How can I learn to keep the song playing in my head?

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by JohnW63

JonPR,

Let me give an example. I know the basic melody to this song. With a bit of warming up, I can play it pretty well. It's not really hard.



When it comes to the sections where there is either the guitar solo section or the sax solo section, the solos are over the chords in the melody, but not at all like the melody. Say at the 2:29 minute mark and then starting at the 3:05 mark until the fad out.

If there was someone holding down the melody, I would feel confident. I can come up with something half way decent. But with just the bass ( my instructor ) and a generic drum track, I loose the feel. I think I have spent too much time having the melody being fed to me and I need to wen myself off that habit.

I see your problem, I think it stems from not having a song with words to improvise around.
When you have words you can play the chords and sing the melody, that way over time the tune gets associated with the chord progression so when you want to improvise something that's different to the original melody you can sing the words of the song in your head and that tells you where the chord changes are.
Without words to memorise I guess you just have to memorise the progression . I think trying to play one tune in my head while trying to improvise a counter melody would drive me nuts.
How does your teacher do it, have you asked?

[JohnW63]

Hatamoto,

It's not that I get lost because the solo seems to be over a none melody section, it's that when the melody is not very obvious, and it's not being fed to me as I play, I lose my place and sometimes lose the feel and drop into boring , unrelated scale stuff. Playing along with the recording is fun. Keeping all the good stuff in my head at those sections when it's not there is tough.

I think I've learned to solo reactive-ly and not from stuff internally. I think I play by sound and not by knowledge of what we are doing and what will work with it. " I see, this section would work great with a melodic minor scale and as long as I highlight the key notes as the chords change, it should sound pretty good. " And then go work out a cool solo keeping those ideas in mind.

Andyrondack,

My instructor has done Jazz stuff since he was a teenager, I think, and has little trouble playing in and around the chords, often at an impressive clip on that bass of his. I have asked him why he played certain things in his solos, after the fact.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by JohnW63

JonPR,

Sorry, only just seen this post!

Originally Posted by JohnW63

Let me give an example. I know the basic melody to this song. With a bit of warming up, I can play it pretty well. It's not really hard.

Ok, good...

Originally Posted by JohnW63

OK, this is an unusually complex piece, with a couple of extra bridge sections after the main AABA format...

I also think the melody is not that memorable, so it's easy to forget it (after those funky bridges) when it comes round to your turn to solo....

Originally Posted by JohnW63

When it comes to the sections where there is either the guitar solo section or the sax solo section, the solos are over the chords in the melody, but not at all like the melody. Say at the 2:29 minute mark and then starting at the 3:05 mark until the fad out.

OK, 2:29 is where the form finally returns to the opening chord sequence (the [A] section),and 3:05 is the [B] section. From 3:27 they then repeat the [A] section round and round to the fade out.

In the original he is improvising over those sections, but is playing frequent quotes from the melody. I.e., he obviously has the melody in his head! (So I wouldn't say the guitar, at least, is "not at all like the melody".) The sax solo on the [B] section stretches out a little more, but the guitar restates the melody on the return to [A] at 3:27, for the first 8 bars. It then improvises more loosely on the play out.

Originally Posted by JohnW63

If there was someone holding down the melody, I would feel confident. I can come up with something half way decent. But with just the bass ( my instructor ) and a generic drum track, I loose the feel. I think I have spent too much time having the melody being fed to me and I need to wen myself off that habit.

Well, you just haven't quite embedded the melody enough in your head. I'd suggest playing the original on a loop (from the beginning to 1:19, where the extra bridges begin), and playing along with the melody, over and over.

The chord sequence of [A] is actually pretty bland - all diatonic to C minor, nothing chromatic, two bars each on Cm7, Abmaj7, Gm7 and Fm7. So, while that makes it easy (and I can understand why your instructor might have chosen this piece, as an easy groove), I can see it's also easy to just noodle aimlessly and lose your place. So some phrases from the melody (rhythmic as well as notes) will help, to have some structure to work from. But also keep the chords in your head: go for chord tones on the changes.

Are you improvising on the [B] section too? That's a little more challenging, with the change of key. Personally I wouldn't worry about melody there, just be prepared for the chord changes the end.

[JohnW63]

I actually picked this one.

I generally solo over the A and B sections of a song, or in the section that the original artist did. As an example the solo section of "This Masquerade " played by George Benson is over a simple two chord section. The rest has more chord interesting stuff.

[hatamoto]

Originally Posted by JohnW63

Hatamoto,

It's not that I get lost because the solo seems to be over a none melody section, it's that when the melody is not very obvious, and it's not being fed to me as I play, I lose my place and sometimes lose the feel and drop into boring , unrelated scale stuff. Playing along with the recording is fun. Keeping all the good stuff in my head at those sections when it's not there is tough.

