Tell a Story In Your Solo
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- How to tell a better story in your solo? BIG QUESTION... The answer has many parts to it, some of which I've already made videos about. In This video I talk about having "Chapters" to your solo. Using different textures/devices to give your solo a sense of narrative, a sense of different EVENTS happening in the solo. Makes your solo move forward and be more engaging.
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"Ruslan's sensitive touch and lyric beauty shine on every track" - Chick Corea
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"Ruslan Sirota is a Grammy award winning pianist and composer residing in Los Angeles.
Ruslan was born un Ukraine and immigrated to Israel with his family in the early 90s. In 1999 he moved to the US to attend Berklee College of music on a full scholarship. Since Graduating, Ruslan has toured and recorded with Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Marcus Miller, Black Eyed Peas, Chick Corea, Josh Groban, George Duke, Stanley Clarke and countless others".
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Your videos are so helpful, I always look forward to the next one. Thank you!
In my opinion the most important lesson for improvisation.
Ruslan your video series is pure gold
Your playing reminds me quite a lot of Keith Jarrett in this video, especially his blues stuff with the trio. Amazing!
Hi Ruslan, your tutorials on improvisation are fantastic! I'm a full time jazz saxophonist in Canada and I've got to say that even after decades of performing, you've provided me with me some insightful and fresh perspectives on how to improvise in an engaging way! Thank you and all the best in your musical travels...Richard
AMAZING video man!! Really waiting for the next one about that. Thank u.
Thank you Ruslan this is a fantastic video...very helpful!!!
ruslan i owe you a lot i am studying your lessons your concepts are well explained. can you please do a video on modal style which you demonstrate in this video.thank you very much sir please do more video lessons.God bless.
Sensacional!!!
Great stuff! :)
So many wonderful videos, Ruslan. Thank you! I've been sharing them with my students like crazy! Wonderfully insightful and easy to conceptualize lessons.
Thank you so much for helping my musical dreams become reality. For many years I've heard music in my head. Lately, with your guidance I've made huge strides toward integrating my head with my fingers.
Ron Oh how happy it makes me hearing you say this!!!! 😊😊😊 thank you!!!
I am going to comment before watching. I also think that playing music is story telling. When I am really into a solo I feel like I am explaining something to the audience. In 78 I was in college. I took a class in music and dance performance. The professor was a retired dancer. He played a classical piece while we all sat on the floor. He asked us to write our impressions of what the music was saying to us- the story it was telling. It was spooky how close we were to each other when we read what we'd written. And it was the intention of the music- we got it !
That was cool, I'm often stuck in short note linear mode. Thanks.
You, me, and the rest of the world is often stuck in short note linear mode, my friend.
Genius as always Ruslan. The best thing on youtube easily. The only problem is you give so much knowledge there are not enough hours in a lifetime to get it all in😁. Starting to realise that's what learning to play jazz is all about, accepting that you're in it for the journey and not the destination, I guess even the greats still think they have lots to learn. That's the beauty tho, keeping you interested in term long term. Thanks for posting again look forward to the next 😄
Robert Phillips you got it right. And thank you for your words. It really is a lifelong pursuit and I’m still working on literally every single topic i ever taught on this channel, and on every topic i will ever teach in the future.
Without excessive self flattery, I do think my channel could help literally every living jazz student on the planet today. I hope I can reach as many of them as possible. Please spread the word and share these little videos with people who you think might benefit from them.
Thank you again,
Ruslan
Ruslan, thank you!! Your videos are very interesting! Can you examine all types of textures in next videos?
Hey :) I don't know that there is even such a thing as "all types of textures". This is just something I personally made up lol. The goal is simple: realizing that there is such a thing as "chapters" in your solo. These chapters are important, they make the solo feel like a story.
Now that you understand this, go and listen to your favorite players and ask yourself -- "How do they make their solo have chapters"?! Then you will start seeing how they do it, and you can extract their ways of creating chapters and practice those ways yourself.
