The Improviser's Mindset

8 Minute Read

For this post, I wanted to share an excerpt from one of my past mentors, the great pianist (and drummer) Art Lande.

Below is a conversation from a lesson many years ago when I asked him, “What is the improviser’s mindset?”

Coming from a Classical piano background and as a very inexperienced and fresh student of Jazz, I was discouraged, struggling with frustration and overwhelm with how much there was to learn and work on, and my lack of ability to improvise.

I felt I wasn’t getting better for how much time I was putting into practicing, and that I was missing the “it” factor, especially for playing solo jazz piano. I was not happy at all with where I was at.

I was in search of the magic keys (so I thought) that would make me a better improviser. I was so frustrated that I could play very advanced and technical Classical pieces, but I couldn’t improvise well on a Blues or jazz standard to save my life! If that sounds familiar, give me a silent nod here…

I wanted to know how to think about and approach improvisation on a very deep level. Much more so than the specifics, the what and the how — more on a spiritual, holistic and unconscious level; How to approach the entire thing from a different mindset and perspective of a true improviser and what that would be like.

And how to handle and overcome the inevitable periods of frustration that ANY jazz musician has gone through.

I needed to completely reprogram my outlook, mindset and approach.

Art is well known as one of the best jazz pianists and improvisers in the world. A total master of the piano for any style of music, he is the most fearlessly creative person I’ve ever met.

He could play anything you put in front of him. Any sheet music or lead sheet; Jazz, Classical, Latin music, Bulgarian music, literally anything. If it was a tune he had never played before, he could make it sound like he had been playing it for decades.

Even for Jazz tunes that I knew, I’ve never heard him play any tune the same way twice. Each time was a completely new and different arrangement that sounded absolutely amazing. Not many people are at a level of mastery like that.

Every lesson I had was a deeply profound, life changing experience and masterclass. Not only on particular techniques, but more so on how to think about and approach everything - not only in music, but in life.

How was this possible?

I always referred to him as the Yoda of Jazz piano, which is the best and most accurate analogy.

In the excerpt below you’ll find find some recurring themes:

• Curiosity

• Intrigue

• Experimentation

• Intention

• Choice

• Courage

• Freedom

• Being carefree

• Acceptance

Let’s dive into his profound wisdom:

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“You want to be more curious about process rather than product.

The improviser’s mindset is, ‘If I let myself play, I will find things.’ And, 'I’m not scared of tension.' Tension can be resolved. Or it can be enjoyed, just like in real life.

Things are happening, so how do you work with it?

We like the puzzles. The improviser loves puzzles and solving problems. We know how music works and how tension releases. We’re curious about how things might sound, or if we try to approach it from a certain mood or vibe, rather than complexity or convention.

It’s easy to search for complexity, but what about feel? Vibe? Sound? Colors? Intention? Mood? Lightness? Darkness? Happy? Sad? Joyful? ‘What am I feeling in this moment? Or, 'What does this song/tune make me feel?’

We can have things come from harmony or bass, that seems to determine a hierarchy of tones; The bass note is the root of something. Or we can reverse, which is to say, all bets are off about the underpinnings. This is the exchange that I do.

So I’ll be in this structure that seems to come from the bottom (bass) then suddenly I’ll just color a melody. Which means I’m just hearing that tone and painting it a certain color, even if I don’t know what that color is. So that reversal frees me. Because otherwise, I’m always having to keep form from the bottom.

The melody and rhythm fuel most things. It frees us up from memorization and all these difficult things all the time.

‘Maybe I’ll do this for a while’, ‘Let’s see what happens if I follow this out.’ Or maybe not…

There’s all these forgiving exits. You don’t have to stay fitting in the grid all the time because, I don’t know, it’s just not that exciting to me. I can do it, but even now as I get older, I can’t do it. My brain might go, ‘Where does this go or how does this part go?’ Well I don’t know exactly, but I know that I hear this tone and I’m going to make a color.

The improviser says, ‘Big deal, I don’t know where I am but I’m going to take this street and this avenue instead, and I’ll still get to the same destination and place I was going.’

Improvisers have courage, because the goal is not the thing that we’re after; We want an experience. We want to hear something. We want to have something happen. Rather than, ‘It has to be done or played in this way, or else it’s not true Jazz.’

