#improviser's os

I love the way the altered scale (R-b9-#9-3-b5-#5-b7) sounds, although it's always been a challenge for me to incorporate it into my playing in a seamless and interesting way.  I followed Krantz's orders (see the Improviser's OS below), shedding the scale along the fingerboard through what he describes as the "twelve zones".  With the metronome set to 80 bpm, I practised playing the scale in quarters, eighths, triplets and sixteenths to get it under my fingers, before freestyling for a while.  Then I worked through all 12 keys.  The freestyling part of this exercise through all of the zones could easily be a lifelong study promoting creativity and personal expression.

Here's a photo from beautiful Barbados.  I was lucky to spend a few days there recently with Shakura S'Aida.  We performed in the second annual Naniki Jazz Festival.  During my flight back home to Toronto, I crunched numbers for a solid few hours.  What does this have to do with music you may ask?  In continuing my studies inspired by the Wayne Krantz book, "An Improviser's OS", experimenting with various note groupings (aka numeric formulas), within a scale, can help to create new musical ideas and sounds.  In addition, it demands a better understanding of your instrument and can greatly improve your ear.  Krantz outlines over 400 groupings within a 7 note scale!  Amazing.  I was trying to crack the code during the flight by identifying all of them within one particular mode.  From a playing perspective, it was helpful to go through this process, to familiarize myself with all of the number sequences.  When I got home, I jammed over one of my new tunes, "Pow!" using the dorian mode like never before, being mindful of just a fraction of the 400+ approaches Krantz discusses. Applying these formulas in a practical way has totally opened up a whole new approach to improvising for me.  If you'd like to grab a copy of the book, click here!

An Improviser's OS, written by Wayne Krantz, has changed my perception of how to organize combinations of notes and sounds.  His approach to improvising and understanding the fretboard (or any instrument for that matter) is truly brilliant; it's simple, yet completely comprehensive and it encourages players to develop their own voice.  You can check it out on Abstract Logix, an awesome website dedicated to promoting predominantly instrumental jazz-rock/fusion music.  During these first few hours, I began applying some of Krantz's ideas to the guitar.  I was searching for a systematic way to practice some of the concepts discussed in this book, related to my new compositions.