Featured Post

BFRC

I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Wooten's theory of improv

I was watching some videos of Wooten [bass player of renown] on improv.  I will mix in his ideas with some of mine.


1] Improvise badly.  [This is similar to my idea of writing bad poems; it frees you up.  The results will be good, possibly]

2] Wooten says: there are 7 notes in any given scale, and 5 notes NOT in the scale. So play any notes you want; you have more than 50 % chance of those being the right notes.  If they aren't in the scale, they will be altered notes or chromaticism.  [My idea is: there is only one bad sounding note, which is the fourth degree in a major seventh chord.  So play CEGB and then F in your right hand.  That F sounds really bad.  You can avoid that one if you like. Everything else is pretty good.]. 

3] Make the groove solid, says Wooten.  Note choice is less important than the rhythmic feel of the music. [So I can improvise with simplistic ideas or repeated notes.]   

4] My final idea [not attributed to Wooten] is just to do it.  Sit down and do it enough. Anyone can improvise.  Now can anyone improvise well? No.  The quality of the ideas might be good, bad, or indifferent. One thing I learned from Chick Corea's book is this: you are the judge.  You get to decide what you like and what you don't, so you are developing your own taste. That fact that the fourth over a major seven sounds bad to your ears [if it does] is just as useful as knowing that the third sounds super consonant and sweet.  Maybe the third will be too sweet, what Herbie Hancock calls the "butter notes."   

No comments: