Improvisation

The setting is a casual session playing music with friends 
or a situation on stage in front of an audience: suddenly, 
someone is kicking off a tune and towards the end of the 
second verse, a nod is going your direction to take a solo . 
. . yet you've only heard the tune a few times . . . you 
haven't actually played through it. Or maybe this is the 
first time you've even heard the song. The moment to take 
your solo approaches. Sweat breaks out. You tense up. People 
are listening and will be looking at you. What in the world 
would you possibly play?

For many players, the thought of improvising on stage or 
even in the presence of others can be a frightening 
experience. Or maybe you're already experimenting with 
improvisation but would like to improve your skills. Either 
way I think you'll find some food for thought and 
suggestions here that can help you achieve a goal of playing 
spontaneously. But let's be careful how we we use term 
"improvising" and look at the true meaning of the phrase.

What it is and isn't

Improvisation is not.

Music is a LANGUAGE, and the ability to improvise relates to 
your knowledge of the musical language and how to use it as 
a tool without strictly memorizing a particular order for 
every song. It's a knowledge base. Later on we'll look at 
some ways to evaluate and improve upon that knowledge. The 
real secret is ear and brain training... really knowing your 
instrument and MUSIC.

Read enough interviews with famous musicians and you start 
to get the picture. They all have some common thoughts about 
improvisation. It boils down to this: people who improvise 
are really calling upon their knowledge of the instrument 
and their music. The secret is hard work and a desire to 
move beyond playing other people's music and playing your 
own. And we're not talking about learning "licks." We're 
talking about really LEARNING the instrument and music.

Maybe you can play some fairly advance arrangements from 
standard notation,tablature, or from memory. But when it 
comes time to improvise, or to play music to an unfamiliar 
piece where you might recognize the chord structure, maybe 
the results don't meet your expectations. It's quite 
possible you've "memorized" a musical speech (OK, a tune). 
That's OK and we all do it--it's actually necessary. But too 
much rote memorization without learning to "speak music" and 
we lose the ability to carry on a musical conversation--to 
improvise.

Improvisation is really a method of relying on music as a 
language. We play elements and combinations of what we've 
played before. Who really plays something brilliant by sheer 
chance? Rarely. We improvise by stringing together different 
"words" or phrases we learn and use them in varying 
combinations. It's more than "licks." We play what's been 
previously "spoken" or played. 

The better you know the elements of music the better you'll 
be able to play off the cuff. Most of us can carry on a 
casual conversation without thought. It's because we're 
familiar with our spoken language. We've practiced it daily 
since we uttered our first words. So are we really 
improvising in speech? Or are we falling back on familiar 
patterns and finding combinations of them that work in the 
given conversation? If I suddenly said "that banjo player's 
bank account just exceeded 10 million," would I be 
improvising, or simply stating a series of different words 
I'd previously pondered?

With experience in playing there is typically an associated 
improvement in the ability to play spontaneously, or to 
improvise. We might "hear" the sounds we want to come out of 
our instrument, but only at that point which we can 
translate musical thoughts to the fretboard does it work. 

Identify Your Skill Level

Here are a few simple exercises to increase your playing 
skills and at the same time, help evaluate your mandolin 
skill level. You may discover weaknesses in doing so. That's 
OK. Take the attitude that you've identified an area you can 
work on rather than an area where you've failed!

1. Pick a simple melody you know, preferably one you've known 
for years. "You Are My Sunshine," "Jingle Bells," "the Andy 
Griffith theme." Just choose something familiar. Hum the 
melody or sing it out loud. Now without the benefit of 
listening to the song from any other source, sit down and 
play it by ear with your instrument. Pick a comfortable key 
like D or G. If you experience difficulty in playing the 
melody and require a fair amount of searching around to find 
the correct notes, then improvisation is likely a problem 
for you. You'll likely benefit from learning the basic 
scales and positions.  That doesn't mean you have to start 
reading music or practicing scales, although that would 
help, It simply means you haven't learned the instrument 
well enough to translate the sounds inside your head to the 
mandolin. And that . . . is one of the keys to 
improvisation.

2. Pick a tune you've played on mandolin and consider you know 
quite well. Now transpose it up or down a half step and play 
it SLOWLY (if the tune is in "G", start playing in Ab or 
F#). Evaluate the level of difficulty you're experiencing, 
if any (remember, play SLOWLY). Extreme difficulty? Probably 
a sign that you're unfamiliar with a key other than the basic" 
mandolin keys or have simply memorized fingering positions 
vs. sounds. But don't think of this as a weakness. Think of it 
as an area targeted for improvement.

3. Can you hum a basic scale out loud? Now play it on mandolin 
starting from the low G string. Then play it starting from 
the A (second fret, low string). Try different starting 
points. Play it ascending and descending. Again, problems in 
finding the notes are indicative of a lack of understanding 
of the basic scale structures of music. 

OK, enough of that! If you experienced problems with the 
above exercises, then you'll likely benefit from actually 
practicing those three steps. Again, if you discovered 
difficulties, just think of those as areas where you can 
improve. You're a step ahead of someone who hasn't 
identified the same! Remember, ear training is *essential* 
for improvisation.

Of course this doesn't teach you how to improvise, but 
simply provides you with a reference: where am I, and where 
do I need to go in order to improve?

Suggested Ways to Improve Your Improvisational Skills

There are, of course, a number of ways to develop 
improvisational skills. Here are a few but don't feel like 
you have to try every one. Search, explore... and 
experiment.

1. Repeated SLOW practice of scales is a valuable tool for 
truly learning your instrument. But the purpose of a scale 
is not to use it in soloing. The purpose is to teach your 
hands and brain the fingerboard and to integrate that 
knowledge into the ability to play well.  Wonderful things 
can happen to your playing if you'll dedicate a few minutes 
to some simple and slow scales per day.

2. STOP. Don't just sit down and play a piece of music. Dissect 
it. Play it mentally in your head and imagine new sounds. 
Analyze different sounds that relate to the chord structure. 
Sing them out loud to yourself. Then try to transfer those 
new sounds to your instrument.

3. Study great players but learn to develop your own phrases. 
It's easier to speak your own language as opposed to that of 
someone else.

4. Learn to read standard notation if you don't already know 
how. There are terrific books filled with great ideas, but 
surprise... they aren't in mandolin tablature. I love tab 
too but there's another world out there waiting for you. 
I've sampled it and it's wonderful.

5. For a few minutes each day or week, practice playing some 
familiar melodies you already know. It doesn't matter what 
they are, as long as it's something that's familiar. I try 
to play along with music I hear on TV, on the radio, and 
that annoying song that comes from the toy in our baby's 
crib. I even learned a harmony to it. It's great ear 
training. Paul Glasse does it as does many other greats.

6. Try to learn one small new musical "phrase" per week and see 
if you can translate it to other keys and then use it in 
tunes you already know. You'll be making progress if you do.

Everyone starts at ground zero. The greats all struggled to 
learn "G" chord at some time in their lives. Think how much 
good you'll be doing by making genuine efforts in the right 
direction.

The Final Word

Treat the word improvisation with care. What appears to be 
brilliant improvisation by musicians is often the result of 
a lot of hard work. Good players who appear to be 
improvising are calling upon a substantial library of music 
inside their head. But guard against going for "licks" and 
think of the word "phrases" instead. There's a difference.

Take a little time each week and think about your music 
rather than just sitting down and playing mindless (although 
I recommend that too once in awhile). 

Did we teach you to improvise here? No. But think through 
this material and evaluate what you want to play and how you 
might play it. Improvisation is difficult to learn, let 
along teach. Consider this a step in the right direction.

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