- Maybe someone is playing lines using 4ths for a while, giving the lines that modal, angular sound. Congratulations -- we just discovered a new texture: Playing lines using 4ths :-) Now go and practice THAT!
- Maybe someone is playing for 16 bars using super staccato notes for a percussive effect. Congratulations -- we just discovered a new texture of playing rhythmic staccato for a percussive effect. Now go and practice THAT!
- Maybe someone is playing for 1 chorus only using chord tones and no other tensions, using only the 1, 3, and 5 of each chord. Congratulations -- we just discovered a new texture of soloing with chord tones only. Now go and practice THAT!
- Maybe someone is going in and out of time in their solo, playing over the rhythm section but sounding like he's playing rubato, and then goes back into playing clear rhythms.. and then back to playing floaty rubato, and then back to playing clear rhythms. Congratulations -- we just discovered a new texture of going in and out of rubato while playing over a rhythm section who keeps time for you.
You know what I mean? And you can invent your own textures/devices and practice them too. Its not a list of things that is set and agreed upon. Its just some shit I made up for myself, when I started noticing that great players have CHAPTERS in their solo.. and they go from chapter to chapter by introducing these new textures/devices in each chapter, making it feel different from the previous chapter. Its just different "devices" that can be used to make your solo have Chapters, like a book. This is something you are probably already doing naturally on some level. Its just helpful to be conscious about it, practice it deliberately, and not leave it to chance.
Ruslan, thank you for your answer! I think
that I understand your message)))
Hi, I enjoy your videos, I've been looking around RUclips for videos on how to Solo and Improvise but yours is far the best there is, you're opened my eyes on how to solo on the piano, great job thanks man.
Great teaching! As your tip “deep understanding music by the mind” ... I am an engineer and my first tendency of learning is seeking logic.
Truong Hai oh you said it exactly right!! This is how my mind works too!! Even in music!! :)
Thank you so much, very inspiring.
Russ you are the man 👍
You know i gotta say...this is very quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. You're a really great teacher and your explanations are really clear for me to understand. Things are taught in a very practical way that i think is accessible and that makes it motivating for me to use what you teach. Thanks so much for sharing the knowledge and God bless you my dude.
The whole concept of textures and devices are really interesting to me and now I'm curious to learn more about them. Are there any other textures that you can think of and where would you say are some good places that i can look into to find some and maybe even make my own?
Thank you my friend! I really appreciate your words. Its a small channel as of now, but I do believe I could be of service to many people, and hope to get the opportunity to get to them.
To your question: You can "fish" for textures anywhere, man! Take any solo you like, by any player you like. I bet in that solo they have "chapters", "love scenes", wide shots", "monologues" (I speak figuratively... I'm really talking about musical devices/textures). Go and analyze their solo for textures. In their solo, I'm sure you will recognize some of the ones I showed in this video, but I'm also sure you will find new ones. Go see how other people create "chapters" in their solos, and try to extract specific, practical devices. They have to be super clear tho! So that you can go and practice them with clarity in your mind, just like you can go and practice the textures/devices I showed in this video. It can't be vague. The devices you find and articulate have to be clean cut, like mine in this video. If you start getting too abstract in your textures - you're left with nothing specific to practice. You have to be super clear what you got out of that solo, and how you can now go and practice it.
Make your own devices?? YES!! ABSOLUTELY!!! Just do it consciously, and practice each consciously, and then combine them consciously. Don't just sit and 'jam" on your instrument, u know what I mean? Practice with intention. Like.. make a list of textures, and practice each texture separately. Then practice COMBINING THEM, like I did in this video. Do that for a few weeks with discipline... And see how your solos will become much more interesting, no matter how good you are now!
FANTASTIC! I´m a pro guitar player learning the piano.Thank You!!! Great job as allways.
Jarbas Goulart de Castro thank you my friend!!!
Очень крутые уроки, спасибо
Thanks!
Awesome lesson! Would you be able to do a video on using chords in your solos, exactly what chords you can use over each individual chord you're playing over? Thank you!
Frank Speer are you talking about the “block chords” stuff I was playing?
@@ruslanpiano I'm talking about using actual chords in your solos, not your left hand stuff but your right hand stuff. I'm a guitar player by the way. Totally digging your lessons!
Frank Speer ah yes I see. It’s a whole big subject.. “block chords”. Guitarists do it too. Yea I’ll have to make a video about that subject! I wouldn’t mind practicing more of that myself to be honest hahah
Hey, awesome video again, thanks for posting it!
I'd like to ask you something:
Could you make a video demonstrating some approach about dealing with the dilemma that I'm sure every improviser has faced when playing a standard: how to keep track not only of the chord changes of a given tune but also of its melody. For example: when I am trying to improvise, since I am an intermediate student of improvisation (I study recorder at the university but I also love playing the piano and the saxophone, specially jazz), I tend to do what people used to call in the swing era "spicing up the melody": playing basically the melody with some diminutions, augmentations etc, but not going very far from it, different from the the bebop and so on, where musicians make a whole different tune out of a given standard.
I'd like to ask you to give us some hints on how to make a mental map of the melody, so we can choose when to go astray from it and, especially, how to recover it, or some parts of it. I don't know if I am making myself clear, this is difficult for me to put into words in English. I'll try to make a metaphor: it's like we, when improvising, have not only the structure of the chord changes, but also of the melody, like those books for children, with several dots to connect and make an intelligible picture with them. I tend to see improvisation over a melody in this way, but, since I don't know how to practice connecting those dots, sometimes the results are way far from the melody as I sometimes want to...
Again, congratulations, your methodology is great, crystal clear. If you are not already a professor of music, you should definitely consider being, sir!
Cheers from Brazil!
Ah yes yes... excellent question. Here is a video of my friend, Gilad, where he explains and demonstrates this exercise. It is very closely related to your question. Check it out. Its something Im still working on myself: ruclips.net/video/jTg3VV5v-jM/видео.html
@@ruslanpiano Thank you, I'll watch it right away!
@@cafiristanemperor Hi, I had exactly the same problem you have described. I started Jazz on woodwind instruments. I depended on the drummer's fills at the end of 8 bars to re establish where I was. It was only when I learnt keyboard that I got a hold on chord changes and could know where I was. The melody was locked in with the chords. Mind you, it took years of playing by ear and singing the melodies at the same time so the two were available together. In the past I would solo using just the key as my anchor and the chords would sale past without me knowing what they were. Now, as I learn a new song, I say the chords while I play them. I also practise writing the chords out from memory. A teacher told me I should be able to recite the chords while singing the melody.
That was great, thanks! Will you do a video about the modal part?
piano stuff yup
Hey Ruslan, thanks so much for this material, is there a some book that you recomend to explore more about this topics, like textures or different techniques on improvisation?
Horacio Agustín Camargo Páez yes. Book called “how to improvise” by Hal Crook
@@ruslanpiano Thanks for your content again!!! and come to Brasil after "corona"
Great video! I love your channel and I've been able to learn so much from it! Lately, I've been working on spicing up my left hand voicings. I was wondering if you could make a video explaining some good left hand voicings and how to add in tritone substitutions?
My pleasure :) You mean - left hand voicings while soloing with your right hand, correct?
TheNextLevel Yes, correct. Sometimes I'm just not sure how to voice some chords in my left hand when I'm soloing with my right hand. For example, I'm learning the tune "I'm Old Fashioned," and there's an F6 chord in there that I'm not sure how to voice.
Sarah S do you mean a left hand voicing when you play piano by yourself or when you play with a bassist who plays root notes?
