Derelict78 wrote:I had a bass teacher that would tell me to listen to the Weather channel and play along with the music. It helped me out immensely.
You heard wrong.
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I'll get my coat.
My friends dad plays bass and he loves the music on the Weather Channel AND Weather Report. lol.
I think there is a lot of truth to what kbithecrowing said. However that shouldn't discourage you from learning more theory, it WILL help. If you ever get stuck in a rut, I find it good to find some music that is drastically different from what you've been playing and learn to play along with a couple of songs until you start to glean some new ideas. It's all a matter of maintaining balance between learning theory, listening to/playing along with new music and improvising, otherwise you turn into Les Claypool, skilled yet horrifyingly monochromatic.
BOOM-SHAKALAKALAKA-BOOM-SHAKALAKUNGA
Behndy wrote:i don't like people with "talent" and "skills" that don't feel the need to cover their inadequacies under good time happy sounds.
D.o.S. wrote:I believe the key to improv is to not have any idea what you're going to play before you play it.
I'm talking blindfolded and deaf on an instrument in an open tuning you've never used before.
Otherwise it's cheating.
this. it helps you think on an intuitive level with the instrument and allows you to discover harmonies and such that you aren't used to which expands your melodic vocabulary by sorta forcing you to make the connections between "this sounds in key" and "what the fuck am i playing"
I used to practice listening to radio and playing over it. No matter what crap in what genre it spouted out It sure was fun. Taught an important lesson of following what is going on in the background (and neglecting it for shits and giggles).
I also recommend using an open approach - who knows, perhaps the solo part of the song doesn't need pentatonic scale though it might sound coherent or at least less out of place. Sometimes chromatic nonsense makes perfect sense, You know, and instead of going after scales,how about just doubling drum accents with reverb and fuzz, and drop bits and pieces of vocal melody lines in between?
:::: Metal up Yöur Jazz! with FUZZIFERblack psychedelic doom ::::
Ugly Nora wrote:It's a sad day when Bassus Sanguinis becomes the voice of reason.
- listen to as much as you can as often as possible. - theory does not work well for improv (not once has anyone come up to me and said ''hey dawgg that was a sik Gm13add9 arpeg u busted there''. - prepared instruments - obvs a shitload of fuzz
catalogs with a ton of improv/weird muggs/muggettes goin ham in authentic $pace tyme :
kbithecrowing wrote:Learning theory to improv will probably make things sound more cohesive, but you may get stuck in a grid of what notes you are supposed to play and not venture out of them, which is where most of the interesting stuff is (relatively speaking, of course).
THIS 100 TIMES.
although with that i gotta say, if you're going to take the scales route, tread with care around your pentatonic scales! no one wants to be pentatonic blues lick dude.
oh and i'm echoing everyone who said prepared guitar! prepared acoustic with weird tunings is probably my favorite thing in the entire universe. once you're out of your comfort zone and you don't know how to orient yourself on the fretboard, you really have to listen more. it's a totally new experience. if you spend the first 20 minutes holding your guitar like 'what am i even supposed to do with this now?' you're probably doing it right.
mathias wrote:I heard that Tom Dalton read a book on how to grow online communities around your business. But he thought it was too much work so he just created a forum full of alts. You and I are the only real people.
I'm not saying don't learn some theory (I studied scale/arpeg books for a few years and took AP Music Theory for quite awhile) if yr just starting, but its really boring to hear a mug play box patterns.
Something few people realize is that you are learning theory regardless of whether you try to or not.
Learning to play, or improvise, by ear or feel, is learning theory intuitively.
A guitar teacher I went to for a while compared this to trying to go through a door. You keep throwing yourself against the door and it doesn't budge, but you put enough time and effort in and eventually you break through. Or, he said, you could just learn to read and see the sign says "Pull".
As for people that play the same patterns, that doesn't really have anything to do with learning theory. There are as many - if not more - people doing the same thing that never bothered to learn. That has to do with being creative. If you're creative, then what you play will be interesting. Theory just gives you more to be creative with.
D.o.S. wrote:You're like a walking Mad Men episode.
BitchPudding wrote:DO WHAT MUST BE DONE, LORD JFREY.
friendship wrote:one cool thing about living is that things get worse and worse and worse until you die
jfrey does bring up a good point. I guess my original post was a bit more of a warning just because I sort of got trapped in a grid myself even when not trying, but I'm starting to break out of it more and more with time.
If you do want to look more into theory for improvising melodic lines and simple chords I'd suggest looking into intervals. I just found this site through searching: http://library.thinkquest.org/15413/the ... ervals.htm
The key signature, inversion, and quality sections will probably be a bit much if you don't have much for theory background. Although key signatures are a good thing to learn, I just wouldn't use that site to do it.
I would suggest reading the intro, scales section, and listening to the sound clips. One of the things I really like to do is to mix the intervals you would find in a major and minor scale together while you are playing. Or just use "wrong" intervals within a scale. My favorite "wrong" interval is a half step above the root. /shinfo
D.o.S. wrote:I'm fucking stupid and no one should operate under any other premise.
YODA wrote:you must unlearn what you have learned....
orangeespoom wrote:Hooooooooly shit I can't believe all the people saying that theory isn't useful for improv. Maybe you guys are talking free improv, but actual improv is, in my mind, being able to play whatever you want to play at the exact time you think of it. So hearing a lick in your head and playing it. Last time I checked, that required theory knowledge. If you say that theory will make you more boring, then you're a boring player in the first place.
"JO: Any words of encouragement for young players?
NY: Just start playing. Learn a few chords and play with someone who's maybe a little better than you. Don't learn from a book any more than you have to. Learning from other people is what music is all about. Pick up things and put them back together yourself. Use them to write new songs, to make new sounds, new chord changes, new time changes. Just create. Even if it's all shit, just keep creating. Pretty soon it'll be great. "
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." --John Cage
sylnau wrote:Best advise I found yet is from Neil Young:
"JO: Any words of encouragement for young players?
NY: Just start playing. Learn a few chords and play with someone who's maybe a little better than you. Don't learn from a book any more than you have to. Learning from other people is what music is all about. Pick up things and put them back together yourself. Use them to write new songs, to make new sounds, new chord changes, new time changes. Just create. Even if it's all shit, just keep creating. Pretty soon it'll be great. "
never pass up an opportunity to play with someone else.
It sure was fun. Taught an important lesson of following what is going on in the background (and neglecting it for shits and giggles). 
" - smile_man
