Part 2:
Listen to the words. All of them. Lots of songs, notably show tunes, have lead ins, and those have words the lyricist couldn’t leave out. I’ll play the lead in and song as often as I know them both.
Take everything out of the song that you can, every note you can hold instead of change, hold. Is there a place where silence or a held note matters?
All this is how I get at the writers’ intent.
A good singer executes the song and, feeling the lyrics, hearing and internalizing them, colors the song.
Listen again. How does it make you feel, what bit of lyric lifts or pulls or tears at you? Just deal with, play those in whatever way they come at you, and find a way or ways to emphasize them, and still keep it real.
This is how I find the writers’ effect on me, my place in the song.
The final part, for me, is playing the writers’ intent from my place in the song, kinda like a kid walking down the street, one foot in the gutter, the other on the sidewalk.
This is not the way to improvise. It’s a way to approach improvisation. It is not right. I’m pretty sure there is no right.
I’ve heard and seen pure improvisation. Done some. Saw Jarrett play the same phrase over and over waiting for the change, the vine t phrase, whatever was in the air all around us. Most often it was . . . disappointing. Sometimes it was truly, staggeringly, wonderful. Never saw anyone work that hard at anything, ever.
I’d rather be Icarus than Sisyphus. Every single stinking’ time.
Best regards,
Ed
