harryt8 - Posted - 05/19/2010:  23:59:57

This post by “Scrubber” from the many threads on Improvisation, encapsulated my dilemma:

“Despite the technical 'fluency' scales may provide (if one only desires to play meaninglessly all over the fingerboard) scales have limited use in OT and Bluegrass fiddlin', since OT focuses on the tune and Bluegrass focuses on tune-based improvisation. Playing (e.g.) a G-Major scale over a G chord is merely generic -- it provides no tangible link to the actual tune being played. What is more important in these styles is to be able to quickly and accurately play the notes you hear 'in your head'.

Scales are a theoretical abstraction!! What is more important (for those making music rather than 'showing off') is to ensure that the music one hears in one's head is being properly conveyed via their instrument!"

Fine words, but just how do you do it? When you get the ‘nod’ to play a break, how do you create some tune-based improvisation out of a chord position and progression? Do you have a series of chord based licks that you pull out of the bag as necessary and string them together? In Scruggs banjo, you can do this quite effectively to rapturous applause and admiration. Fiddle is a little different I think.

I have read the forum posts on “playing a break”, "alternative melody lines”,"improvisation", etc that stretch back to eternity, and it would seem if you’re not a competent and instant “ear learner”, there’s a fair chance of a SNAFU.

Within the timing and rhythm and chord progression of the song/tune, there’s advice to play a Pentatonic (major & minor) scale, Blues scales or arpeggios etc., but for the sake of the exercise, say using a common BG song progression I, IV, V ie: “Blue Ridge Cabin Home”, “Wabash Cannonball” etc:

G (I) | G | C (IV) | C | D (V) | D | G | G |
G | G | C | C | D | D | G | G |

Or “Will the Circle……..”

G | G | G | G | C | C | G | G |
G | G | G | G | G | G | D | G |

What would you play?

Your advice to this melody “rich” but improvisation “poor” fiddler is requested.

Harry

ajisai - Posted - 05/20/2010:  03:56:52

I'm looking forward to the advice, too. If I put on a backing track, I have lots of improvisational ideas and sometimes they even work but I'm still not good at staying within the chord structure the whole way through. If I try to improvise around a melody in more than a very simple way, the melody is usually so prominent in my head that I'm often just stumped. I suspect listening to lots more examples of how people approach that sort of improvisation would help me. Sometimes it feels like I can't say anything because I don't really know the language.

Dick Hauser - Posted - 05/20/2010:  07:09:16

When I played "Scruggs" style banjo a lot, improvisation was a constant thing. I maintained a large "library" of licks for each key, and was constantly on the "lookout" for additions. I spent a lot of time playing with recordings and rhythm tracks.

Improvising while playing with others doesn't leave much time for thinking. Once you get the feel for the chord progression, it either play from memory or start using licks from your memorized library of licks. Singers were always yelling "TAKE IT BANJO". Lots of times the banjo player has to immediately play a tune they have never heard.

If you improvise, you are going to make mistakes. Like anything else, the more you improvise, the better you become. For each key, build a library of licks. Start "stealing" new licks from recordings. Play along with recordings and experiment using licks in different tunes. You will develop a "feel" for where licks will "fit in". Some players enjoy walking that fine line between wild improvisation and disaster.

Knowing music theory helps when you are alone and working on new ideas. I have only read one chapter that applied music theory to playing. The last chapter in the scale book sold by Petimar Productions helped me understand the application of musical theory better than any other publication.

I understand the purpose of pentatonic scale, but when most of the fiddle tunes a player knows only contain major, minor, and 7ths chords, I don't understand why a player would have to use this scale.

coelhoe - Posted - 05/20/2010:  07:25:19

Many so-called improvisations are worked out long in advance when you have the time to try various melodic and rhythmic alternatives. That's where the bag of tricks, as it were, comes from, things you tried and things that have worked. Sometimes it is just a few different notes or a slightly different passage. And, even with preparation, it doesn't always sound good in performance.

I wish I could say that "...if you learn technique xyz" you will be able to improvise, but this is obviously not true. You also need a very thorough understanding of the musical form in general and the specific melody at hand. No shortcuts that I know of. Chet Atkins, the well-known guitarist, was once asked about shortcuts to playing well and he replied that he wished he knew of some shortcuts instead of the long, long hours he spent in practice.

Scales, arpeggios, etc. give you a vocabulary to draw from but are not improv ends in themselves. Finding an interesting improvisation is a real challenge in itself. You have only eight notes, typically spread over less than two octaves, to work with. It is not enough to play something different, it has to be something that is different and aesthetically pleasing.

Imrpov on the banjo is significantly different because of the chordal tuning that forces you to play vertically into the second or third octave for variation or the use of mind-dulling chromatic and melodic position-based repetitive licks. There are lots of competent 5-string banjo players but very few interesting ones.

It is not all just melody, either. The use of the bow allows the player to think about improv in the same way a horn player or vocalist would, syncopating and changing the rhythmic structure. Both BG and OT expect an improv to stay within the confines of the recognizable melody. As "Aljisal" above notes (pardon the pun) you have to know the language. Concerning improv, Vassar Clements once said in an interview that if you get yourself way out on a limb musically, you have to know how to get back.

My favorite album of improvisations on fiddle tunes is by Joe Craven (who played for many years with David Grisman) called "Camptown." It has a dozen medlies of common fiddle tunes, each with a specific kind of improvisation. I think my favorite is the reggae take on "Soldier's Joy" titled "Soldiers of Joy" with Ladysmith Black Mombasa doing the vocal. It is a wonderful album, but it will give you some distress in realizing how limited our usual sense of improv really is.

Edited by - coelhoe on 05/20/2010 07:28:24

woodwiz - Posted - 05/20/2010:  07:42:47

quote:

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Originally posted by coelhoe
Scales, arpeggios, etc. give you a vocabulary to draw from but are not improv ends in themselves.

It is not all just melody, either. The use of the bow allows the player to think about improv in the same way a horn player or vocalist would, syncopating and changing the rhythmic structure. ......Concerning improv, Vassar Clements once said in an interview that if you get yourself way out on a limb musically, you have to know how to get back.

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zach_grimm_07 - Posted - 05/20/2010:  10:43:09

I listen to all the different styles each bluegrass fiddler plays and i put them all together in lots of different Bluegrass songs and i also take a lot of licks that are used in fiddle tunes and put some of them in the song as well. Also you can add some of your own licks as well if you think it will fit.

phicks - Posted - 05/20/2010:  11:08:42

Good improvisation starts with the melody, as done by the singer. Once you have that in your head, you can break away from it using any of the tools. You can also break back into the melody from "outside". Another option is playing a substitue melody or motif that is complimentary to the original melody.
Even when you master this, improvising is stilll chancy. Even the best players don't quite make it all of the time.

Peghead - Posted - 05/20/2010:  12:55:58

What phicks says. Despite what goes on all the time, BG is not totally an improv style - The instrumental breaks have to establish or at least acknowledge the melody before anything good can happen. All the great players know this. The fiddle is the second voice of the band, so if you need a starting point and a direction for your solo, key off the vocalist, you'll never go wrong. Get behind the melody and the song will communicate to the listener and the band will sound better for it. Otherwise your break "ain't no part of nothin" as a wise father once said. (All IMHO)

Edited by - Peghead on 05/20/2010 12:57:25

fiddlepogo - Posted - 05/20/2010:  12:58:31

I have two approaches to improvisation that I use most of the time.
The first I learned by going from clawhammer banjo which plays the core melody
of fiddle tunes most of the time, and fiddle, which when it's playing a song,
tends to add more notes in a characteristic way.
After a while, I learned how to take many simple melodies like Skip to My Lou, and add notes to
make them sound like a fiddle tune.
You can hear this going on by comparing my version of Red Wing to the actual tune the song is sung with,
which is much simpler.

The other way of improvisation I learned on electric guitar, and I'm working on transferring it to fiddle.
I call it "noodling".
Noodling is a better way of approaching scales, IMO.
Once you've played the scale enough to know the fingering, you stop playing the whole scale, and you just play little
segments, stopping and holding whichever note sounds right, and you go up and down as the feeling moves you.
Eventually you should cover the whole range of the scale, but you try and make it sound like MUSIC, and not scaley.

