In the last lesson, we dealt with note beginnings and endings or what I refer to as the shape of a note. The other and more obvious aspects of expressing notes is the duration and whether or not there is vibrato. I will start with vibrato. Note duration leads directly into improvisation.

Vibrato is a variation in the pitch. Tremolo is a variation in the volume of a note. Tremolo is a feature on some amplifiers and the only way I know to achieve it on a flute is to “play” the mic and it isn’t real practical to make those kinds of moves while playing 😉

To achieve vibrato is easy. Making it sound good takes practice. Ever listen to a singer with a very fast vibrato? The speed of your vibrato is an important part of note expression. Too fast and it can be almost an annoying sounding.  The way you achieve it is to whisper ha ha ha ha as you hold the note. It is more like hahahahahah with no breaks. It produces varying pressure and varying pressure causes the pitch of a note to rise and fall. So your goal is to make a smooth rise and fall in the sound. Get to a point where you can actually produce vibrato. Then once you achieve it. Try slowing it down and try to make the vibrato have an even tempo of its own.  If you can go really slow with it that is good. Control is what you want. Not every note needs vibrato and probably shouldn’t have. So that is where your artistic license come into play. You decided when and where to use it in the song. On longer notes it is very pleasing to start with a straight tone and then introduce the vibrato when it “feels” right to you.

Before going further down the path, I want to comment and maybe get in to some of my philosophies on music and playing. You can skip this if you want and some may disagree with me, but I got this far on my journey with these types of philosophies. If nothing else, take from it that which is good.

Practice, practice, practice. I was told as a young boy that if I want to maintain my skill level I should play about 1/2 hour a day. If I wanted to improve I should practice an hour or more. For me, I have found that to be true. It isn’t a hard and fast rule, but the key is to practice regularly. Many folks say they just don’t have time. They can work in an hour for Facebook and maybe and hour for television. There is also texting and such. The truth is how much time we have depends on what our priorities are. I spent an hour this morning just sipping coffee and thinking about what I was going to say in this lesson. I could have set that time for flute practice or guitar. I practice every day in some form or another. I play several instruments so I may practice guitar one day, flute the next and so on. There are factors that limit us such as some may still be sleeping.  But, once something is a priority, suddenly there is time for it.

The next thing I want to touch on is note duration and timing. This takes things into the realm of improvisation. When playing the flute as a solo instrument by itself, the need for timing and meter are less important. It can also be said that a lack of timing needs to have some degree of cohesiveness. The word parlondo has to do with phrasing like speech. In speech we will say a sentence and stop before starting the next. We may interrupt briefly such as where there would be a comma in written text.  So even if we play freestyle and not on a set meter, there can be a semblance of meter or flow. Phrases is the term I like to use.  When we speak and pause, often it is long enough to let what we just said sink in a bit. Music is much the same. We can express a musical phrase then let that “sink in” or have its full effect on the listener before continuing on. How long we wait is dictated by how long we feel is right. You wouldn’t want to wait so long as to have the listener think the song has ended. Practice is what helps us learn what is right.

We need to talk about some theory as we discuss duration and timing. I will try to keep it as non technical as possible.  Note duration is tied to the count in music even if it isn’t a set, steady meter. If the beat is 1, 2, 3, 4, we can play a note on each count that lasts until the next count. We can also play a note on 1 and hold it through the second count. and start the next note on the count of 3. These are referred to as whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eight notes, sixteenth notes and so on. What a whole note is has to do with how your count is counted. What this all means is you can play really short notes, long notes, semi short notes and such. The thing you want to do is try and start the note on a count or sub-count. Doesn’t have to be on beat if you are playing alone.

Before I start getting into improvisation full bore, I want to say a few words about the big picture. The overall goal is to play patterns of notes and those patterns include varying durations as well a pitches. You might play several notes in a row that are 1/16 of the measure then land on a long note and hold. You could play several long tones. It is totally up to the musician what he wants to do when soloing impromptu. There are three possibilities in music in the basics of playing. One can hold a note (it can be several notes, but all a the same pitch) while a chord progression plays in the back ground. Think about this. If the Gm pentatonic scale is valid for songs played in Gm then any note in the scale is valid for any chord that is valid for that key. This means you can hold a G note (the root) while the band plays through a chord progression. As an example, here is and Eb to F to Gm progression. I will play a single note across this progression varying the start times and duration. It may not be an endearing melody, but you will see that what I’m saying is valid.

Secondly you can play a progressing note pattern across a single chord. The progression can be in sequence or any pattern of intervals you think sounds good. An interval is the distance between two notes. To elaborate, the distance from F to F# is a half step. On a guitar that would be one fret. On a piano it would be the next key either white or black without skipping any keys.  The distance from F to G is a whole step, two frets on a guitar and two keys (skip one) on a piano. So when I speak of intervals, I’m referring to the “distance” between the notes. My way of “making the string longer and short” is definitely using distance between notes.  A NAF has the intervals built in for you. For a Gm flute, the root is G. The next note in the minor pentatonic scale is A#(Bb). That is to say a step-and-a-half. The next note is a C which is a whole step from A#. Then next note is D which is a whole step from C. The next is F which is a step-and-a-half from D. To clarify it is: D-D#-E, F. and the last note G (the octave) is a hole step up. This is info you can use when talking music, but the NAF has it built in. Just play the next open hole if you are ascending of the next lower hole. You DO NOT have to play the next hole. You could play the hole after that “jump” over the next note in the scale. If you stay with the established notes on the NAF, you literally cannot make a mistake. Some notes will sound better than others but they are not wrong.

