Why improvising with Scales is wrong!!

bingefeller

Niallseroreilly said:

I like it. I came to the conclusion after seeing Jim Mullen the famous Jazz guitarist play. He was simply sensational. However he said he didn't play any scales or arpeggios. He was making music in real time, his brain and guitar connected seamlessly.

There is something about a scale that seems inherently wrong if you want to be able play as musical as possible. If the thought process if ' Ill play this scale over this chord or this scale over this progression' then surely you are confining yourself.

What im trying to say is surely the ultimate goal as a guitarist is to replicate what you hear in your head quickly and seamlessly?

Do scales discourage fretboard and ultimately musical freedom?

I bet if you analysed some of his lines you'd find he was playing arpeggios and chord tones.  

There's a Pat Metheny lesson on youtube where he talks about using 3rds and 7ths and then plays only using 3rds and 7ths and it sounds amazing:



Listen from about 13 minutes on.  

At around 15.10 he says that 50% of what he plays is mostly chord tones then he gives a demonstration of that.  Great stuff.

monquixote

Niallseroreilly

bingefeller said:ì

Niallseroreilly said:

I like it. I came to the conclusion after seeing Jim Mullen the famous Jazz guitarist play. He was simply sensational. However he said he didn't play any scales or arpeggios. He was making music in real time, his brain and guitar connected seamlessly.

There is something about a scale that seems inherently wrong if you want to be able play as musical as possible. If the thought process if ' Ill play this scale over this chord or this scale over this progression' then surely you are confining yourself.

What im trying to say is surely the ultimate goal as a guitarist is to replicate what you hear in your head quickly and seamlessly?

Do scales discourage fretboard and ultimately musical freedom?

I bet if you analysed some of his lines you'd find he was playing arpeggios and chord tones.  

There's a Pat Metheny lesson on youtube where he talks about using 3rds and 7ths and then plays only using 3rds and 7ths and it sounds amazing:



Listen from about 13 minutes on.  

At around 15.10 he says that 50% of what he plays is mostly chord tones then he gives a demonstration of that.  Great stuff.

Really liked that vid. Thank you

bingefeller

Glad you liked it.  I listen to it regularly myself, I think Metheny is a true master.  

GuyBoden

In my experience of playing Jazz for over 30 years:

Some players can create beautiful music with the scale approach, some players can't.

Some players can create beautiful music with the chord tone approach, some players can't.

Some players hear nearly everything and can play what they hear, some players don't hear very much they just play and hope.

Some players can only play what they've practiced, some players can create new ideas instantly.

Teetonetal

You should improvise with melody in mind IMO - but to get the ability to hear as much meoldy choice as possible, you should practice all the scales and modes, all the arpeggios and focus on how they sound over different chords.

The technique and knowledge needs to be in you - but it should not lead your playing, it should support it.

Blueingreen

GuyBoden said:

In my experience of playing Jazz for over 30 years:

Some players can create beautiful music with the scale approach, some players can't.

Some players can create beautiful music with the chord tone approach, some players can't.

Some players hear nearly everything and can play what they hear, some players don't hear very much they just play and hope.

Some players can only play what they've practiced, some players can create new ideas instantly.

Indeed.  When talking about how to improvise John Scofield explains how he starts from scales.  Kurt Rosenwinkel talks extensively about practising pentatonic scales.

I'll start listening to people saying using scales to improvise is "wrong" as soon as they demonstrate how their own approach made them comprehensively better improvisers than these guys.

Niallseroreilly

Blueingreen said:9

GuyBoden said:

In my experience of playing Jazz for over 30 years:

Some players can create beautiful music with the scale approach, some players can't.

Some players can create beautiful music with the chord tone approach, some players can't.

Some players hear nearly everything and can play what they hear, some players don't hear very much they just play and hope.

Some players can only play what they've practiced, some players can create new ideas instantly.

Indeed.  When talking about how to improvise John Scofield explains how he starts from scales.  Kurt Rosenwinkel talks extensively about practising pentatonic scales.

I'll start listening to people saying using scales to improvise is "wrong" as soon as they demonstrate how their own approach made them comprehensively better improvisers than these guys.

Title was merely tongue n cheek mate. Just wanted to see peoples take on it. 

It just struck me that to play a scale over a certain chord change  seems slightly mechanical rather than musically ariving at the notes from what your head told you to play.

Megii

Niallseroreilly said:

It just struck me that to play a scale over a certain chord change  seems slightly mechanical rather than musically ariving at the notes from what your head told you to play.

I understand your point, but using a scale for improv purposes doesn't have to be a mechanical thing, any more than using an arpeggio or lick. It's all just musical source material really. For me a scale is just a collection of notes, with a certain overall kind of sound - it's up to you to explore, and find pleasing sequences of notes within the scale. You can add chromatic approach and passing notes as well - no rules, the thing is to find ideas and lines that work for you musically. So noodle around and find nice lines really - after a while some things will start to become ingrained and then at that point you've developed your own repertoire of licks/ideas from the scale, which will have meaning for you, and which you'll tend to use in a natural way.

And of course you have to work towards mentally hearing what you play - that's really a must I'd have thought, otherwise what you're playing can't mean anything at all. Music is about communicating, and if you're not hearing something (and then of course being able to play that something) then you've really got nothing to say.

Blueingreen

Exactly.  No-one's suggesting mechanically running scales if you are soloing.  Nobody's suggesting practising scales is essential: there are other approaches to learning to improvise.

But the idea that using scales is wrong is belied by the great players who've explained how learning scales helped them in their development.  To take one example, if you are used to playing diatonic stuff and you spend time playing a altered dominant scales over a dominant seventh chord in a 2/5/1 your ear will learn things about how sharp or flat 5s and 9s sound in that context and potentially broaden your palette of note choices.  It's not the only way to do it, but it's one way and it's worked for a lot of people.

Barney

I find it easier using arps cos it helps me visualise things better..then i will add notes out of the scale ounce i know where the arps are

I was on Mike walkers tuition site and as a practice he would have you playing a scale in ay C...then at a point he would say maybe Bb and you would have to change scale using the nearest available note...its very hard but good practice cos you have view the scales from all angles and not just the root note....this would carr on through all the keys in one position..

ElectroDan

Barney said:

I find it easier using arps cos it helps me visualise things better..then i will add notes out of the scale ounce i know where the arps are

I was on Mike walkers tuition site and as a practice he would have you playing a scale in ay C...then at a point he would say maybe Bb and you would have to change scale using the nearest available note...its very hard but good practice cos you have view the scales from all angles and not just the root note....this would carr on through all the keys in one position..

Justin Sandercoe has a similar exercise he calls the 'Arpeggiator'. Specifically he demonstrates it for 12 bar Blues, but it could be used for any progression really. After a number of beats, you change to the nearest note in the next arpeggio and carry on.
Again though, it's mechanical practice. It's up to you as the musician to apply what you've learned from it to make something musical.

Ché

There are no wrong notes, only bad choices.

GuyBoden

No one actually plays scales over each chord, we select the notes that our ears are saying this will sound good over the musical situation, after many years it becomes a very sub-conscious decision.........