I want to improve my phrasing

[elavd]

Lately I feel that my phrasing is not as good as I would want it to be...

The problem is that I feel that my hands get stuck to the same licks, phrases etc everytime I try to improvise.

I would like to be able to play more fluently, more freely and also I want to get rid of the standard licks that I use on my playing.

I would like to be able play more jazzy phrases (although I play mainly blues-rock stuff), more intervalic passages, I would like to be able to play notes that are "off" the key but still correct in a way etc...

What do you suggest me do?
How should I practice?

Thanks in advance!

[Robert****]

Number one remedy: Transcribe solos from other players. Not only from guitar players, but also from piano players and horn players. That jazz lick I presented, for example, was straight from Charlie Parker's sax. I use variations on licks like that when I play, but I always try to change them around a bit to sound like me.

The more you transcribe, the bigger your musical vocabulary will be, and therefore you'll be able to have more variation in your playing.

I don't agree for a second with people who claim you shouldn't learn other people's playing, because you'll end up sounding the same. That is pretty much impossible if you transcribe from several different players.

[elavd]

Number one remedy: Transcribe solos from other players. Not just guitar players and piano players, but horn players. That jazz lick I presented, for example, was straight from Charlie Parker's sax. I use variations on licks like that when I play, but I always try to change them around a bit to sound like me.

Ι like VERY MUCH Grant Green... Maybe this would be a good start...

[Robert****]

Yes, sure, Grant Green would be an excellent start!

[tot_Ou_tard]

Ι like VERY MUCH Grant Green... Maybe this would be a good start...

Grant Green is excellent!

I've been listening to that cat for decades.

[Jimi75]

Here's how I did it.

I bought a very good metronom and educated myself to slow down - to really slow down and only to raise the tempo when being 100% sure with a lick.

Before starting to play, put the metronom to a slow tempo and start singing a line, maybe a jazzy line that is in your head. Now play the first two notes. Sum again amd when sure play three notes...as long until you got the lick down.

Now start to play it like you heard, then triolic, start with the same procedure when changing the meter from 1/4 to 1/3 or whatever.

I only recognized some years ago that listening to the beat and give the beat a chance to breath is what really was mising in my playing.

I improved a lot this way - but this also depend from player to player.

Good luck.

By the way, listening and transribing other players is a great thing. What I currently do is putting a good soudtrack/score into the cd player and trying to figure out some interesting lines...there is so much we can learn from a good orchestration.

[stingx]

Grant Green is excellent!

I've been listening to that cat for decades.

I used to see his son 2x a month for years at Terra Blues in NYC. AMAZING musician and an unbelievable showman. I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

[R_of_G]

Agree wholeheartedly with Robert that one of the best ways to pick up phrasing techniques is to listen to soloists that are not guitar players, particularly horn players. one of my fav guitar players, and a genius of phrasing is sonny sharrock. sonny wanted to be a sax player but suffered from serious asthma and took up guitar instead, but said he was always looking for a sound that was more similar to sax than guitar, and his phrasing sounds a lot more like horn runs than guitar riffs in many cases. it's why he sounds so natural playing with miles.

here are a few soloists for non-guitar that are good places to start if you want to develop some ears for better phrasing:

trumpet: miles davis, ron carter, donald byrd
sax: sonny rollins, albert ayler, ornette coleman
piano: thelonious monk, horace silver, brad mehldau
trombone: curtis fowlkes

i have learned more about phrasing from these and other non-guitar players than i can describe accurately. i def find robert to be correct in leaning towards horn players over piano players as far as being able to translate better to guitar soloing, though i should add that almost everything i hear in my head as far as what i want to get from my chord play phrasing is much more piano-based than guitar.