I think I've learned to solo reactive-ly and not from stuff internally. I think I play by sound and not by knowledge of what we are doing and what will work with it. " I see, this section would work great with a melodic minor scale and as long as I highlight the key notes as the chords change, it should sound pretty good. " And then go work out a cool solo keeping those ideas in mind.

.

I wouldn't know what else to say other than it may be a good idea to find out what the chords are in that section you're having trouble with and play that on a looper to internalize it. I listened to it again, and it's pretty noisy. There's a lot going on with the guitar, strumming, and the sax. Filter all that out first and just play the chords in the looper. Maybe that will help you hear it more. Take it bar by bar. Do you play while tapping your foot? That might help to...

What do you mean when you say "unrelated scale"? Maybe stick to pentatonics first so it's safer?

For your licks, you probably just need to phrase it in a certain way to give it some life. Take that lick but start on a different beat. Perhaps on an upbeat. Hold on to some notes longer. Try to use bends and slides if you're not. Maybe start your lick on the "4-and" and see how that goes. Displace them around within the bar. You'll be surprised how different it sounds depending where it lands on the beat. See how much you can expand on that simple lick by just playing around with the phrasing. Don't worry too much about melodic minor and targeting the notes. I think it's too much to do at once. If you're having some issues "hearing" and feeling the beat, that's first step.

I would tackle this in isolation. I wouldn't try to do everything at once because that's a disaster. Keeping in time is already hard enough. I would start there with simple solo lines until I can feel it.

Then I would dissect it even further by following chord tones.

Then go even further by using different scales if I'm after a certain sound. Just not everything at once.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by JohnW63

…I have figured out that it's because I don't have a melody playing in the back ground to keep me in the groove and feel of the song..

Hi JohnW…

If I listen to a track about 2 hours consecutively every day for a week, I know the melody. I've done this with more challenging pieces. I'm a singer, so I sing the melody while listening.

I do this under ear-buds or headphones if my wife is around. And I turn the volume down once it's distracting to other activities.

Once I have the chords down…the melody is the first thing I learn with my hands. I'm not happy till I can play it in at least two places on the fingerboard, sometimes three (low range, mid range, and high range).

Then I go back and fill-in (alter and move) the chords to every location on the neck I can easily reach.

If I'm playing chords behind a soloist, I've got variety to give soloists space. If they are playing low, I'm comping chords high or in the middle of the fingerboard. If they are in the middle, I'm going with open chords or even high inversions.


Hope this adds to the discussion…

[DBW]

Do you have an acoustic-electric or electric guitar? If you have a looper pedal, you can play and record the chord progressions. Then play it back and solo over it.

[JohnW63]

DBW,

I have both.

I'm thinking that taking a step back and learning the chords will give me a better foundation to solo over. I play the single note melody in the rest of the tune, so I haven't really thought much about the chords except for the section my instructor will be soloing over. In these types of songs, where no one seems to be playing chords at all, it's easy to think about just single notes. If someone asked me to play a bit of Bahia Funk, I wouldn't think about playing chords, because it wouldn't sound like the song. But, it might help learning the bones or the structure I am playing over.

I'm trying to do the vocal stuff over the song a few times ,before I pick up the guitar. I can't sing it, as I've been getting vocal chord laser stuff done recently, so the range is gone for now.

[Robin, Wales]

Stepping away from the detail for a moment. And this may be useful to this discussion on jazz improv or not. But there is a downside to "hearing the tune in your head" whilst playing.

I know a fiddler and also a guitarist who I have talked with about improving how they play. Both tell me that they "hear the tune in their head" whilst playing (and singing in the guitarist case). The problem is that neither is hearing or working with their actual sonic output in the moment. The result is sort of "fire and forget" playing. The kinaesthetic to auditory to kinaesthetic feedback loop is missing. The fiddler in particular is fascinating to watch. You can see him mouthing the tune and "living it" in his head but the sounds coming from his fiddle are unfathomable - timing and phrasing is all over the place. Neither record themselves playing for analysis. And if they did I think that they would be heartbroken without someone there to pick up the pieces and give them a strategy.

As I said, this may not be applicable in this case. But it is just something to consider. While "hearing the tune in your head" you don't want to loose your in the moment auditory/kinaesthetic feedback from your guitar.

[JohnW63]

Robin,

That would really be a worst case scenario!

I just need to keep enough of the melody and rhythm in my head to not lose track of what I should be doing and play as part of the tune and not random scale work in the right key.

It would be a lot easier with a full band so all the parts of the song remained and I could just listen and experiment.

Thanks for the suggestions, all of you.