Nick, this was a great video. Everyone needs to see this when they just start, it will save years of practicing around the world and help us all to develop our own language over time!
Just subscribed, glad you showed up in my feed: got a feeling this will open up the road block I’ve been stuck on desperately trying to solo (improvise) over the changes. 😩
Thank you for this video! I’ve slightly done this naturally just as what felt decent to me, but I had always heard different methods from more experienced players, and so have always leaned away from it. It’s nice to feel the technique kind of validated by a stronger players and I look forward to the hours of practice this will inevitably lead to :)
This was so great. I often struggle with knowing exactly where I am in the bar, I start a line and it ends up finishing on a different part of the measure than what I hoped for, the rhythmic ideas I think are gonna help me a lot. I find it difficult to figure out how to adapt a line that starts on 1 for the and of 2 for instance, like it’s not intuitive for me to figure out what notes I need to omit or add to make the line fit rhythmically and I think those experiments with taking notes out will really help. Lastly, I’m at that stage where I’m learning lines and it’s difficult for me to place them because they usually last two or four bars, focusing on super small, easy chunks I think is going to help expand my vocabulary, to use a metaphor it feels like I have stock sentences that I just repeat, whereas I feel this approach will be teaching me words. Thanks so much
Nick this is a Terrific Lesson. Goes hand in hand with your last rhythmic lesson. As a piano player I'm also always looking for these type of practice routine ideas. I'll be coming up with left hand comping patterns to go along with this. I'll be sure to let you know how it works out 😊 Thanks
Terrific lesson in creative approach. So many great ideas here, from taking a snippet from a master, to analysis to adding rhythmic variation, to evolving what feels good in your own playing. You could apply your approach to modern dance, too. Combinations and permutation infinite from just a small line. 10 minutes of gold in this lesson. Wonderful. Doc
This was an excellent video. My favorite lessons are structured such that the ideas are very simple and comprehensible, but the number of possibile directions one can apply are basically endless. I started doing this a couple years ago when my practice routine was becoming stale. I was transcribing solos by ear-which helped me a lot and still does to this day-and learning phrases and licks from my heroes, but my personal vocabulary was not expanding as I wished. So I would take a bar or two at most of something I found intriguing or cool and would first understand what’s going on harmonically, next break the phrase into components and edit at will until I arrived at something which my ear enjoyed. There are billions of ways to approach this, and really removes the (sometimes) daunting prospect of transcribing an entire solo (which is not always necessary anyway). I’m really pleased to have come across your video and channel. All the best
Thank You Nick! This is absolutely pearls of knowledge that I never got from my classical saxophone teacher. You are a great teacher keep it coming. Thank you
Great stuff Nick. Yes i find learning small but meaningful concepts and working them into my everyday playing sticks , but if i learn a whole big thing then two weeks later I've forgotten it.
I think that this is really a good approach for me (guitarist and some piano). Trying to perfect a given line can have its benefits but I think this is more about teaching a man to fish (as they say) and ultimately more likely to come out.
This is exactly what i'm looking for in terms of avoiding learning licks and instead to get at concepts that can be applied creatively. What other ways can we conceptualize the grammar of jazz?
This is gold, Nick. You can do so much with just a few notes! Do you write the more syncopated lines first, or is it better to do them in your head? I don’t think I could have come up with the scale lines edit in my brain.
Hello Nick from a Patreon supporter. Excellent material. Such a wonderful concept that can be applied to other ideas but different from say figuring out all 1235 permutations. Is this material more or less what is in your perpetual motion book, outside of it following the cycle of 4th's?
Sort of.....perpetual motion book is all about voice leading through the circle of fourths without much rhythmic variety. It's basically a lot of 8th notes haha
I do not know if you check out responses from older videos but what I want to mention is that your concept is at the heart of this book: "Building Solo Lines from Cells" by Randy Vincent. He had written a guitar version but made one for sax etc....I own it but have not started it. In due time I will....
Has this fellow ever listened to Freddie Hubbard? I know, that we all know, that a tenor sax is not a trumpet and ( all together now) Freddie plays trumpet!
You don't swing! You're are trying to FORCE your ear to play something it is READING not hearing. Improvisation is based on learned vocabulary that uses neighboring tones, and others to create a melodic line that is in some way like singing, But based on a chord progression of some type (II-V-I. I-vi-ii-V I, etc.,) I doubt if anyone can sing your figure created here and go whisle it outside in the Park!!You don't learn a language by manipulating the parts of speech or misspelling words and then sound them out. I think we improvise in the KEY not the chord!. Write a figure based on the 1st 8 measures of "Green Dolphin Street" for example and put it in all twelve keys following the cycle of fifths/. It is less tiresome than these calisthenics you suggest and much more developmental.
So we should never push to play anything we don't hear? How does that work? Won't you be playing the same things for the rest of your life? Playing by ear is awesome! But composing or experimenting with lines like I am doing here as a way of expanding your ear is also awesome! This is not a one size fits all music. Some people learn differently than you and I stand by the ideas in this video 💯. They have helped me a ton in my own development.
