can break them up and throw them anywhere in a pinch, I can jump to the chromatic scale and use it to link phrases until the cows come home.

 

My problem is no longer that I"m stuck in any certain scale; my problem is that I still don"t sound musical to my ears.

 

I"ve found to my frustration that my fingers often just play what feels comfortable to them. The second I go into default mode my fingers play what they know, which is mostly unmusical, unispiring bull.

 

I"ve spent the past couple of months learning some of my favourite solos by ear again, painstakingly picking up every note, trying to work out what they do when and then worked out why it worked, but when I play those tunes myself with my new found knowledge and licks under my fingers, I don"t sound any more musical.

 

In fact in all my years of playing and transcribing/learning other solos, there have only been a few I"ve learned where some of the things I"ve taken in have become part of my musical vocabulary - the rest of it just gets tucked away somewhere in the back of my head, ignored.

 

Take 'Affirmation' by George Benson for example. Great tune, with one of my favourite rhodes solos ever. I"ve played it with a couple of bands in the past and never get tired of it. I can play that solo note for note, in time, with all of the fast parts, the descending thirds, the major 7 runs, all of it. I can play many of those riffs in most other keys. Yet when I come to play along with a track my instinct is either to play that exact solo, or piss over a couple of blues/altered scales based on what my fingers know. There"s no in between.

 

In an effort to make myself more musical, I"ve started learning (or relearning) more jazz standards, and it"s been nice (but there"s certainly a limit to how much I can do, I"m not a big fan of straight jazz).

 

I"ve always liked ballads, and the only time I"ve enjoyed what I"ve played is when I sit down and play something like Misty or Stella, slow them right down and just play simple improvised melodies over them, without trying to sound clever or musical. That"s nice when sitting at home, but how does that help me riff on an organ tune when playing in the real world, or help me solo out of the blue when the band leader call for an impromptu keyboard solo mid-way through a funk jam?

 

I mean sure, I can sit and make up a little melody that goes nice over a II-V in some day my prince will come, and I can learn that in all 12 keys, but even that doesn"t seem to do much for the rest of my playing!

 

When it comes to blues and funk, many of the cats I listen to seem to stick mostly to the blues scale, but they make it sound so musical. I pick out their phrases, learn some of them, then forget most of it the second I try to improvise myself.

 

I don"t care about being flashy anymore, I just want to make my instruments sing, and I feel like I just can"t manage to do that just now. Anyone been there?

Hammond SKX

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Stop listening to or learning from keyboards and let more genres influence you.

 

Get a Willie Nelson album and try to duplicate the melodies and phrasing of the vocal line. Then do that with Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, the Supremes, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel, etc.

 

Learn Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny, phrase like the record. The microseconds and silences are more important than the notes, anybody can play notes but not everybody can play silence like Thelonius Monk (or sing it like Willie).

 

Get entirely out of your wheelhouse and new things will come to you. Cheers, Kuru

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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First step: instead of playing a solo, try singing it (under your breath or in your head is fine). Just âbadoobuwallop-bap' is fine. If you can imagine a melody, maybe you can imagine yourself playing it as you sing?

 

Next, try to actually play an improvised melody as you"re singing it.

 

Alternatively: try singing what you"re playing, as you play it.

 

It doesn"t matter squat whether you can sing or not â the act of forming a melody in your head and then trying to put that out there instantly means that it"s not random noodling or mere reproduction.

 

I find that helps me immensely in getting âconnected'. I"m nowhere *near* I"d like to be on chops and phrase/scale repertoire, but that always seems secondary to when I"m âconnected' when I listen back to recordings.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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The OP could be describing my lifelong struggle to play more interesting, melodic solos. I'm a percussionist at heart who got stuck on the wrong instrument. I've always been a solid rhythm player and on that basis alone have gotten more gig opportunities than I can handle. Occasionally I'll pull off a solo I'm proud of, but more often I'm very aware that I'm recycling licks. Even if the audience doesn't know it, I do, and it feels like failure.

 

With a full time day job, family, and other hobbies, I don't have time to go back to the drawing board. I have to be satisfied with incremental progress. The answer, I believe, is to hear what you're going to play before you play it, and then play what you hear. So easy to articulate, so difficult to do. But it's amazing how deliberately practicing this yields benefits.

 

My impression has been that people who grew up singing or playing a wind instrument have an inherent advantage in doing this. They have a different hard-wiring that gives them a big cognitive leg up on those of just trying to translate thoughts into finger movements. Those people, to be perfectly honest, I hate them. I'm kidding of course. Sort of.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Singing is you way out. When playing your instrument you tend to use musical scales and patterns you're familiar with and know you can play. But when you sing you do anything you're not thinking about using the familiar. This is why some people when writing songs write on an instrument that isn't their main instrument so they avoid familiar patterns, or they just sing and record their ideas and transcribe it.

