I'm trying to learn how to improvise on alto sax. Is this a good practice regimen?
1. Long Tones
2. Chromatic Run
3. Maj/min Scales
4. Maj/min Arpeggios
I've been learning the heads and scales/arpeggios of the chords in my favorite real book tunes. I feel like it's unproductive though. Thoughts?
What's your practice regimen like?
>>61779617
Nigga you think the 16 year old posers on this site play instruments? Sheeeeiiiitttt.
Dunno what your gig is, I play bass. Best thing I ever did was try and transcribe my favorites by ear. Just do that.
>>61779617
Start with the melody. Those notes are always right. Make variations on it. Keep it in the relative scales or use chord tones.
>>61779940
Yeah I know it's a stretch trying to reach out to /mu/ but I just got done practicing and feel desperate. I'll probably post again on Monday.
My gig is the shut-in who listens to too much music gig. Although, I'm gonna start weekly jazz band at my community college in a week and half. I signed up for weekly private lessons too. I just don't wanna go in empty handed. I quit jazz in 11th grade and it's been over 3 years since.
I've been doing it by ear as much as I can and got decent at it. I can't figure out sextuplet runs though, like in Mr. PC.
Thanks for the tip though. Makes me feel less like I'm in the dark.
>>61780230
I got the melodies down. It's just making sense of it that I struggle with. I take a long time trying to figure out which intervals I'm playing and how they relate to each chord.
Sounds like good advice though. I'll try it out.
Also, what do you mean by chord tones?
>>61780364
What's your instrument?
>>61780683
>>61780683
alto sax
You have been learning the scales, but have you been using them at all? Does your real book come with that CD that has the songs in the book and just plays their chords and shit the way they are written in the book? Play that and practice soloing over it. You got a friend that plays any instrument that can make chords? Hell you got an instrument at home that can do chords? Record playing chords, then playing recording and solo over that.
Shit, like back in the days when I still took lessons for guitar, when I told my teacher I wanna try doing some jazz, he would have a real book. We would go over chords/scales/keys and how they work for a little bit, then practice some chords and the scales, then the rest of it where the real improvement happened was just me and him going at it. One of us would be playing the chords the other would be soloing over it and we would switch around. Every time we would be adding new guitar techniques, too (or at least new to me.)
>>61781096
Got a real book, no cd. Scales aren't ingrained in my memory yet. As far as playing over chords goes, I use a midi program and play over it.
I took sax lessons for about 2 months until it became unaffordable, and it was like how you described your experience with your teacher, but just not enough time to make enough progress. Plus, I didn't really have much knowledge of jazz at the time beyond some Mingus tunes. That was 3 years ago. Haven't played much since.
When the semester starts, that'll be my first experience playing the horn with a band in 3 years.
I know it sounds like a bunch of excuses, but I hear ya. I figure it'll get easier once the semester starts. As for now, I'm just trying to prepare myself since I pretty much don't know how to solo. Reading and memorizing comes easy though. Then again, I've had 8 years of dicking around with this thing and didn't start taking it seriously until high school was over.
Look into Jimmy Amadie's book "Jazz Improv: How to Play it and Teach it". It's suitable for all instruments that do lead work; you could even use it to get better at non-jazz improvising.
>>61781636
Cool. Thanks famiglia.
to get improvising down you need to start learning pentatonic/blues scales. once you got the scale for that key down, you can start throwin in the extra stuff that sounds cool. also learn some basic chord reading, tons of websites to help you
