Re: [Harp-L] Building solos

[icemanle@xxxxxxx]

There is another way -
 
Practice LONG TONES - each note held for 5 seconds or longer. Learn to relax and really listen to the sound of the tone. Each tone is a note. Solos are nothing more than one note following another.
 
When you get to total listening through relaxation, you may find that one note will, somehow, suggest the next note to you, lead you in a direction. This is due to the complete storehouse of musical knowledge already inside you, based on a lifetime of hearing music all around you.
 
You must start slow, however. Give up the feeling that your solo must be a quick succession of notes. Imagine running through jello - don't fight it, but find the right flow. Sometimes, the very act of making yourself slow down is a battle. 
 
In time, one note suggesting the next will emerge out of the fog for you. Over time, it will increase in speed for you. You may end up just as pleasantly surprised as your listening audience as to where the solo takes you. As Chris M suggested, it is most effective when you don't begin on the tonic, as that note has a feeling of home base and generally not one of leading towards resolution.
 
I've quoted my mentor, Miles Davis, many times on harp-l as saying, when asked where his ideas come from, "I think of a note to play and then don't play it." In other words, the first note to come out is a surprise, leading to the next, to the next, etc, all the way home.
 
The Iceman