Great stuff as always. I will say that since I have started back playing my trombone after over 20 years, I think the thing that I am struggling with the most is the improvisation. For example, I can play the scales with no problem but using them to improv has been hard to me for some reason. I have some of the Hal Leonard play along books for my trombone and trumpet that a friend of mine gave to me to practice with. I can play the melodies with no issue but when it comes time to play the solos I am totally lost. Any tips you can give would be awesome. Keep the content coming it really helps a lot.
Hi Richard - I'm glad to hear you're playing again! The key to improvisation is to connect your ears to your horn - the scales are a good place to start, but without vocabulary that comes from jazz solos themselves its difficult to have something to "say" when it comes time to improvise! I'd highly recommend doing some transcription of your favorite jazz trombonists playing solos over tunes that you area familiar with already!
Speaking as a real self-teaching kind of guy who has explored a lot of the different instructional approaches to improvisation, let me offer these suggestions: 1) Hal Galper's book "Forward Motion" and 2) Mike Longo's 4-part series on "The Rhythmic Nature of Jazz" (see jazzbeat.com). You can't get where you want to go by just learning the scales! Those two resources are both very enlightened and will get you to play YOUR OWN music very rapidly, if you dedicate a reasonable amount of time and effort to them. Longo apprenticed under Diz himself, and claimed that his entire rhythmic approach came directly from Diz. Jazz improvisation is a "spiritual" (intuitive?) thing ultimately, and Longo downplayed the importance of even transcription (except as ear training) in favor of undergoing the intuitive process (an altered state of consciouness) that allows you to hear the cosmic music (musica majoris, the music of the spheres) and channeling it into your playing. Mere imitation of other people's licks is a whole different mental process. As Longo asks rhetorically, "Whose licks was Charlie Parker imitating?" Rather than imitating Parker licks, get to the state of consciousness Parker was in, and create your own out of the fresh spontaneity of the present moment, as Parker did. The two resources I mentioned will allow you to do that.
This is a really great breakdown of approaching soloing for any instrument! Thanks for this!
You bet!
A very insightful approached this challenging tune
Thx Roger!
Great video Nick. Thanks for posting.
Pleasure 👍
Great stuff as always. I will say that since I have started back playing my trombone after over 20 years, I think the thing that I am struggling with the most is the improvisation. For example, I can play the scales with no problem but using them to improv has been hard to me for some reason. I have some of the Hal Leonard play along books for my trombone and trumpet that a friend of mine gave to me to practice with. I can play the melodies with no issue but when it comes time to play the solos I am totally lost. Any tips you can give would be awesome. Keep the content coming it really helps a lot.
Hi Richard - I'm glad to hear you're playing again! The key to improvisation is to connect your ears to your horn - the scales are a good place to start, but without vocabulary that comes from jazz solos themselves its difficult to have something to "say" when it comes time to improvise! I'd highly recommend doing some transcription of your favorite jazz trombonists playing solos over tunes that you area familiar with already!
@@NickFinzer cool. Thanks for the feedback 😊
@@Rip_Ripple You're very welcome :) best of luck! stay in touch!
@@NickFinzer I will
Speaking as a real self-teaching kind of guy who has explored a lot of the different instructional approaches to improvisation, let me offer these suggestions: 1) Hal Galper's book "Forward Motion" and 2) Mike Longo's 4-part series on "The Rhythmic Nature of Jazz" (see jazzbeat.com). You can't get where you want to go by just learning the scales! Those two resources are both very enlightened and will get you to play YOUR OWN music very rapidly, if you dedicate a reasonable amount of time and effort to them. Longo apprenticed under Diz himself, and claimed that his entire rhythmic approach came directly from Diz. Jazz improvisation is a "spiritual" (intuitive?) thing ultimately, and Longo downplayed the importance of even transcription (except as ear training) in favor of undergoing the intuitive process (an altered state of consciouness) that allows you to hear the cosmic music (musica majoris, the music of the spheres) and channeling it into your playing. Mere imitation of other people's licks is a whole different mental process. As Longo asks rhetorically, "Whose licks was Charlie Parker imitating?" Rather than imitating Parker licks, get to the state of consciousness Parker was in, and create your own out of the fresh spontaneity of the present moment, as Parker did. The two resources I mentioned will allow you to do that.