Starting a phrase late

[charlieparker]

I find myself thinking of a phrase I want to play and then have a tendency to come in late. This is especially bad if I was envisioning starting on the beat and I come in off of it or vice versa.

Do others experience this and how do you recover? Just change the phrase in the fly?

[Bop Head]

I find myself thinking of a phrase I want to play and then have a tendency to come in late. This is especially bad if I was envisioning starting on the beat and I come in off of it or vice versa.

Do others experience this and how do you recover? Just change the phrase in the fly?

It's not recovering, it's called improvising. I play around with starting and ending phrases early or late all the time.

My recent favorite sentence (inspired by a James Blood Ulmer line TBH): "Blues is the teacher".

According to the book "Bird Lives" Charlie Parker was busking with an old blues singer as a kid (IIRC, read it 35 years ago).

[pamosmusic]

I find myself thinking of a phrase I want to play and then have a tendency to come in late. This is especially bad if I was envisioning starting on the beat and I come in off of it or vice versa.

Do others experience this and how do you recover? Just change the phrase in the fly?

I hate to say it but the problem is probably that whole “thinking of a phrase” thing

[charlieparker]

I hate to say it but the problem is probably that whole “thinking of a phrase” thing

Probably is. But not being able to go inside other's heads, what are other people doing in the moment when improvising?

[pamosmusic]

Probably is. But not being able to go inside other's heads, what are other people doing in the moment when improvising?

On a good day, my hands are on autopilot and I’m just listening. On the best days not to myself.

I think there’s this misconception about how you should hear what you want to play before you play it, but that’s a practice exercise (and a good one). When you’re actually playing, that would mean you’re outside of what’s going on … or maybe that you’re hearing what the drummer does, then what you want to do, then playing it. Which seems very cumbersome.

The reason you want to play what you hear, I think, is because it’s the best way to approximate in practice what it’s like when you’re performing … which is to say that you’re not playing what you hear, you’re playing into what you’re hearing around you. It’s just tricky to practice that when there’s no one else there (maybe playing along with recordings?)

Anyway … on a practical level, I sing A LOT while I play to get myself in that space. It’s probably obnoxious. Someone will ask if I play what I sing o sing what I play, and tsk tsk me when I say probably a little of both and a lot of singing what I play. But I don’t particularly care … I think the ear hands thing is more of a continuum than we like to say.

[charlieparker]

Anyway … on a practical level, I sing A LOT while I play to get myself in that space. It’s probably obnoxious. Someone will ask if I play what I sing o sing what I play, and tsk tsk me when I say probably a little of both and a lot of singing what I play. But I don’t particularly care … I think the ear hands thing is more of a continuum than we like to say.

Yeah, I think when I audiate this happens a lot less even if it is just rhythmic syllables and not actual pitches.

[AllanAllen]

Probably is. But not being able to go inside other's heads, what are other people doing in the moment when improvising?

Sometimes I think about chords and pull melodies from them, other times it’s let center noodling. Depends on the song and how I’m feeling.

If it’s a song I really know, I’ll try to remember licks or heads to quote while my brain is improvising on auto pilot.

[pamosmusic]

Yeah, I think when I audiate this happens a lot less even if it is just rhythmic syllables and not actual pitches.

what happens less?

[Bop Head]

Probably is. But not being able to go inside other's heads, what are other people doing in the moment when improvising?

Being in the moment.

Bird quotes:

"You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail."

"If you come on a band tense, you're going to play tense. If you come a little bit foolish, act just a little bit foolish, and let yourself go, better ideas will come."

"Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you."

[charlieparker]

what happens less?

Misplaced phrases.

[princeplanet]

It took me many years before I started noticing that if a phrase came into my head that I knew very well (from practicing it hundreds of times), but I started it too late, that I sometimes would be able to modify it on the fly and still make it come out right. This was a revelation I think I needed because I began to start various phrases on every conceivable part of a bar to see if I could wing my way back into something that resolved well. Then I really started noticing how my favourite players on all instruments were doing something similar. Charlie Parker in particular seems to be the king of this.

Not sure if anyone else is interested in this sort of thing, but it took me a long long time before I could feel any sort of control of, say, directing 8ths lines at 240bpm at will, to start and end wherever and still have them sound like I meant it, if you know what I mean. Pretty sure that if this sort of thing was pointed out to me earlier, I might have had a way to practice for it sooner. I call it "concertina-ing" and I described it to someone recently as like running along a sidewalk that has randomly placed cracks - if the name of the game is to keep your running rhythm as you jump over every crack, you need to (ahead of time) adjust your steps so that you meet every crack to jump without tripping or stumbling, or even having to stop. Or something...

[Bop Head]

(Yeah, Reg, I know that in the end you have to be able to play fast, so you have to bring your chops up to speed but)

I think the Tristano/Marsh thing of practicing very slowly in the beginning is very good thing.

Because it means that you are not only mechanically moving your fingers but you are able to listen to yourself and follow what you are playing. According to Warne Marsh this is also one of the tools leading to finding your own voice.

[Christian Miller]

Probably is. But not being able to go inside other's heads, what are other people doing in the moment when improvising?

Mostly zooby dooby squiddly bop, and buddely dumba da! Da!

It’s pretty embarrassing. Probably I’m doing it wrong.


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