In a bluegrass jam, if I'm playing a whole break, the fiddley tune-based approach is more natural to me... at least if I know
the tune, or a close relative of it!!!
If I just want to do fills, the noodley kind of improvisation is a lot more useful, since you're filling in places where the singer's melody line
doesn't go, so there is no real precedent for what you're doing there.

The melody based improv tends to sound "mild", because it bears some resemblance to the melody.
the "noodling" based improv tends to sound "wild" because it doesn't!

So, you can use this in a break this way:
you can start out sticking fairly close to the melody, but then you can kick into noodling mode at the end
for a wilder feel there.

Another contrast between the two approaches:
Fiddley improv is really playing it safe... since you're never far from the melody, you can always fall back on it.
Noodley improv is definitely risky... you're going much farther out on a limb.
When it <works> it sounds really impressive, but when it falls flat, it can be REALLY embarassing.

Another way of looking at what I call "fiddley" improv is that a similar thing is done in African-American vocal music,
and I think "melisma" is one thing that it's called.

Another approach that I don't use much, but is used a lot in both blues and bluegrass
is a "lick"-based approach.

If you have a whole collection of "licks" that fit over certain chord progressions, you can either string together
licks, or replace certain parts of the melody with a lick that fits over the same chord progression.
This is a kind of modular approach- the licks get practiced as a unit, so you can do some things
that would tend to tangle your fingers the first time you tried them.
Another use for the lick based approach is for "fills" in places where the singer is not singing.

Another approach is to play a harmony to the melody, and then fancy that up into something special.
I'm just starting to try doing this.

Edited by - fiddlepogo on 05/20/2010 13:02:23

alaskafiddler - Posted - 05/20/2010:  15:28:48

Melodic Improvisation. You need to start by keeping it simple. Many get the idea that improvisation is complex and starts with scales, chords and lots of theory, and involves playing lots of notes, filling up the space with fast sixteenth notes. Something for advanced players. It's much simpler, you don't need to know a whole lot of theory, nor be able to play lots of notes in a short time. Something even beginners should work on. Will the Circle is a good tune to start with, it's very simple melody and entirely pentatonic - leaves lot's of space to play with.

There are different ways to improvise simple.

Reduce the melodic line down it's simplest form and have it still be the tune. Think of the other notes as ornament, to get you from one core melodic note to the other. You can further this by reducing it down to the just key melodic moments. Sometimes it's just one note at a very specific place that you make stand out, sometimes a little phrase of a few notes. How little you need somewhat varies between each listener.

With the simple melodic or key note idea, you can ornament of fill within the melodic phrase, and in the space between melodic phrases. In "Will the Circle" think of each vocal line as phrase BA,G-B:
Will the Cir-cle
Be un Bro-ken
the Cir-cle going from G to B, you can fill with something like GEGAB. The pick up "Will the" BA can be filled with BdBA,G-B. And both BdBA,GEGAB.
The space inbetween the phrases can be filled - the phrase ending on B, you insert deged and then it leads back into the BA,G-B words.
So at first keep it separate, practice different ways you can ornament in the phrase and leave the space between alone. Then practice with keeping the melody simple and just work on the fill between.
Then you can combine them. BdBA,GEGAB,degdBA,G-B. As you get more technical skill and knowledge you can fill or ornament with more notes in between, and start using more notes from the diatonic (and then chromatic).

You can take the simple melodic line, keep it's phrasing and simplicity, and harmonically substitute some of the key notes. Usually the substitution is going to be one of the other two notes of the triad. BA,G-D-BA,B-G-. A more advanced is the idea can be expanded to shift the overall harmonic space, like substituing one of the notes for a seventh. BA,G-B-BA,G-F which would lead into the C chord. But just start with pentatonic. You can use this to also jump octaves, where the melody goes down say from B start to G end, you can make it go from B start up to an octave higher G end. BA,d-g-ga,bg. This is where practicing scales and arpeggios comes in handy. Start with just pentatonic notes of G'A'B'DEGABdegab. BA,GEGA,BABd,edeg,b-; then into the simple melody of the next line "Buy and Bye Lord Buy and Bye"- ba,g-g-g-e-d-. But that's a bit more advanced. Start simple.

You can take the simple melodic line, but slightly alter some of it's phasing, generally by holding onto one note longer before hitting the resolved note (it will need to be shorter). You can expand part of the phrase and compress part of the phrase. You can also take out notes, holding one over the space. B-,G----,GB-- . Note the last B comes sooner. (squeeze lots of energy into that held G and B) Sliding off the first B, and into the last B works great. These holds get enhanced woith double stops.

You can also improvise by altering the rhythmic syncopation. And there's the whole idea about improvising through subtle phrasing, bowing and accented emphasis. But this post is too long and I don't know how to write that easily.

Different styles of music contain different degrees of these improvisation ideas. It's not just BG, blues or jazz, but certainly cajun, and OT and even Irish contain some of these tools. So start with little steps, one little offshoot from the melody at a time. Learning to identify the simple melody, and experimenting, practicing different ways to embellish, you start to develop a library of tricks, to which you can pull out on the spot, truely improvise. To me that's what improvisation is, not a collection of chord riffs, random noodling, nor a pre-worked set of variations.

ccravens - Posted - 05/20/2010:  16:12:20

I once heard a good way to practice being able to pick out a melody "on the fly," i.e., taking a melody-based break on a tune that you've never heard before. This is assuming you want to take a melody-based break as opposed to what some have called a "lick-break," that is, a break based on licks that you've learned, or simply "noodling" on a scale (creatively, of course) during your break.

I started out just "noodling" when practicing breaks. Then I tried learning a bunch of "hot licks" to play during a break. Now I believe that I like a good break to combine both melody and licks. As someone said, a common way to do it is to stick close to the melody during the first part of your break (lets everyone know that you do know and are willing to pay a little homage to the melody of the song), then play some licks during the second part to make it interesting. Of course there IS no formula and that's what makes it interesting.

BACK TO MY ORIGINAL THOUGHT: (sorry) I once heard a good way to practice being able to pick out a melody "on the fly." Sit in front of the TV, and for every commercial and the music/jingle that comes with it, try to duplicate that melody on your instrument. I do this all of the time, and I find it helps me to be able to locate the melody quicker when I'm in a jam and playing a song I've never heard before..
OR you can sit in with an old-time music group; by the time they've played the melody/song for the 8th time, you should have it down by then.

harryt8 - Posted - 05/20/2010:  18:55:40

Thank you for this information so quickly. In particular "Alaskafiddler's" post is extremely helpful and in exactly the format I am after. I will put this into practice.
"Fiddlepogo" and "Dick Hauser" have both mentioned having a library of licks for each key.
Can I ask what licks you may have in store for the keys of G,D A and maybe C?
From previously searching the posts on this forum around the subject of Tune Based Improvisation, there may be quite a demand for this sort of information.
Again, thank you gentlemen for the advice.

Harry

Petimar - Posted - 05/23/2010:  12:09:58

Any melody has notes that seem to define that melody and other notes that fill in between these essential notes. If you keep the critical notes in about the same place, you can change the others to almost anything and it works.

I would suggest trying to simplify a piece down to just the essential notes first, then improvise filling in around those notes.

Best of luck!

harryt8 - Posted - 10/02/2010:  23:33:32

I've come across an excellent publication "The Mandolin Picker's Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation" by Jesper Rubner-Petersen which I'm working through to improve my skills. I'm tune "heavy" and improvisation "light".
Published by MelBay this year (2010) and has had very good reviews at Mandolin Cafe.
I think on the MelBay website you can download 20 pages or so.

Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 10/03/2010:  08:57:44

quote:

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Originally posted by Dick Hauser


[...]
Knowing music theory helps when you are alone and working on new ideas. I have only read one chapter that applied music theory to playing. The last chapter in the scale book sold by Petimar Productions helped me understand the application of musical theory better than any other publication.

---

Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 10/03/2010:  10:06:59

quote:

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Originally posted by alaskafiddler

Melodic Improvisation. You need to start by keeping it simple.
[...]

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Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 10/03/2010:  10:17:35

Paul Anastasio writes a regular column on improvisation for Fiddler Magazine. His columns are almost always very interesting.

One column in particular, that I learned a lot from, was in the "Winter 2006/07" issue, where he started with the simplest possible melody for "When the Saints Go Marching In", and then took the reader through a series of steps to make it "swingy" and "jazzy" ... using both added notes, and also syncopating the rhythm.