TheNextLevel With a bassist who plays root notes. I was also wondering, so when playing with a bassist normally you don't want to play the root notes, right? Are there any situations when playing a root note in the chord would be okay or necessary? Or does it just depend on what sounds good to you?
Got it. Yea, I'll make a video of some examples. Generally the chord should have 3 notes in your left hand, and no root note. You can start with playing "Shells" in your left hand, which is the 3rd and 7th of the chord. Then, when you're comfortable with that -- add another note to that mix. For your F6 chord - there are several options. I'll demonstrate them in the next lesson.
Thank you so much! It's like no one really focuses on this as a point in itself. How do you combine this kind of structural process alongside coming up with lines in your head+ responding/ being responded by the rhythm section? You said it sinks into an intuitive level, so is it like you gain another inner perceptive sense of this specific aspect of improvising? It seems there's a lot happing in the subconscious that is really hard to practice, as opposed to a technical exercise, so I don't know how to approach it in a direct way. Thanks for doing this despite your busy schedule!
"It seems there's a lot happening in the subconscious that is really hard to practice, as opposed to a technical exercise, so I don't know how to approach it in a direct way" - Yes, you're right! There IS a lot happening in the subconscious. But how do you think it gets inside the subconscious in the first place, ah?! Practicing something until you're blue in the face, for weeks or months is HOW you get it inside your subconscious to begin with!!! And then it stays there forever and comes out by itself when needed, while you consciously focus on other things.
To play a great solo you can not be focused on any one particular small thing like coming up with lines, or figuring out what the next chord-scale is etc.. You have to practice these things long enough until they come out of you automatically, by themselves. Then and only then are you TRULY free to interact with the rhythm section, and focus on tiny details of emotion, and to keep the structure of your solo in mind. Even though, to be fair, the structure can also become second nature after a while, if you are aware of it and are constantly on the lookout for it in other people's solos and in your own solos.
Conscious effort sux in creative endeavors. The path is -- to practice something so much and so hard until you're blue in the face, and have to go to the emergency room :)) hahahaha.. You drill it deep, deep, deep, deep down into your subconscious, over long, long, long periods of time (weeks/months). And then its in your subconscious forever and you can completely forget about it forever, and it will just execute itself... And then you do that with as many topics of playing as possible. And that takes a long time.
What do you think the word MASTERY even means? THIS is what it means -- 75% of your playing is automated like a fuckin' car factory, streaming directly from your subconscious, while you focus on the emotion of performing, on tiny detail, on vibe, on responding to the smallest details from other players etc. Mastery means: automation of A LOT of your playing, while you consciously focus on the highest of the highest concerns, like feelings, tiniest details etc... And to get to that you have to automate things by pushing them into your subconscious, and you push them there through long periods of consistently applied effort.
Decide what you want to automate and shove into your subconscious. Then work long and hard at it. Then do that with another topic. Then with another topic. Then with another topic. Then with another topic.... and by then a lot of what you're playing will be coming from your subconscious. You get the deal...
"Mastery means: automation of A LOT of your playing, while you consciously focus on the highest of the highest concerns..."
I'll be thinking about that one for a long time.
Eric Bailey Ah don’t think too hard, my friend... Better go to your instrument, sit down, and “automate” something in your playing ;-)
Great video man! Im wondering what the background piano music is. Really want to learn some of the chords!
Ole-Petter Ålgård Hey, it’s a track off of my first album. The track is called “high ceilings”. Pretty sure it should be on RUclips somewhere.
Thanks, a most interesting video, along with motivic development. I hope there will be a part2 in a few weeks when I will have worked through this one. (And where in Europe ?)
Thank you. By part two you mean -- you would like to check out more textures/devices to use in your solos? European dates and locations will all be posted in my next Vlog, here, on this channel, in 2-3 days! So please stay tuned :)
Yes, by part 2 I hope for more textures later on in small quantities to help build up "vocabulary"/"paragraphs" with fluency and progressively ! Many thanks !