[guitartist]

Agree wholeheartedly with Robert that one of the best ways to pick up phrasing techniques is to listen to soloists that are not guitar players, particularly horn players. one of my fav guitar players, and a genius of phrasing is sonny sharrock. sonny wanted to be a sax player but suffered from serious asthma and took up guitar instead, but said he was always looking for a sound that was more similar to sax than guitar, and his phrasing sounds a lot more like horn runs than guitar riffs in many cases. it's why he sounds so natural playing with miles.

here are a few soloists for non-guitar that are good places to start if you want to develop some ears for better phrasing:

trumpet: miles davis, ron carter, donald byrd
sax: sonny rollins, albert ayler, ornette coleman
piano: thelonious monk, horace silver, brad mehldau
trombone: curtis fowlkes

Great advice! It's nice to hear someone else mention Sonny Sharrock...I first heard him on a local college radio station, they played a song from his cd "Ask the Ages" (which was new at the time). It took me almost a year to find a copy of that cd, I'm glad I finally did 'cause now its one of my favorites.

I'm not familiar with Curtis Fowlkes...I always like J.J. Johnson's trombone playing a lot. Man there are so many great jazz soloists....for piano I also like Art Tatum and Bud Powell a lot. Sax: Lester Young, Ben Webster, Sonny Stitt, and of course Bird & Coltrane (personally I'm not that big a fan of Ornette Coleman, but still have a lot of respect for what he accomplished).

And for trumpet I've gotta add Dizzy Gillespie and especially LOUIS ARMSTRONG!

[R_of_G]

i share a birthday with sonny sharrock and lester young. no wonder i gravitated towards jazz. ask the ages is a great album [sadly it was his last]. i def agree with every name you gave as tremendous solosits that we all can learn a thing or two or a million from.

[guitartist]

That's very cool R_of_G! The only musician I share my birthday with (that I'm aware of) is...Kenny G! Yikes!

I played alto sax in the school band so that got me interested in listening to horn players, which eventually led to listening to a lot of other jazz. Although I'm mainly a rocker of the Keith Richards/Jimmy Page school, I have eclectic tastes and love all sorts of music. I used to play sax in a couple of bar bands, and my main two influences on the sax are Bobby Keys (Rolling Stones) and Charlie Parker (although I don't really know much of the theory behind Bird's style, so I just fake it!) I'm really rusty on the sax these days, I get a lot more satisfaction out of the guitar (I dig the polytonal aspects of guitar playing, something you just can't do on a horn...plus the fingering patterns on the fretboard make it a lot easier to switch scales and modes, you don't have to think about it nearly as much).


Getting back to the subject of this thread, I can relate to what Elavd is going through, I 've felt like that myself at times. One thing that always helps me break out of a rut is to play in some modes or scales I'm not that familiar with. For years (actually, more like decades!) I mainly stuck with the pentatonic minor and the phyrgian mode when I played...still love to play them, but I mix it up a lot more these days with the harmonic minor, aeolian, s the country scale, mixolydian, etc. Lately I've REALLY been into playing in the dorian mode.

I used to think that if you started a song in a mode or scale that you needed to stick with it throughout the song, but in one of Warren Haynes' instructional Hot Licks video, he says that he switches back and forth between scales and modes all the time in his playing, sometimes even in the same phrase, just wherever his mood takes him. I've been trying to take this approach more in my playing lately, and its helped me to break out of the same licks I found myself playing a lot. I've been trying to get past some of the rock cliches and more into personal expression with my playing lately (don't get me wrong, I do love the cliche licks, but I've playing them for too long!)

[kerc]

I like Jimi75's idea a lot. I'll try that! I'm kinda stuck lately too...Also, since you're already here Elavd, check out some of Robert's vids...Nice, simple presentations of cool licks.

I did cyberjam not too long ago and the intro was a nice chromatic lick stolen from here. Hehehehe. Everybody loved it.