We don’t have to compare our image of how we were before. Our image as an improviser is just an instinct towards something, or some desire for an experience. Not, ‘It has to be like this’ and ‘Does it match up?’ Because then you’re always sad a lot of the time, or frustrated.

Or you’re always questioning or going back and forth about, ‘Can I maintain this perfection that I’m trying to do?’

You must go forward. You can’t go back. ‘Was that what I wanted?’ Well that’s already gone, who cares. Nobody cares. No one even knows but you. So if you don’t care, then no one cares.

So that means you have to be in the present: ‘Let’s listen to this sound and what it made’. And then forward which means, ‘Where does it lead?’

I don’t know exactly, but let’s take this path to the left because it seems more interesting. Maybe it will be cool. Maybe it’s stupid. So what? Then we have this adventure. That’s the mindset of the improviser.

(Art then asked me) I don’t know how it lines up with how you live your life, but it’s very freeing. So if you’re not scared about being the greatest and getting the greatest, then it’s really fun. And it can be profound because your instincts of the way you do things are very specific to you.

And they get more refined over time. We start using our instincts better when we actually try them. If we never use them, then we don’t find out anything and we don’t get more skillful.

As improvisers, we’re not scared about being the greatest. It relies more on your instincts. And over time you get sharper about what you can add and what you can leave out.

I like to hear and have a little ‘slop’ in my playing vs. perfection all the time.

You’re saying, ‘Here’s how the world is.’ Rather than, ‘How do I fit in the world?’

Girls would always ask me, ‘How do you get away living like that in the real world?’ I always told them, “Honey, it’s my world. I live how I want.’ The world then conforms. I say it exists. The improviser turns it around.

If you want to keep to the chord changes you can. If you don’t, you don’t have to. We’re grown-ups. I was up until 4am practicing last night and I’m a little tired today, so what?

I don’t have to go to bed at 10pm every night and wake up at the same time every day if I don’t want to. Up to when is it okay to decide to eat your pickle first? Or eat your dessert at the beginning of the meal? Who says you can’t? Up to when is it okay…?

We go with freedoms that we allow ourselves. Not trying to prove we’re competent with all these endless amounts of techniques and chops…

We don’t have to end after solos, we can make an interlude and follow that for a while until it has run its course.

We can start from one single melody of the horn player. Or the drummer starts improvising. Then we all start to come in. Or all at once when it feels right. Let’s see what happens.

Chords can last two bars. Bass notes can last more than one bar if it changes. You’re not in a prison.

It’s 2014, we have more liberties. If we just show that we can play the same things that were happening in the 1950's and 60's, that doesn’t prove anything. Then we’re just trying to be pure to something that’s pretty much dead.

Just have some fun and not be so worried if you can do it. Care less. Your incompetence and mistakes become your style. Then you might come in late with your chord and sound like (Thelonious) Monk and it sounds even better, because he didn’t know either. We all suck. But you have to learn to suck in flow. In Jazz and as an improviser, you have to be a warrior.

You can play the tune how YOU want and how YOU hear it, it doesn’t have to be played exactly as written or how everybody else plays it.

You must give yourself a chance to be right and to be fine with where you’re at.

Focus a lot on what I call 'Real Playing.' Which is playing and using things you know currently and where you’re at, not where you’re trying to get to, or some fancy technique you can’t even pull off in the moment.

Every song has 2–5–1s, but what’s really in the song that we like? What distinguishes and separates the song from others, what’s unique about it?

Maybe it’s the melody, maybe it’s the rhythm in the melody. Make some improvisations with those things. Take some time to use and explore those things.

You can hint at the melody in an improvisatory way with your introduction. You can improvise with how the melody sounds; The rhythm of it. The intervals.

Anything.

Always ask yourself:

‘What’s the vibe of this song?'

What’s the feeling it invokes or gives me?

How do I want to tell MY OWN version of the song?”

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Powerful stuff right? Especially as a Classical pianist, we’re so used to fitting in the grid and being a slave to the written notes. What about what YOU want to say and play?

I encourage you to always start your practice playing completely freely. Play what you FEEL and what you HEAR.

ACTION STEP: Think about how you would play and interpret a tune you know in your own way and how YOU hear it.

Overwhelmed? Don’t know what to practice or focus on? Download my free 8 page guide on how to structure and organize your practice.