We were able to attend a concert last night by legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. The evening was basically a 90 minute improvisation where some moments created goosebumps and others prompted my mind to drift as the musicians searched for new themes and ideas to explore.
I was curious how Frisell approached improvisation – as he basically did that musically for 90 minutes.
What I learned from one interview is Frisell improvises off the melody and not chord changes.
As he describes it, to improvise he attempts to “internalize” the melody because “if the melody isn’t there, then it really doesn’t mean anything… [the goal is] playing and hearing the melody and not playing anything but the melody until it starts going on inside your body, even without thinking about it.”
Some musicians apparently improvise as one chord moves to the next which means new ideas arise from these structured progressions and therefore it’s harder to play what sounds like a “wrong” note as these chords serve as guides.
But when you focus on the melody there are essentially no guides except the next note that you believe will express and enhance the melody. And that’s why my mind drifted at times because Frisell was in real time attempting to re-internalize the melody so something new could emerge.
Do you have metaphorically a melody you are attempting to internalize in your life? Perhaps a relationship with a person, your concept of God, or a project, a dream, you seek to express and realize? If so, likely at times we all might hit a wrong note, but Frisell reminds us if that occurs all we need to do is simply re-internalize so a new note can emerge without us thinking too hard about it.
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