The Journey

When I write about the journey, I’m not talking about the Journey of Life, but the journey you’re on in the moment! I’m typing words on my computer right now, but I’m constantly looking ahead (and behind) in order to put the sentences together with good grammer and pulse, while telling my story and attempting to make it engaging, like a good solo.
 
Great soloists/improvisers, composers need to know where the music is going while they are engaged in their craft. (it also helps to know where they were so that they can elaborate on and idea for the purposes of developing and crafting a meaningful story.) They are always looking ahead to the next thing (chord, melody, rhythm) while playing what they are playing RIGHT NOW.
It’s like driving a car (stay with me here…). You get in, start the engine, and map out the route to your destination in your head. You can choose many routes to get to the grocery store from home, and each one will get you there, albeit at different times, but the destination is still the same. A good friend of mine once said, “Don’t look at the car ahead of you, look many cars ahead of you!” This is great advice!
When you look 5 feet ahead of you while driving, it stifles your ability to stay in the center of your lane. You would find that your car is drifting to the left side because the driver’s seat is on the left. You also lose the ability to anticipate something that you might have to react to up ahead. Warning: if you try this while driving, make sure there are NO cars around you!
If you look 200 feet ahead, you can now see the world around you, and everything that you’re not looking at directly is still in your peripheral vision, and therefore you can react to it much sooner.
This brings me to improvising (composing). It goes without saying that driving a car is stupid easy compared to playing an instrument, but the analogy holds up.
When asked “What is going through your mind when you are soloing?” Maynard’s reply was “absulotely nothing!” How did he get to that point? PRACTICE! When it comes time to play a gig, I want to be able to play the lines I’ve worked on in the shed. If they don’t come out on the gig, I haven’t internalized them yet, and that just means more practice, knowing that eventually they will, given enough time. A great improviser has the ability, through practice, to see what the next line is going to be while playing what they’re playing RIGHT NOW! The line of the moment is so together,  they don’t have to think about it. That frees up the mind to think ahead, think of nothing, think “I’m hungry, what’s for dinner?”, whatever…

Melody:

Try this: on a particular chord, see how many lines you can play from any note. Start with chord tones, then tensions, then all 12 notes. If you have solid language from any starting point, you then can use those lines as a means of approaching a target from behind, or looking ahead. This is how you can start building longer lines, by connecting one idea to another by approaching a target note and using it as a pivot (a pivot note is a note that ends a line and can start another) Ask yourself this: “How many notes does it take to get to there, and when will it get there?” When I practice this, I always feel a need to slow things down for a while. It gives me more time to figure out where and when the destination occurs, so that I can pivot to the new line and make the connection.

Harmony:

Somebody: “Let’s play Green Dolphin Street”
Me: “Sure, I know that tune!”
Somebody: “Ok, tell me the changes”
Me: “Uhhhhh…….”

If I can’t recite the changes, I don’t know the tune! How could I possibly play the lines that I’ve worked out in the shed if I don’t know what chords are coming up? Well, I could try, but it wouldn’t sound very good, I can tell you that! Having the changes memorized gives you the ability to see what chords are coming up, and therefore, permission to play a solo on that tune, and not before. On Green Dolphin Street, that “C” section is the one that gave me trouble for a while……but not anymore. Turns out that’s the best part of the tune!
Students often ask me “How do you know what scale to play on a dominant chord (C7)? There are so many!” My answer is always “depends on where it came from and where it’s going.”
Ok, here’s a joke I came up with that only the select few who have made it this far in this blog will get. BTW I love telling this to my non musician friends and watching the blank stares…Ok here it goes:

Q: What did the ii-7 say to the V7
A: “Are we there yet?”
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[Applause]

Rhythm:
When I was in high school, my best friends and I were listening to jazz all the time. One thing we loved to do was listen to a poly-rhythmic drum solo and try to keep our spot. We would all slap our hands on beat one of each 2, then 4, then 8 measure segments. We would laugh when we would hear each other slap at different times, then go back and try it again. It was a lot of fun. Very nerdy, but there you go.
One album that comes to mind is “Chick Corea Three Quartets”, still one of my absolute favorites. In Quartet No. 2, Part 2, Steve Gadd’s solo at the end is exquisite! I’ve always been enamored by the ability to “float” over the time and still keep your spot. That last lick he plays that sets up the head out makes me always want to yell “Yeah!” It’s so uplifting.
When a student at Berklee I was playing with the Rob Scheps Sextet in Boston and the drummer was Ian Froman. I was so taken by the way he would float over the time and never lose his spot. I asked him how he does that and he said something like “I just think in larger phrases”. What an eye opener for me at that age!
All my musical life, I have paid serious attention to how drummers play, for no other reason than I just loved it! The art of jazz drumming requires that you look way ahead to what’s coming and how long to get there. The “set-up” shows this very clearly. If the band is going to hit on the “and” of 4, what’s the drummer doing 2-4 measures earlier? What makes a clear, comfortable set-up relies on looking ahead.
 
Ok, my brain is tired, hope you enjoy this blog. More to come……..