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Re: Improvisation

Author: aaron michael
Date: 2012-11-10 15:08

I'd like to add to the suggestions already made about improvisation. As was mentioned, a taksim is different than modern jazz solos; but shares a little with traditional jazz. Modern jazz creates a new tune based solely on the chords. Traditional jazz makes comments and variations on the melody, more in common with Mozaer and others.

A taksim is a variation and or comment on the makam. As a first approximation, think of the makam as the melody of the song and the various versions of as played by others.

So the taksim is making other variations while staying in the scale and the "mood" of the original. On way to begin is to take 1 or 2 bar fragments of the tune and mix and recombine them in different orders.

Note that in Eastern music in general there's no chord progression. The melody and taksim constantly refer to the tonic.

Greek, Macedonian etc. music often combines ideas from both Eastern and Western music so often a song will have a chord progression. Macedonion music that has taksims (like Chalgia) is generally more Eastern and has no chords. Many of these style tunes are built on incremental repetition. The last four bars of a line become the first four bars of the next line. Use this idea to begin to create taksims.

One of the best methods for learning is to write out taksims first and learn them. Either by transcribing from recordings or even better: Try writing your own. Write your ideas out and learn to play them. Keep them with you and use them as a base and build on them as you gain experience.

Creating solos of any kind is like composing, it takes practice. And it is easier to do and learn if you don't have the added pressure of doing it in real time.

Many are surprised to learn that the jazz greats don't produce their great solos on the spot! If you study in a good university jazz program you'll have to write out a bunch of new solos every day as homework.

Even in modern jazz where the melody doesn't matter, they use a bunch of stock licks that are learned and recombine them. See Coker or Abersold.

The great soloists play variations on the solos they've built up over the years.

Hope this helps. Aaron

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