[sunvalleylaw]

Regarding using other forms of music for phrasing, I was struck with an idea: Broadway musical music. Spudman suggested to me a while ago to find simple melodies on the fret board. That idea expanded here to finding other note lines (sax, piano), from other genres of music. I liked hearing Jim Pfeiffer's adaptation of the "Peanuts" piano tunes and thought the same thing might hold true for this type of music. My daughter turned 4 and we have been listening to a gift she received, the original cast recording from "A year with Frog and Toad". The music has that broadway thing going, with a vaudeville twist. I can't put my finger on what makes music from "Oklahoma", "Chorus Line", "Showboat", "Sound of Music", etc. just seem so recognizable as Broadway? Someone with theory, compositional or other knowledge help? I am speaking of mostly older, more traditional Broadway, pre Cats and Phantom era. Anyway, thought it might be fun to try to find some of those melody lines and wondered what was going on that makes that music somehow indentifiable.

[R_of_G]

Regarding using other forms of music for phrasing, I was struck with an idea: Broadway musical music. Spudman suggested to me a while ago to find simple melodies on the fret board. That idea expanded here to finding other note lines (sax, piano), from other genres of music. I liked hearing Jim Pfeiffer's adaptation of the "Peanuts" piano tunes and thought the same thing might hold true for this type of music. My daughter turned 4 and we have been listening to a gift she received, the original cast recording from "A year with Frog and Toad". The music has that broadway thing going, with a vaudeville twist. I can't put my finger on what makes music from "Oklahoma", "Chorus Line", "Showboat", "Sound of Music", etc. just seem so recognizable as Broadway? Someone with theory, compositional or other knowledge help? I am speaking of mostly older, more traditional Broadway, pre Cats and Phantom era. Anyway, thought it might be fun to try to find some of those melody lines and wondered what was going on that makes that music somehow indentifiable.

Great idea. Musicals are certainly a source of memorable "ear-pleasing" simple melodies, as are standards. Brad Mehldau, one of the pianists I believe I mentioned earlier, covers many songs from musicals, and really pulls apart and puts back together these simple melodies and you can hear how you can get so much from so few notes.

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks R_of_G. Standards, that reminds me, didn't Clapton construct his solo on "Sunshine of your Love" from "Blue Moon"? In fact, I just listened to it and he did. Interesting! I still want to know what is going on compositionally with Broadway tunes to make them sound so . . . Broadway. I know the singer's styles are specifically styled, but there is something else I think.

[sunvalleylaw]

Brad Mehldau, one of the pianists I believe I mentioned earlier, covers many songs from musicals, and really pulls apart and puts back together these simple melodies and you can hear how you can get so much from so few notes.

I was listening to my favorite interenet jazz station while doing some weekend work, and heard Mr. Mehldau cover Neil Young's "Old Man", a favorite of mine, off the "Space Cowboys" soundtrack. Very interesting. I prefer it on guitar, but I could hear the chords differently (I used to play piano long ago) and think it would be interesting to go back and forth to better understand how chords are constructed, etc. Thanks for mentioning him.

[R_of_G]

An excellent cover of an excellent Neil Young song. Brad has also covered 4 or 5 Radiohead songs, a band of which I am a HUGE fan. Those are songs I am used to hearing as very layered and textured and to hear them so stripped down and simple really focuses you in on the phrasing.

I actually did not know about the connection between Blue Moon and Sunshine of Your Love, but now that you mentioned it, I listened and you are absolutely correct. Now I think I will have to learn that solo and then learn Blue Moon and figure out how to transition one into the other.

I was listening to my favorite interenet jazz station while doing some weekend work, and heard Mr. Mehldau cover Neil Young's "Old Man", a favorite of mine, off the "Space Cowboys" soundtrack. Very interesting. I prefer it on guitar, but I could hear the chords differently (I used to play piano long ago) and think it would be interesting to go back and forth to better understand how chords are constructed, etc. Thanks for mentioning him.

[Tim]

Elavd – As a beginner, I know where your coming from. I purchased a book from Borders which is helping me with phrasing. The ISBN number is 0-634-02164-8 and it is distributed by Hal Leonard. The book and CD cost $17.95. I attempted to attach JPEGs of the cover and contents, but had difficulty. As I mentioned, I am still a beginner and the book is at my learning level, but I am a little slow with memorizing the patterns. Good luck!

[elavd]

Thank you all guys for your answers

Tim do you mean this book?