The Art of Ad-Lib

"How are you feeling today"?

If asked that question by a casual acquaintance, you'd probably respond something like "Very well, thank you. And you?" But if asked that same question by a close friend or a loved one, you'd probably go into more detail, and open up a bit more regarding your current state of mind. And, of course, if asked that question by your doctor, you'd probably answer that question by focusing on your physical state of well-being, not your emotional state of well-being. In short, your response to a question like "How are you feeling today?" is determined by the scenario, according to who is asking the question and why.

But do you typically stop to consciously ponder this before responding? Do you evaluate the scenario, analyze the speaker and their intent before you respond? Probably not consciously. And do you plan out every word in your sentence before you respond? Mulling over the possible options for word choice, selecting the appropriate verb from among all the options, checking your planned sentence for proper grammar before you respond? No. Most people do not converse in this manner. When communicating using language in a conversation, your use of language is typically spontaneous, not pre-planned.

And you are able to do this, without much forethought or planning because you have used this skill, everyday for most of your life. You have practice at this, and you interact with others who do this, too. And notice how different this type of conversational language skill is from, say writing and delivering a speech, or from writing an essay or an email. These other types of communication are more pre-planned, with ideas worked out in advance, and maybe re-worked and edited several times before being used as a medium for communication.

What does this have to do with song writing?

As a song writer, you are typically writing to convey a mood, a feeling, an emotion. Songs are rarely used to communicate just facts. When's the last time you learned a recipe by listening to a song? Probably never, because music and songs are typically used to express emotion, not facts. And this is natural, because humans communicate feelings with sounds, like mother and infant who can communicate with coo's and cries and giggles without the need for words. And this is where the difference between conversational language and more formal language, like speeches and essays, connects with song writing. Music expresses feeling, emotion. If some one asks you "How are you feeling today?" you would have no trouble responding, in an ad-lib manner, using your conversational language skills. But could you respond using your voice, but without words? Most of you probably can do this without words relatively easily: a sigh, a scream, a cry, or a laugh. And the nuances of those vocal but non-verbal emotional expressions can communicate further information. Is it a cry of pain or a cry of sadness? Is it a laugh of spontaneous amusement or is it a cunning laugh? Is it a scream of surprise, or a scream of terror? Is it a sigh of relief, or a sigh of despair? The particular nuances of those non-verbal sounds will communicate those subtle nuances in meaning, without you having to consciously think about them.

But could you answer that same question "How are you feeling today?" using an instrument? Could you do that in the manner that you respond with conversational language, that is, without pre-planning anything, just jump in and respond accurately, without any fore-thought? Most musicians at this point would start asking questions like "what key is the song in?" and "what's the time signature?" and "what's the chord progression?" Most musicians would have to frame their response with this kind of info BEFORE they attempt a response. But when responding verbally, you typically do not stop to think about associated structures of language: "should I respond in a complete sentence, or with a phrase? Should I use a simile or a metaphor?”

In a lot of music circles, the ability to pick up an instrument and just play is called "improvising." But I'm actually shying away from using that term. Why? That term, especially among musicians, has come to mean "making up something on the spot that sounds good, and fits with what the other musicians are playing." There are differences between this concept of "improvising" and what I'm talking about here. First of all, if you are just expressing how you feel using an instrument, there's no need for other musicians. This is about you, not you and some other folks too. This means you have more freedom. What you play doesn't have to "fit" with anything else. You don't need to worry about the key or the chord changes. In short, the concept of "improvising" in music has come to imply something that happens within a framework, within a certain key or set of chord changes. But the kind of playing I'm talking about is free from that, too. That's why I'm not using the terminology "improvising." It's simply misleading.

Particularly with improvising, there is a focus on note selection, and staying within a set of boundaries (rules of the key or scale). But this is still a far cry from conversational language, where one typically responds without a single thought about framework or structure.

I am not saying that knowing scales and theory is superfluous. Just the opposite. A solid foundation here can benefit you just like a study of English can improve your communication skills. But, the point is to learn them so well that they are internalized, so that you can use them for expression whenever you need to, without consciously thinking about it. Your fingers may be playing notes from a certain scale, but you are not consciously thinking about that aspect of what you are playing. You are thinking about mood and feel, not scales and notes. And this is just what you do in conversational language....you think about how you feel, not about the various word choices and language constructs that are available to you to express how you feel.

How do you practice this? You simply pick up an instrument and play, without any regard to key, scale, or chord progression. Your only thoughts are trying to play a musical phrase that aligns with how you feel. The key word here is "feel." You want to get used to playing based on feel, not on note selection. And the biggest difference in focus is that you are paying attention to how it all sounds, instead of focusing on staying within the boundary of a certain key.

This was a hard thing for me to do, when I first started practicing this way. But one fact opened up this style of musical communication for me: you can choose any note at random and make it work, no matter what key you are in. How can this be? Chances are, the note you pick at random will be in the chosen key. With only 12 notes in music and 7 of those in every key, there's actually about a 58% chance that any randomly selected note is right for the key. But what if that random note is not in the key? Then a quick slide up one note is guaranteed to be in the right key. But there's another alternative, too: a quick slide down is also guaranteed to be in the right key! So if your randomly selected note does not "work", if it doesn’t sound good to your ears you have 2 immediate options for fixing this: either slide up or down one note. Both are guaranteed to sound good in this key. And what about that "wrong" note you played? If that note is played relatively quickly (i.e. before sliding to the note above or below it) then the listener won't notice that it was "wrong" at all. It will sound like a slide, or a bend. As a matter of fact, song writers will frequently break the rules of theory anyway if it sounds good and adds to the song. So embrace this style of playing and composing music!

What does this way of ad-libbing accomplish? First, as a player, your focus is shifted from scales and keys to actually listening to what you are playing, to the feel, to the sound, to what you are communicating. Of course it takes practice to get comfortable playing this way, communicating in this way musically. But it's the same way you learned conversational language. You learned by doing, by participating daily in this way of communication. Over time, you also took the time to learn more vocabulary words, the rules of grammar, etc. But you didn't need all that to first learn how to express your feelings. You learned that later on, to refine your ability to communicate, to be able to communicate more accurately and effectively. Similarly, you can (later) learn more about scales and music theory, exotic chords, etc. in order to increase your musical vocabulary for communicating your feelings more effectively and accurately from a sound/music perspective.

The essence of what I'm trying to convey here, is that being able to pick up an instrument and express how you feel is a vital ability for song writers. But traditional views of music (i.e. keys, and notes, and scales, etc) tend to demand so much focus and attention that song writers are often unable to see the forest for the trees, unable to communicate a feeling because they are too focused on musical structure. The idea here is not to abandon that structure, but to rise above it, so that it's not the focus of your playing. The structure (just like in language) is not a conscious thought while you are communicating. The feeling becomes the focus.

So try it out! How are you feeling today? Just go pick up an instrument and play! Pick up an instrument and COMMUNICATE!

©2009 W.A. Blevins. All rights reserved.