 

Second start listening to music you normally wouldn't listen to get some new sounds into your ears and spark new ideas. I used to work for a big name guitarist who did tons of sessions. Every now and them when I was over at his place I see Beatle albums all over. Finally I asked him about it, he told me whenever he starts feeling like his playing is getting stale he would listen to nothing but the Beatles for awhile because there is so many great ideas in their songs. These Beatles only listening sometimes would last a couple weeks.

 

Joe Diorio at MI one of the great improvisors would do talks on practicing being creative. Of the many things he talked about was using restrictions to force creativity. Being a guitarist Joe would say only use two strings and use two strings that aren't adjacent. Play in the dark so no visual help just deal in sound only. Joe was also a artist painting and drawing and he said the great painter when they felt short on ideas they would paint in only two colors, that when you limit you pallet it forces you into come up with new techniques and idea.

 

It's all about forcing yourself out of your comfort zone so you have to come up with new ideas or techniques. Or like old guitarist friend doing a deep diving into an artist you admire.

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... I"ve found to my frustration that my fingers often just play what feels comfortable to them. The second I go into default mode my fingers play what they know, which is mostly unmusical, unispiring bull.......

 

.....I don"t care about being flashy anymore, I just want to make my instruments sing, and I feel like I just can"t manage to do that just now. Anyone been there?

 

This is definitely my problem on keyboards!

 

I can make my guitar "sing", even when mostly playing blues scales, because I've played it for so long. Guitar is also a very "tactile" instrument - you hit the wrong note, you just bend it up to the right one and pretend you did it on purpose :). Thus, I can solo pretty much whatever I hear in my head on guitar (mind you, I'm no guitar wizard, just good enough to fool enough people to think I can solo).

 

However, I have not been able to get that same sort of fluidity on keyboards, so I totally feel your pain. In fact, I have almost started a thread on this very same topic, with the topic being focus on "how do you go from being a successful guitar soloist to keyboard soloist?" i.e., how do you get your keyboard to "sing"?

 

So thanks for bringing this topic up nadroj! I appreciate the answers you've gotten already, and look forward to more insight into this.

 

PS - another great thing about guitar soloing is the ability to choke notes, vibrato, etc. - "guitar tricks" that can really add expressiveness, similar to the saxophone.

 

I've never figured how to do that on keyboards, even using the vibrato weel and pitch bend, without sounding like a bad Jan Hammer impersonator. At best, I just end up playing guitar licks on my bad synth sound. That's why I love hearing the good organ soloists, somehow they are as expressive as a guitarist, but without sounding cheezy - they do their own thing.

 

PSS - on further reflection, I think another advantage of the guitar is that your fingers can "feel" the spacing on the fretboard, thus you can instinctively know where to go pitch wise to match what you hear in your head. This doesn't seem to work for me on keys, 'because each key has a different spacing (at least it feels that way to your fingers) - anyone have any tips on how to deal with that? (I realize the answer is probably going to be the same way you get to broadway, practice, practice, practice...)

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Joe Diorio at MI one of the great improvisors would do talks on practicing being creative. Of the many things he talked about was using restrictions to force creativity. Being a guitarist Joe would say only use two strings and use two strings that aren't adjacent. Play in the dark so no visual help just deal in sound only.

+1

 

Practicing being creative with restrictions has worked well for me. It creates a scenario that"s challenging but not overwhelming. It requires honest self-assessment to find the appropriate restrictions. When done properly the progress from each practice session is obvious which feels really good.

 

As an example, select a tune you want to improve on â say Affirmation. Start placing restrictions until you"re not overwhelmed and can focus on being creative. Try single long bass notes in the LH that only change when the chords change while also soloing in the RH. If that feels too difficult narrow down the number of measures you"re going to practice (if it"s just two measures, that"s fine). If that"s still too difficult restrict the RH improv to quarter notes or to an octave range, or both. Once the appropriate restrictions are found strive to be musical. Once comfortable lessen or change the restrictions (e.g., RH eight notes, RH triplets, long LH voicings on the beat, short LH voicings off the beat, specific LH rhythms while soloing, etc.). Be patient and persistent. Overtime more and more of the stuff you want to play will come out on stage. And you"ll be more creative because you"ve practiced being creative (which really opens up the ears and improves the inner ear to sound connection).

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I've posted this before, but since it's relevant to the question at hand I'll repeat it...

 

Several years back I turned a major corner when I think I finally figured out something my teachers tried to tell me back in college. What they told me was simply, "Listen to what you're playing as you play it." My response at the time was, "Well of course I listen to what I'm playing. How could I not?" Or at least, that was my response in my own head. The response I said out loud was probably something stupid like "Okay." Now I wish I would have said my actual response out loud, because if I had, my teachers would have realized that I didn't understand what they meant, even though I thought I did. What I eventually realized they meant was, listen to what you're playing as though you weren't the person playing it. Instead, listen to it like you're listening to a record. And then (and this is the most important part) imagine what you'd want to hear the guy on the record play next, and play that.

