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Thread: Using verbal phrases to form solos

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    Default Using verbal phrases to form solos

    I was recently listening to an instrumental by a famous mandolin player and could almost imagine words to the song being repeated multiple times throughout the tune by all the instruments. (There were none) This made me think that when creating a melody line we use the words sang in a song. Does anyone use variations on words or phrases when improvising to build a melody line. I know once when I was having difficulty with a passage my instructor used a phrase of words and the problem was resolved. I was able to remember exactly how that section should sound. How might one go about using this technique to build solos or improvise ? Thanks for any help you can give me on this.

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    In Irish and Scottish music there is lilting (called puirt à beul in Scottish Gaelic), which is a kind of mouth music based on either wordless sounds made by the mouth or on nonsense words.

    These are a musical entity in their own right (there are competitions etc.), but they're also a great way of learning, practising, and passing on tunes; and they're also really helpful for phrasing and getting a good lilt into one's playing.

    Here's a couple of examples.

    Jimmy Ward singing Jimmy Ward's Favourite:



    And of puirt a beul:


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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    A couple of years ago at Kaufmann Kamp Russ Barenberg did most of his session on how to listen to singers and to emulate their phrasing in setting up guitar solos. He played recordings of several examples of vocals, particularly with Ricky Skaggs and Doc Watson, taking the songs phrase by phrase and listening to where their vocals slurs and trills occurred. He would incorporate these, trying to imitate the voice effects on the guitar. It was eye (or ear) opening to see how much good singers deviate from the straight melody as they sing, a lot of it probably unconscious, when you listen in detail to what they are actually doing. This can really inform good soloing. It opened my ears up to just how good a singer Ricky Skaggs is also.

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    Registered User T.D.Nydn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    When playing jazz solos, I used to use a technique of talking to myself and playing that sentence on my instrument. When you talk, it is not a machine, many things vary, like length of sentence, volume varies, some words are fast and others sometimes slow , maybe stuttering etc. I use this type of phrasing,you have to get happy , sad,and mad,,, you can't play beautifully while being pissed off, and you can't play aggressively while thinking of butterflies.....

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    There are vocalists who improvise without words (e.g. Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin), so it's perfectly possible for instrumentalists to improvise while thinking of words.

    I know when I take a break, I'm singing the melody and words to myself in my head in order to keep myself on track with the chord changes, even if I've veered off from the melody a bit on my instrument.

  7. #6

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Verbal phrasing. I learned this from John Hartford, who learned it from Buddy Emmons. It was the reason why John moved his mouth so much while he played. He also claimed Buddy was actually horse after a show and never sang a note out loud. Another example is Jazz guitarist George Benson. He quietly scat-sang while he played solos. Every so often it would be heard on his recordings.

    There are also examples of Tune titles that supposedly sound like a phrase: Granny Does Your Dog Bite, comes to mind. The Old Gray Mare Came Bounding through the Wilderness (or Meetinghouse) is another.

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    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    @ jeho2a, thanks for that second video, now I'll have to find an album! Good stuff.
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  10. #8

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Thanks to all that responded! Some really interesting facts. Love the videos! I will be working toward using this technique.

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Music , as a language, is expressed aurally like spoken language but , of course , without words. Expression with music as expression with language is not just about what you say but how it is said ... duh I know ....... inferring not just the tones you play but how you play them are equally important. Syncopation , alliteration, a scream a whisper a slide a bend all add expression to conversation or a break....... Sing with those strings ...talking your tunes, as pointed out above has a long and venerated tradition.... R/
    Last edited by UsuallyPickin; Apr-22-2016 at 8:32am. Reason: An added thought
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Many of the non-horn jazz cats do this. Oscar Peterson, Slam Stewart, Herb Ellis (always reminded me of Mumbles, from Dick Tracy)

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    I remember an old Guitar Player Magazine interview with Frank Zappa in which he said he used speech rhythms in his music quite a bit.
    Steve

  14. #12

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    I have long suggested scat singing as an exercise for improvising. If you can't come up with interesting, creative musical phrases when you are not encumbered by technique, how do you expect to be able to do so while playing your instrument? You don't have to be able to sing well or produce a wonderful sound, just be able to create.

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Watch Robert Cray's mouth as he solos

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUoCHHfkpUs

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Quote Originally Posted by David L View Post
    I have long suggested scat singing as an exercise for improvising. If you can't come up with interesting, creative musical phrases when you are not encumbered by technique, how do you expect to be able to do so while playing your instrument?
    Bingo. This is how I know I am better off sticking close to the melody.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Gummy Bears and Scotch BrianWilliam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    I like that the guy in the first video finishes his solo with a drink.

    Listening to the woman in the second video made me feel like I had too many drinks.

  18. #16

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Geoffrey that is a fantastic video ! One of my favorites. That is playing. Thanks to all ! Never realized so many artists utilized.

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    If I understand what you mean, yes, all the time. To me it's the same as playing the melody. The words are going through me head as I pick a solo.

  20. #18

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    I was also interested in the notion of adding additional words or phrases or repeating and rearranging words or phrases and then playing that on the mandolin as a variation on the melody line. I think a few folks have addressed this idea .

  21. #19
    Registered User Polecat's Avatar
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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    It's a little O.T. but maybe of interest. Lester Young famously said that you can't play a (jazz) ballad if you don't know the words to it, and the late great singer Eddie Jefferson often took saxophone solos and set words to them, a technique that the Manhattan Transfer took and used with great commercial success. I would have liked to post links to both Lester's treatment of "These foolish things" and Eddie's version of the solo which he entitled "Baby Girl", but unfortunately I can't find them anywhere.
    Here, however, is Jefferson's treatment of Coleman Hawkins' (for the time) revolutionary solo over the changes of "Body and Soul"

    "Give me a mandolin and I'll play you rock 'n' roll" (Keith Moon)

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    Wow that was amazing! Thank you Polecat!

  23. #21

    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    All this brought to mind Glenn Gould who "hummed" while playing Bach. In his case, it appears that he was vocalizing a counterpoint to the Bach under his fingertips...And there's Sachmo who scatted when he couldn't remember the words.

    But back to the point: In a recent PBS special they worked hard on the notion that, for example, trumpet playing is singing but with a different instrument. I always thought that was more or less axiomatic.

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    Default Re: Using verbal phrases to form solos

    This is a really interesting topic.

    I've had a look around for different kinds of "mouth music" and came across this video which has all kinds:

    Mouth Music demonstrates the distinctive modes of the human voice, the most influential of all musical instruments, takes on in southern folk music and folk culture. These modes can span traditional a cappella performance styles as well as unique expressive vocal forms that have evolved as part of daily life, work, and play: hollerin’, jump-rope rhymes, “eephing,” nonsense songs, auctioneering, drill sergeant’s patter and others.
    http://www.folkstreams.net/film,173

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