Self improvement - thinking ahead in the music

[Mottlefeeder]

I'm not sure where to start on this, it could be a long post if I gave you all the back story...

I have recorded myself improvising over a Band-in-a-box 1451 backing track with its bass muted, using that original bass line and variations as my building blocks. My timing and intonation are a bit shaky, but I am confident that they will improve with practice. Where I stumble, my analysis is that my mistakes tend to be on the 1 beat because I don't look far enough ahead.

My plan is to work on that track, building up the speed as I get better, and then move on to other chord sequences, other keys, and other rhythms. I wondered if there are any specific exercises that anyone can recommend that have helped them plot a course through a chord sequence, or does it just come with practice?

[paul, the]

I had this problem. I think a lot of it is about fretboard/scale knowledge and having a learnt left hand. As in: you've practiced so much it just knows where to go.

Practicing walking bass lines and looking at jazz theory helped me.

[Beneath It All]

[quote name='Mottlefeeder' post='116145' date='Jan 8 2008, 12:30 PM']I'm not sure where to start on this, it could be a long post if I gave you all the back story...

I have recorded myself improvising over a Band-in-a-box 1451 backing track with its bass muted, using that original bass line and variations as my building blocks. My timing and intonation are a bit shaky, but I am confident that they will improve with practice. Where I stumble, my analysis is that my mistakes tend to be on the 1 beat because I don't look far enough ahead.

My plan is to work on that track, building up the speed as I get better, and then move on to other chord sequences, other keys, and other rhythms. I wondered if there are any specific exercises that anyone can recommend that have helped them plot a course through a chord sequence, or does it just come with practice?[/quote]
Reading music is pretty much like reading the written page - If you analyze what's actually happening,you'll realise that to make a sentence flow, you need to read ahead[as any reasonable reader automatically does]...Great readers tend to read further ahead than average readers; I work with lots of players who read up to EIGHT bars in front[dependent on how tricky the chart is]...I can manage two bars ahead, which seems to be enough...For anyone learning to read music, I would highly recommend starting with a drummers guide to basic rhythms - once you've got the hang of that,reading the actual notes is much less daunting..Good Luck

[Mottlefeeder]

[quote name='Beneath It All' post='117308' date='Jan 9 2008, 06:47 PM']Reading music is pretty much like reading the written page - If you analyze what's actually happening,you'll realise that to make a sentence flow, you need to read ahead[as any reasonable reader automatically does]...Great readers tend to read further ahead than average readers; I work with lots of players who read up to EIGHT bars in front[dependent on how tricky the chart is]...I can manage two bars ahead, which seems to be enough...For anyone learning to read music, I would highly recommend starting with a drummers guide to basic rhythms - once you've got the hang of that,reading the actual notes is much less daunting..Good Luck[/quote]
Thanks for your input, but I think we're talking about different things, although I have to say my reading probably has this problem too.

I read the part and learned all the given variations of notes for each chord in each bar. What I am now trying to do is play them (and others that come to mind) without the page, and without too much repetition, or too much jumping around to avoid repetition.

Where I fall off it is usually because I have not thought about which root note I am aiming for, so I try and do it all after '4and', and it doesn't sound too good.