 

Once I got that concept into my head and started approaching my solos that way, they became a LOT more musical and interesting virtually overnight. I was no longer thinking "Okay, I'm playing this chord in this context, so my melodic options are this, this and this." Instead I was thinking in terms of "What melody am I hearing that would sound good here?" Of course you have to have all that harmonic information internalized in order for this approach to work, but the OP sounds like they've got that.

 

Note that this is totally in line with what other people have said about singing your solos, although the physical act of singing never worked for me due to some personal hangups. This is basically a different way to get that same result, but with the actual singing part removed.

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I'll tell you something that helps me describe soloing to students, even if I'm not always so good at taking my own direction:

 

Imagine you are in an apartment or a hotel room. The couple next door is having a conversation. You can't hear what they're saying, just the burble of conversation. They start to quarrel. An argument never starts with an explosion, it's always set off by a small series of sniper bullets. One person says something. The other reluctantly answers. The first repeats what they said. The other engages, but slowly. The first doesn't like the response and escalates based on what was said. The other tries to stay calm, but starts to get sucked in, escalating right back.

 

Inevitably the argument turns from unsettled to bombastic. Now it's off to the races, emotionally. Words come faster and with more vemon. When someone has a point to make, they keep repeating it. The other won't be cowed. There are silences between the outbursts, but everything that comes after the silences is informed by what came before. The entire argument is built on content that came up earlier, but now has a life of its own.

 

Eventually someone either stomps out, or cries, or breaks something, or goes quiet while the other puffs his or her chest and makes the last point, which was the first point. Or they make up and resolve it.

 

THAT is the arc of a solo. if you can tell a story (melodic or otherwise; I'm not completely sold on the need for "singable" solos, since we have so many other elements at our disposal to use), you can solo nicely.

 

Maybe one day I'll do this, just once.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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One person says something. The other reluctantly answers. The first repeats what they said. The other engages, but slowly. The first doesn't like the response and escalates based on what was said. The other tries to stay calm, but starts to get sucked in, escalating right back.

 

Inevitably the argument turns from unsettled to bombastic. Now it's off to the races, emotionally.

 

I've been shedding the Chester Thompson solo I just posted. Now the middle part with the pentatonic figure ascending first in whole steps and then half steps, I can't hear as anything but verbal escalation. I stopped transcribing just before the screaming starts.

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+1 for singing along with your solo. That helped me tremendously.

 

And then you'll be here a couple years later, asking us "my solos are too melodic, how do I get back into all the crazy scales stuff again?"

Life is subtractive.
Genres: Jazz, funk, pop, Christian worship, BebHop
Wishlist: 80s-ish (synth)pop, symph pop, prog rock, fusion, musical theatre
Gear: NS2 + JUNO-G. KingKORG. SP6 at church.

 

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Thanks for the comments folks.

 

Singing what you play has always been something I've been taught, and I have tried it a few times. I think that's why I discovered I like playing jazz ballads - they're slow, and it's easier to sing melodies over them when improvising than it is in a 140bpm funk groove.

 

Funnily enough, the limitations thing was also something I was taught. I started playing improvising using just chord tones, and that was fun. It was also harder than it was back when I was a newbie who didn't have automatic licks under my fingers!!

 

Something else I've found helpful; writing my own stuff. I'm writing an EP with my wife, and there are a couple of songs where I've got a piano solo. I find I'm much more deliberate in what I want to hear in my own music, so I've taking time to sing what I want to hear on the track, and then learn that. I've translated it to other pieces as well, which has been helpful.

 

I've also found I can stand in the shower and improvise a killer melody and solo in my head, but often can't translate it to the keyboard. I'm gonna spend the next while just translating the musical stuff in my head (which to me sounds good) so that my fingers can play it.

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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I'll tell you something that helps me describe soloing to students, even if I'm not always so good at taking my own direction:

 

Imagine you are in an apartment or a hotel room. The couple next door is having a conversation. You can't hear what they're saying, just the burble of conversation. They start to quarrel. An argument never starts with an explosion, it's always set off by a small series of sniper bullets. One person says something. The other reluctantly answers. The first repeats what they said. The other engages, but slowly. The first doesn't like the response and escalates based on what was said. The other tries to stay calm, but starts to get sucked in, escalating right back.

 

Inevitably the argument turns from unsettled to bombastic. Now it's off to the races, emotionally. Words come faster and with more vemon. When someone has a point to make, they keep repeating it. The other won't be cowed. There are silences between the outbursts, but everything that comes after the silences is informed by what came before. The entire argument is built on content that came up earlier, but now has a life of its own.

