By: Kyle Vallone
Musical improvisation is the combination of three things: Emotions, instrumental technique, and response to other musicians and the audience. These three elements of playing music are different, but once combined they create powerful synergy.
For the harmonica player, improvising is a matter of advancing beyond the fundamental core skills while playing live. When I say “live” I mean either playing with a musician or a recording. When you play with a recording, there are many great recordings that have what are commonly called jam tracks where there is background music and no lead instrument. These recordings allow you to play and improvise or play leads off of the basic theme or melody of a song while keeping true to the feeling of the song as it is written.
The only downside in the long run of playing and improvising with recording is that you are limited to the structure of the song. Now, playing with others and using improvisation is a whole different and wide open event. When you are playing with others you can stretch the boundaries of a song really far as long as the people that you are playing with have an idea about what you are doing. I remember a gig I played last fall; the band I was with was playing in this bar in a small town in California and we were going to play the song “Serves You Right to Suffer” by John Lee Hooker.
The guitar usually starts off the song with a solo, while the band (harmonica player included) is pumping out a steady rhythm. Well, that night the guitar player broke a string on the guitar he used for this song and there we were with me and the bass player playing the rhythm. So I decided to jump into the fray and do a little improvising. I called the bass player out with me and started playing a very rhythmic lead over his bass line. The crowd was getting into it. There were people dancing on the bar. By the time the guitar player had put on his string and tuned his guitar I had been soloing for about ten minutes. When the guitar player was ready, he jumped in and we started the lyrical part of the song. Improvisation is a powerful tool where you get to apply many of the skills you have mastered over time.
Don’t be afraid to try. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just go for it!
