Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk Lorange
Hey, scotty_b ... can you add to this statement for us? I think many players just getting into the art of improvisation will find this a little confusing.
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Certainly sir.
Well the initial question from Felix asked if he could just play the chord tones over a chord, and if he played the 7th over the chord the accompaniment would need to reflect that - eg play a C7 or C major 7 chord.
Such an approach would yield a sound that would get boring pretty quickly. It would sound too much the same very quickly.
All music has consonance and disonance. Consonance is achieved by notes that blend well together, such as the root and 5th of a major chord. The root and 3rd of a major chord produce a sweet, or consonant, sound.
Disonance is achieved when notes clash or rub against each other. Play the 4th fret , second string and let it ring against the open 1st string. This is a minor second interval, and will give you a very disonant sound.
There are varying degrees of consonance and disonance, and most musical styles employ these devices to create 'movement' within the song or tune. To give you an example, Paul McCartney in 'Yesterday' uses a couple of very disonant notes in the second bar to create a stronger melodic line, yet the melody is extremely strong, ie memorable. 'Penny Lane' is another example of Paul's ability to write very good melodies.He steps outside the orginal key to create stronger movement within those tunes. If he did not employ dissonance neither would be as strong.
So when we come to improvising we see the same thing, but before discussing that musical context is pretty important too. By that I mean that how we approach a tune when soloing we should be considerate of the place we are performing it. Have a think about the end of 'Back to the Future', when Michael J Fox's character rips into Van Halen licks over a Chuck Berry tune. What he plays is cool - but it just doesn't work musically, and the kids at the dance are not ready to hear that - they are only just being exposed to rock and roll.
Anyway, when improvising you have many choices to make, and it is really determined by the sounds you wish to achieve. Wanting to sound bluesy would mean you would opt for certain notes - or dare I say it ,scales - as opposed to other sounds for music such as folk or country. This comes back to consonance and dissonance once more.
When I say that any note can be played over any chord, I am coming from a background in jazz, where jazz musicians employ many devices to play over a tune. And once again this comes back to conceptions of consonance and dissonance, as well as musical context.
Resolutions are an important point to consider in all of this as well. How we employ dissonance by playing 'wrong' notes and how we finish , or 'resolve' the line, makes a big difference. When playing blues I often use a lot of chromatic notes, but will normally seek to resolve (finish) on a chord tone. This gives structure to the line, and it then appears that I have chosen to add some 'colour' to the chord before coming back inside it. Sometimes when playing jazz I don't resolve the lines, and leave them hanging. When playing at a pop or rock gig I normally stay pretty safe, and play arpeggios and scale tones that relate pretty closely to the chord and song. Just because I have the ability to play in one style does not mean I should drop it into everything I do.
Now I should also say that I have been playing for a long time, grew up with a grandfather who was a jazz musician, and was listening to Miles Davis as a little kid. It took me a long time to develop the ability to step in and out of keys when I improvise and make it sound like a strong musical line. There have been plenty of cringe moments in my musical development.
I have to run now, but I will post a couple of brief examples of my playing that show some of these ideas. Nothing too scary, but just some solos that are good examples of how I might employ such ideas.