 

Eventually someone either stomps out, or cries, or breaks something, or goes quiet while the other puffs his or her chest and makes the last point, which was the first point. Or they make up and resolve it.

 

THAT is the arc of a solo. if you can tell a story (melodic or otherwise; I'm not completely sold on the need for "singable" solos, since we have so many other elements at our disposal to use), you can solo nicely.

 

Maybe one day I'll do this, just once.

That sounds a lot like what my old theory professor used to call motivic development. Some of that advice must have stuck because I always seem to tell a story (at least to myself) in my solos. Building on a simple initial theme (motif) and expanding it gradually into a conversation.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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A few years ago I made a thread about being stuck in the blues scale in my soloing. I wanted to make my playing more interesting, and got some good advice. Now the same problem is back again.

 

Except this time I know my altered, diminished scales, I"ve got my quarteral voicings down and can break them up and throw them anywhere in a pinch, I can jump to the chromatic scale and use it to link phrases until the cows come home.

 

My problem is no longer that I"m stuck in any certain scale; my problem is that I still don"t sound musical to my ears.

 

I"ve found to my frustration that my fingers often just play what feels comfortable to them. The second I go into default mode my fingers play what they know, which is mostly unmusical, unispiring bull.

 

I"ve spent the past couple of months learning some of my favourite solos by ear again, painstakingly picking up every note, trying to work out what they do when and then worked out why it worked, but when I play those tunes myself with my new found knowledge and licks under my fingers, I don"t sound any more musical.

 

In fact in all my years of playing and transcribing/learning other solos, there have only been a few I"ve learned where some of the things I"ve taken in have become part of my musical vocabulary - the rest of it just gets tucked away somewhere in the back of my head, ignored.

 

Take 'Affirmation' by George Benson for example. Great tune, with one of my favourite rhodes solos ever. I"ve played it with a couple of bands in the past and never get tired of it. I can play that solo note for note, in time, with all of the fast parts, the descending thirds, the major 7 runs, all of it. I can play many of those riffs in most other keys. Yet when I come to play along with a track my instinct is either to play that exact solo, or piss over a couple of blues/altered scales based on what my fingers know. There"s no in between.

 

In an effort to make myself more musical, I"ve started learning (or relearning) more jazz standards, and it"s been nice (but there"s certainly a limit to how much I can do, I"m not a big fan of straight jazz).

 

I"ve always liked ballads, and the only time I"ve enjoyed what I"ve played is when I sit down and play something like Misty or Stella, slow them right down and just play simple improvised melodies over them, without trying to sound clever or musical. That"s nice when sitting at home, but how does that help me riff on an organ tune when playing in the real world, or help me solo out of the blue when the band leader call for an impromptu keyboard solo mid-way through a funk jam?

 

I mean sure, I can sit and make up a little melody that goes nice over a II-V in some day my prince will come, and I can learn that in all 12 keys, but even that doesn"t seem to do much for the rest of my playing!

 

When it comes to blues and funk, many of the cats I listen to seem to stick mostly to the blues scale, but they make it sound so musical. I pick out their phrases, learn some of them, then forget most of it the second I try to improvise myself.

 

I don"t care about being flashy anymore, I just want to make my instruments sing, and I feel like I just can"t manage to do that just now. Anyone been there?

 

Well ..... yeah. Because no matter who you are you get tired of hearing yourself. It"s probably okay because the people you perform for don"t hear you ALL the time. It always sounds fresher for the customers.

 

The fact that you care enough to write all that stuff tells me you are probably fine.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Great topic...I often feel this way. You could say that I"m pretty accomplished as a player, with a lot of harmonic sophistication, chops and such. But I often feel as you describe... my fingers can lead me, and I listen to the greats and wish I sounded more like they do. So transcribe, right?

 

Well, akin to what Josh wrote, a number of years ago I did an interview for Keyboard with Jim Beard (a wonderful musician), and he related how he taught students to improve their playing. He also said, 'listen to what you play'. What he actually said was 'record yourself', and when you do that and find something you don"t like, then consciously make the decision not to play that any more. Don"t let your fingers lead you. Listen to your vocabulary and make decisions about what you like (keep that) and what you don"t like (stop doing that!). Consciously force yourself not to fall into your usual 'traps'. Self edit and create the vocabulary that you like.

 

I know it"s not an easy thing to do, but self-editing, and not letting your 'same old s***' come out because your fingers are leading the way is great advice.

 

I need to do that more...

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Check out the awesome Gordon Mote video Steve Nathan just posted in another thread. For the last six minutes or so (starting around 22:50), Mote speaks in a very direct and lucid way about phrasing, and playing as if you were singing. Very relevant to this subject, I believe, and very much in agreement with several of the posts above.
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