Better improv on piano than trumpet?

dwm1129 · Last edited by dwm1129 on Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

I play the piano just about as well as I play the trumpet because I do alot, if not most of my improv work on the piano. Anyways, I find that my improv is better on the piano; it's more creative, my melodies and harmony connect better, etc.... I am a very visual person and find my mind is alot sharper when I can see all my options (notes) in front of me. Is anyone else like this? Do you try picturing a keyboard in your mind as your playing your horn? Does it work?

Quadruple C · Heavyweight Member Joined: 28 Nov 2001 Posts: 1448

[ This Message was edited by: Quadruple C on 2003-09-29 17:41 ]

redface · Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2002 1:32 pm Post subject:

I used play jazz piano as my main instrument until I injured my hand so I switched to trumpet. Piano is far easier to improvise on. For a start all you have to do to play a note is fall on the keyboard - it comes out perfectly in tune with a good sound. The other thing that makes it easy is that you don't have to use your sense of pitch - If you decide to use something `outside' (a B major pentatonic scale over a F major seven chord for example), you can see the notes and play them, you don't have to `hear them first' just hit the key and it comes out. Try the same thing on trumpet and you will have trouble pitching the notes, if you can't hear the pitch in your head, there is no way it is gonna come out the instrument.
However I do find that all my trumpet improv is a bit more thoughtful than it is on piano, because I have to concentrate more. It is also more musically facile instrument - the array of effects you can employ are much more than on piano (you can crescendo a long tone for a start!!!).
I found sight singing helps, as does transcribing records entirely by ear.

Erin C · Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2002 5:35 pm Post subject:

You know, I'm the opposite! I'm thinking that it's probably because I've been playing classical piano for a long time, and learned to play in that style. When I try to play jazz piano, I really can't get my chord voicings to sound any good, and I try to play too much, and stuff like that, and my improvising is never great. Trumpet was actually the way I was introduced to jazz in the first place, so I've always been a better jazz trumpet player. I *can* play the trumpet in a classical style but my preference is jazz. I think it has to do with the setting you learned your instrument in.

Erin -iii<
_________________
"If it is true that love makes the world go round, then of course there'll always be music to spark the romance of life."
-Rex Stewart

PH · Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2002 6:12 pm Post subject:

For many years I felt that I played more musical solos on piano than on trumpet. I attribute a lot of that to my state of mind. When I played trumpet I put a lot of pressure on myself to sound good and I would get really pissed off every time I chipped a note or something didn't come out cleanly. That was a great inhibitor to flow in my solos.

On piano I sort of gave myself a pass. I figured I really wasn't a piano player. I mostly taught myself. I wouldn't even be on the gig if all of the "real" piano players weren't busy or more expensive to hire. I figured that they hired me because I could comp and my solos were just sort of necessary (Hooray for Tadd Dameron!). I didn't expect anything in particular of myself and I figured the other cats didn't either.

Because I didn't put pressure on myself I found that I often enjoyed playing piano more and the results were more musical...even when you take the technical derailments into account!

Eventually I got my chops more together (thanks to Carmine, Mr. Adam and thousands of hours in the woodshed). I also got my psychology better together. Now I just about wouldn't dream of playing piano in public. Trumpet playing (especially improvising) is too darned much fun!