Got it. Also, now that you are aware of what these textures/devices are, and that they EXIST as a thing: you can now go and analyze your favorite solos through this lens. I assure you, all of your favorite solos have a "love scene", or a "dialogue", or "close up shots", or "wide shots", figuratively speaking, or 12,000 other kinds of textures/devices the player uses to make the solo interesting...
Here is your homework: pick a solo you absolutely adore. Post a link to it here in a comment, along with a break down of the textures/devices you are able to identify in it. Give these textures your own names, if you have to, like I did here in this video.
Like:
First chorus: linear short notes, chords, rhythmic displacement,
Second chorus: unison lines with both hands, modal playing
etc etc...
TheNextLevel hi again .
Oliver Nelson's solo on Stolen moments. I love it because it's a bit of an oasis of calm between more active soli. And easier to hear.
1st repeated pattern long notes, over bar line, leaps. Peaceful.
2nd Shorter notes, modal arpeggios ( sax version of chords?), going over bar line and off beat. Going up to introduce 3rd. More active.
3rd first calm now he's up high, very long notes then from bar 9, starts 4th. So going over "chorus line".
4th fast notes with repeated pattern descending modally then longer notes, repetitive rythm and motif with leaps, up and down. Peaceful ending.
I appreciate the way he doesn't rush it. Of course very long notes on a piano don't have the same effect, can't grow in volume.
Thanks for your time and interest. Enjoy your tour !
Link : ruclips.net/video/44DfWE0gatQ/видео.html
Thanks excellent video. some of the concepts are new things to work on, others are concepts I knew, but good to get a reminder to think about it again. Do you get into harmony from symmetric scales and the chord relationships it creates? Thanks for sharing your insights.
Thank you so much! I could definitely get into symmetrical scales stuff. I just figured that teaching it is like teaching the "Coltrane changes" or teaching "chromatic 2,5,1" i.e. every jazz RUclipsr and his sister had already made a video on that, no?
It seems like the more I dig into the old masters I keep running into symmetric views hexatonic, octatonic, and the multiple tonal centers within that combine to big universes of chord relationships. Like that Coltrane Tone Circle drawing with it inner and outer rings of relationships. Sadly Coltrane's drawing was found, but no notes on how he viewed or used it.
Sounds familiar
told to tell a story and had no idea 💡
We need to see the keyboard from the top point of view if you can give us a birds eye view from the top looking down to the keyboard, Thanks just a suggesting.
Yup, ill hook it up! it will be better, I agree.
Modal Playing, how do you do that? just half step up and down?
Kasym Moldogaziev that’s one way of doing it. You can also move by other intervals. Not just half step
@@ruslanpiano Thank you for your response!
i cant understand when you say "over the barline"
August jazz It means playing phrases the beginning and end of which do not coincide with the 4/4 meter. Most phrases we play start or end in such a place in the bar that you can feel where the meter is, and you can feel where the 1 is, because the phrase helps you feel that by ending on beat 4, or starting on beat 1, or on some other beat where the phrase literally makes the 4/4 meter very obvious. With most phrases we play you can feel where the bars are and where the 4/4 pulse is, and where beat 1 is, because the phrases are phrased in clear 4/4 meter, around the 4/4 bar lines.
“Over the bar line” means that you phrase in such a way that the beginning and the end of phrases ignores the 4/4 meter, and the phrases start and end in places that don’t make the 4/4 time fee obvious and clear. Listen to how I phrase over the bar line in this video. When I do it - can you tell by my phrase where beat 1 is? Or where beat 2 is? Not really. Because my phrases begin and end in such places in the bar that IGNORE the bar line, and ignore the 4/4 meter. I don’t start it on beat 1 or on some other obvious beat. I play a phrase that is 6/4 again and again, but I’m playing it over 4/4 time while ignoring the 4/4 meter and the structure of the 4/4 bar lines.