My version of the Gm pentatonic scale is: 1st = cool sound, 2nd = nice!, 3rd = likin’ that!, 4th = OMG! and 5th = Sweet!!!  What I’m saying here is, you do not need to know the names of the notes to play the flute and improvise. What you do need is a dab of imagination, some basic ability to cover the holes and a bit of a sense of adventure. If you want to tell someone how you played a piece of music, then you probably need to know what the notes are. Learn it all, but free yourself at first and just listen as you play. Add to that library as much as you can.

The third thing is playing a sequence of notes across a chord progression. Both the band and the soloist are moving through the possible notes and/or chords for that key.

The thing you want to do as a student of the flute is to listen to the masters as you are learning the flute. When I say masters, I don’t mean those players that have the most acclaim in the world, nor those that can play complex riffs at extremely fast rates. It isn’t even the best selling on the charts. The masters I refer to are the ones that are able to “reach” you with their music. Music isn’t about how fast you can play. It is about how well you can express the emotions of a given song and touch the listener. I have listened to those considered great by the public and there is no doubt they play very well. I am not knocking or in any way trying to diminish their playing. There are however those that when they play, can bring tears to my eyes. They captivate my attention and take me to other places. That is my definition of a master musician. He or she is one that can reach the listener and make them feel.

So what does all this have to do with improvising? A band of musicians can lay a foundation for the soloist. It can be light and bouncy or it can be very soulful, melancholy and so on. You don’t necessarily want to play a light, bouncy melody when the band is setting a slow, melancholy background. So what you do is use the note shapes and timings and durations to play in the same “feel” as the sound the band is making. So if it were me, I would tend to play longer notes with nice vibrato. I would play notes that tend to support the feel of the music. Playing is the best teacher of how to do this. For now, we just need to build on what we know. The basis of how I improvise is to use phrases or ideas. A phrase or idea can contain any number of notes you want.

In the world of guitars, the real “masters” are to be patterned after. Guitarists will mimic them. Just go to YouTube and search for lessons on playing like Hendrix and you’ll see what I mean. Same for blues players.  The masters develop a style. A way of expressing the notes. For some it is how they apply vibrato. BB King had a distinctive way of playing. His licks, his phrases are doable by most guitarists, but they wouldn’t necessarily sound like BB. As you listen to a broad spectrum of players you will hear licks that are common to all of them. These licks when learned become part of your library of phrases and expressions so that when you are playing impromptu, If you don’t “hear” a sound of your own, you can draw on the phrases of others. If you listen and watch you’ll see they all do it. I have yet to find a guitarist that plays all exclusive licks.  So when you are learning flute, seek out those masters that can reach you. Learn some of their songs. Learn some of their phrases. Listen to how the express their notes and phrases. Try to imitate them. As you progress you will develop a style that is a mix of those you listened to during your journey and hopefully your own expressions and phrases from the place where music lives. Hopefully you will be unique in your way of playing. If not, you can’t go wrong learning from those that are accomplished.

For your practice, here is an audio file you can download and use to practice to. It is a simple 4 chord progression. Gm, Cm, Gm, Eb, F, Gm.  I chose Gm because it is a very common key. I will add more keys in the near future and put the links on this page as well as a dedicated page.

[download id=”235″]

You can download different keys if you don’t have a Gm flute. Click Here

 

If you want to listen and play along from this page:

 

This next sound file is an example of using one note in an improvisation. It isn’t intended to wow anyone. It is just to show that you only need one note to play across a chord progression. I am putting to use some of the techniques from early lessons like types of note startings and durations. Later in the “song”, I change to a different note and use that at the single note and then another. I just moved up the scale.  Listen to the way the note sounds against the chords. Think about how each sounds as it is played against the background. Some sound better than others, but they are all musically valid. You can do this with any of the Gm pentatonic notes.

 

As an aside, what your are hearing is tension and release. As you hold a note and the chords move further from the root, it creates tension and as the chords come back to the root, there is release of tension. The higher notes produce a sort of harmony line. There is some degree of tension on each chord change. You can take an audience up and on a ride through the chords and deliver them back home. You can do this as much as you like. Go listen to some recorded music. Maybe some songs you like that have chords accompanying and see if you can’t hear and feel the tension and release. This happens naturally as you play, but you can also use it to “reach” the listener.

In the next lesson, I will develop a two note idea or phrase and give you an example. You probably could already build one on your own, but I will progress through several degrees of phrase lengths and give examples of each using this same progression.

Proceed to Using two note ideas.