Do you jam?

Stuntman_mike

@LinearLineman said:
@Stuntman_mike,
Lennie Tristano is the seminal influence for guys like Lee Konitz, Lennie Popkin, Kazzrie Jaxsen, Connie and many others. You need to understand his influence on free improvisation to get the drift.

I wrote three essays for the forum three years ago based on Connie’s teaching. This is the exercise she taught me that opened the door...

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27012/how-to-improve-your-keyboard-improvising-100-in-three-weeks

This is gold. I’m reading and super excited to put this into practice. I’ve been asking the forum questions about minimalism, simplified workflows, and jamming to get to one destination: play!

Play is where genius and individuality lives. I often think about Google’s twenty percent time and how their best products come from authorized “play time”.

All the apps are so much fun, especially now that we all get to be a part of the creative process (Atom 2 is a great example). We can’t forget to play with everything we got, keep growing, and like you said: “... worry less and less that it sounds like shit... ...have gained confidence ‘I’ can turn around most anything.” We have to play, step back, and make shit into $ugar.

Stuntman_mike

@michael_m said:

@Stuntman_mike said:

@michael_m said:

@Stuntman_mike said:

@michael_m said:
Yes, in multiple ways. I no longer have a group of friends who play various instruments, so I often play over a backing of some sort.

I’ll improvise on piano or guitar solo, but will just play over anything to stretch my skills, especially anything that involves thinking on my feet to make things sound good.

That’s awesome! Did COVID stop your group?

No, moving to another part of the country did. Haven’t been able to find musicians here who have much interest in doing anything other than learning classic rock and country songs note for note and playing them the same way each time.

Oh wow, that’s no fun. I pray you find your tribe soon! Perhaps jamming with your old group via Zoom? Not the same I know, but sounds like you had a good thing going before. Are you in Tennessee?

They’re spread around the world now, so scheduling is hard (Sweden, UK, Peru and Australia).

I’m in SC, but TN isn’t too far from me.

Oh wow! I assumed your were in the country music capital of the world. 😂

That is quite a spread of locations and time zones.

Foreign Exchange, a hip hop duo turned “grown people music” group and now label started as a global partnership between a musician in Amsterdam and rapper in North Carolina. They exchanged music (hence the name) parts over the internet until their first album was complete. Many albums and years later they now both live in North Carolina, run an independent label by the same name with many talented artists, and have been nominated for a Grammy! Sometimes there is nothing like distance to expand creativity in new ways.

LinearLineman

@Stuntman_mike, Jesus said “Pray”.,, Bird said “Play!” ... from a dream of Lennie Tristano’s.

Stuntman_mike

@LinearLineman said:
@Stuntman_mike, Jesus said “Pray”.,, Bird said “Play!” ... from a dream of Lennie Tristano’s.

😂 nice! I gotta do both! I feel like an MC Hammer song: “We got to pray just to make it today” 😆

Stuntman_mike

🤣 Sorry, had to do it:

Arglebargle

New phrase for me: non-idiomatic improvising.

For about two and a half years, we had a weekly Tuesday get together for jamming. Three base players, all electronic, except for vocals, and those were mostly run through a vocoder or Korg Kaos pad. One or two Handsonics for drums (and an old school Wavedrum) and a bunch of synth station stacks. All live. With pretty much no framing of the playing. No keys or chords or drum beats mentioned. Just sit down and play. Visiting folks dropped in as they wanted. All of this was (usually) recorded, with varying degrees of fidelity, of course.

You might get only one or two good jams out of the evening (sometimes more, sometimes less), and it could go on for hours, or end at the first break. But the good parts were wonderful exercises of that 'In The Zone' element that is so terribly attractive in live playing.

At home, I used to have radio tied into my rig, and would turn on a station and just jam with whatever songs got played. Just as an exercise to develop a feel for quick melding into different styles. Got all puffed up like a toad after one evening of starting up, and there was this cool electric jazz thing playing, and it was instant sympatico. Was totally in its pocket. Turned out to be an alternate song from The Complete Bitches Brew. I could hang!

Still do it nowadays with one of the old folks, though not at all in this Covid year. Yearning to get back. Nowadays, I've got a little iPad centered station that integrates external synths and instruments with various ios synths and effects. Love the wavetables. Jam oriented stuff has really become my favorite musical pastime. Looking forward to resumption soon.

Oh, and hello to anyone in central Texas looking to -eventually- host....:)

A few pieces from the prime of our improvisation, from delicate to frightening.

Stuntman_mike

@Arglebargle said:
New phrase for me: non-idiomatic improvising.

For about two and a half years, we had a weekly Tuesday get together for jamming. Three base players, all electronic, except for vocals, and those were mostly run through a vocoder or Korg Kaos pad. One or two Handsonics for drums (and an old school Wavedrum) and a bunch of synth station stacks. All live. With pretty much no framing of the playing. No keys or chords or drum beats mentioned. Just sit down and play. Visiting folks dropped in as they wanted. All of this was (usually) recorded, with varying degrees of fidelity, of course.

You might get only one or two good jams out of the evening (sometimes more, sometimes less), and it could go on for hours, or end at the first break. But the good parts were wonderful exercises of that 'In The Zone' element that is so terribly attractive in live playing.

At home, I used to have radio tied into my rig, and would turn on a station and just jam with whatever songs got played. Just as an exercise to develop a feel for quick melding into different styles. Got all puffed up like a toad after one evening of starting up, and there was this cool electric jazz thing playing, and it was instant sympatico. Was totally in its pocket. Turned out to be an alternate song from The Complete Bitches Brew. I could hang!

Still do it nowadays with one of the old folks, though not at all in this Covid year. Yearning to get back. Nowadays, I've got a little iPad centered station that integrates external synths and instruments with various ios synths and effects. Love the wavetables. Jam oriented stuff has really become my favorite musical pastime. Looking forward to resumption soon.

Oh, and hello to anyone in central Texas looking to -eventually- host....:)

A few pieces from the prime of our improvisation, from delicate to frightening.

Wow! Super cool. I like that radio idea. I could do something similar in AUM with Radio Unit playing in the background. What synths do you use most on your iPad?

Have you tried:
Impaktor: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/impaktor/id557824278
Or
AAS Objeq: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/aas-objeq/id1160030374